Locals, attendees, and protesters at the Republican National Convention praised the police, saying they kept Cleveland, Ohio, safe. A week later, protesters at the Democratic National Convention had a slightly different view.
“F*** the police! F***ing killers. They’re f***ing killers,” one elderly man declared, answering a question from PJ Media about how he felt about the police outside the DNC. At the RNC, a woman said, “I love the police,” and others repeated the refrain: “Love ’em.” “I love ’em.” “I feel wonderful.”
Not every person at the RNC liked the police, and not every person at the DNC distrusted them, but the sheer volume of praise and attacks emphasizes the difference between how conservatives and liberals approach the cops, and law and order in general.
“I feel wonderful, I feel safe, they’re doing an awesome job,” an exuberant black woman told PJ Media. “It’s just wonderful to see all the different states come together, so I’m happy.”
Cops from across the country went to Cleveland, volunteering to keep the Republican convention safe. Here is a list of some of them:
One man conspicuously carrying a large firearm agreed. “I love ’em,” he said.
“I love that the cops are here!” a white lady added. “I wouldn’t be here without them, frankly. I’m all for them.”
An alternate delegate to the RNC agreed, saying, “I think they’re doin’ a great job … keepin’ law and order, and allowing everybody to express their beliefs and have a good time.”
One man called them a “necessary evil,” and quipped, “Like who’re you gonna call, the Ghostbusters, if you don’t like cops when you need some help?” He argued that localities should set up more civilian oversight boards, and “maybe start the cops’ payout at 100 grand a year, then you’d get Harvard graduates bein’ cops, right?”
A black man who served in the Marine Corps compared the service of police with military service. “If somebody’s breaking into my house, I’m not calling my Marine brothers, I’m calling the police.”
“We do what we do because we love our country, they do what they do because they love their country and they love the citizens, so you’ve got to give them their credit, man,” the former Marine added.
“I love the police, and they’re wonderful, and ninety-nine percent of them try to help us,” an elderly lady added. “They put their life on the line every day for us.”
Not everyone proved effusive, however. One protester admitted, “There’s more police out here than there are citizens — kind of makes you afraid to raise a sign.” Even he admitted that “they’ve all been polite,” however.
Check out the video here:
All the positive feedback from people in Cleveland led the police to compile a video thanking Cleveland and the RNC. Check it out here.
Next Page: The Democrats.
It is too easy to paint all Democrats as opponents of the police, but that would not be fair. There was a wide diversity of opinion even among attendees and protesters at the DNC, but even those who praised the police expressed deep concerns about brutality and abuse of power.
“I’m all for the police and supporting the police, however, I am anti-police brutality,” said an Asian woman with “BLM” on her cheek. She emphasized that support for the police and opposition to police brutality “are two separate things.”
Perhaps the most heartening response came from a black man. “Honestly, I do respect the police, but I do believe that all lives — especially black lives — matter. Definitely. And I think that we definitely need to work together to keep peace on every street.”
That said, there were quite a few whose responses were a lot less civil. I came across a huge group of protesters who were chanting, “Don’t vote for Hillary, she’s killing black people!” In that crowd, I found a few protesters who had some choice words for the cops.
“It’s a racist — it’s an institution of racism, man. Come on now, you know how I feel about the police,” an Asian man said, bringing down his “F*** tha Police” sign.
“I said f*** the police!” an elderly white man yelled. “F***ing killers. They’re f***ing killers.”
Some expressed similar opinions but with more nuance. “I think they’re way too brutal,” said a man wearing an LGBT pride shirt. He argued that cops “react way too quickly and don’t have the proper training at all.”
Protester in a red shirt which reads “Socialist” hands out literature on Karl Marx. Photo Credit: Tyler O’Neil, PJ Media.
Then you had the ideologue wearing a “Socialism” t-shirt, handing out pamphlets on Karl Marx. “The police are a wing of the capitalist state. … Ultimately, I think they represent the order, the structure of society as it is, so I think we need to have a different structure that makes policing unnecessary.”
On the other side, an outspoken black Trump supporter declared his love for the police, and attacked the Black Lives Matter movement.
“I love the police! The Black Lives Matter crew is what you call a terrorist group, just like the Black Panthers in the … late ’50s, ’60s,” he said. “We cannot have anarchy where the police are fighting with the citizens. And to me Black Lives Matter is nothing but a farce.”
Another black man attacked the Blue Lives Matter movement. He said the cops “should be underneath us, hoisting us up … not with their boots in our neck, and definitely not with their bullets in our side.”
“The only thing that I see now about Blue Lives — or ‘Blue Lives Matter,’ is that they only matter to protect the constituents and the system and the way that it’s been. And that’s not going to fly. Bernie Sanders 2016! Or Jill Stein.”
Check out the video on the next page!
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