Pat Buchanan—an adviser to Presidents Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan and Gerald Ford, and a former GOP presidential aspirant himself—has written:
Newly painted in huge yellow letters on 16th Street, just north of the White House, is the slogan: "Defund the Police."
That new message sits beside the "Black Lives Matter" slogan, also in huge letters, painted there at the direction of D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser.
She renamed that section of 16th Street "Black Lives Matter Plaza."
Still, the messages are less ominous than the chants of protesters in New York after the takedown that resulted in the death of Eric Garner.
Protesters then chanted of the NYPD: "What do we want? Dead cops. When do we want it? Now!"
While this sudden campaign to defund and dismantle city police forces seems an absurdity, it is actually part of a thought-out radical program that has gained momentum since the sadistic public execution of George Floyd in Minneapolis two weeks ago.
Consider. On Sunday, nine members of the city council, a veto-proof majority, voted to disband the Minneapolis police department. Asked if he would support the council decision, Mayor Jacob Frey hedged, "I do not support the full abolition of the police."
As the crowd jeered and booed, the mayor walked away alone.
The idea of defunding police departments has caught fire, and liberal politicians are scrambling to get in front of their radical constituents. Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti has announced that he will reallocate up to $150 million from the LAPD budget to social programs.
New York Mayor Bill de Blasio says he will be transferring $1 billion: "We will be moving funding from the NYPD to youth initiatives and social services."
In two weeks, there has been a sea change in attitudes toward police, with not a few coming to share the hard left's hatred. While the criminal elements burned cop cars and showered police with bottles, rocks and bricks, even "peaceful protesters" were calling the police fascists and racists.
Two decades ago, the NYPD were celebrated "first responders" who ran toward the collapsing twin towers, many never to come back. Funerals of the cop heroes were televised. Those days are gone.
Indeed, after two weeks of seeing police decried on nightly TV as racist oppressors of African Americans, cops must realize that they are reviled and detested by some of the countrymen they have sworn to protect.
What will happen now is predictable, as it has happened before.
To pander to the militants on the left, liberal politicians will devise new restrictions on cops and more severe punishments for infractions, treating the police as potential threats to civil and constitutional rights.
The "Ferguson Effect" will take hold. Cops will back off from confronting the lawless and violent. Criminals will see an opening to seize opportunities. The urban poor who look to the police as their only protection will stay inside and lock their doors. And small businesses, realizing the cops may not be there, will sell and move out.
Where is this leading?
According to former New York City Police Commissioner Bernie Kerik, not only did New York law enforcement officers suffer many injuries in the riots, hundreds of cops, seeing how they are regarded and were treated by many whom they protect, are preparing to leave the NYPD.
As the Democrats' "police reform" bill is debated on the Hill, Republicans will largely stand with the police and Attorney General William Barr, who said Sunday that while there is racism in America, there is no "systemic racism" in the nation's police departments.
If there were, it would be an indictment of the Democrats, who have run most of our great cities for decades.
As it rises in prominence, the issue of defunding police will divide the Democratic Party more than the GOP.
For while the hard left sees cops in ideological and class terms as racist and fascist, the right, by and large, sees the police as the last line of defense against the anarchy we saw erupt when there were not enough cops in New York and D.C. to control the mobs looting Fifth Avenue and Georgetown.
And this, too, is likely to become a forever war in America. For it is almost inevitable that we are going to see more violent collisions between white cops and black suspects, collisions that result in deaths.
For every large urban police force has daily encounters with black male criminals, who commit a disproportionate number of violent crimes. Some will end with dead cops, and the others with dead criminals.
President Donald Trump has taken his stand with the police.
It is Joe Biden who has the problem. For while Democratic mayors are unlikely to join a campaign to abolish their police forces, Biden is going to have to tell his Bernie Bro and socialist constituents that their ideas for getting rid of police departments are ridiculous.
Monday, Joe made a start. He said that defunding cops is off the table.[2]
Next, Walter E. Williams—a professor of economics at George Mason University in Northern Virginia, and an alumnus of my alma mater, UCLA—has written in the Toronto Sun:
While it might not be popular to say in the wake of the recent social disorder, the true plight of black people has little or nothing to do with the police or what has been called “systemic racism.” Instead, we need to look at the responsibilities of those running our big cities.
Some of the most dangerous big cities are: St. Louis, Detroit, Baltimore, Oakland, Chicago, Memphis, Atlanta, Birmingham, Newark, Buffalo and Philadelphia. The most common characteristic of these cities is that for decades, all of them have been run by liberal Democrats. Some cities — such as Detroit, Buffalo, Newark and Philadelphia — haven’t elected a Republican mayor for more than a half-century. On top of this, in many of these cities, blacks are mayors, often they dominate city councils, and they are chiefs of police and superintendents of schools.
In 1965, there were no blacks in the U.S. Senate, nor were there any black governors. And only six members of the House of Representatives were black. As of 2019, there is far greater representation in some areas — 52 House members are black. Nine black Americans have served in the Senate, including Edward W. Brooke of Massachusetts, Carol Moseley Braun and Barack Obama of Illinois, Tim Scott of South Carolina, Cory Booker of New Jersey, and Kamala Harris of California. In recent times, there have been three black state governors. The bottom line is that today’s black Americans have significant political power at all levels of government. Yet, what has that meant for a large segment of the black population?
Democratic-controlled cities have the poorest-quality public education despite their large, and growing, school budgets. Consider Baltimore, Maryland. In 2016, in 13 of Baltimore’s 39 high schools, not a single student scored proficient on the state’s math exam. In six other high schools, only 1% tested proficient in math. Only 15% of Baltimore students passed the state’s English test. That same year in Philadelphia only 19% of eighth-graders scored proficient in math, and 16% were proficient in reading. In Detroit, only 4% of its eighth-graders scored proficient in math, and 7% were proficient in reading. It’s the same story of academic disaster in other cities run by Democrats.
Violent crime and poor education is not the only problem for Democratic-controlled cities. Because of high crime, poor schools and a less pleasant environment, cities are losing their economic base and their most productive people in droves. When the Second World War ended, the population of Washington, D.C., was about 800,000; today, it’s about 700,000. In 1950, Baltimore’s population was almost 950,000; today, it’s around 590,000. Detroit’s 1950 population was close to 1.85 million; today, it’s down to 673,000. The population of Camden, New Jersey, in 1950 was nearly 125,000; today it has fallen to 74,000. St. Louis’ 1950 population was more than 856,000; today, it’s less than 294,000. A similar story of population decline can be found in most of our formerly large and prosperous cities. In some cities, the population decline since 1950 is well over 50%, and that includes Detroit, St. Louis, Cleveland and Pittsburgh.
Academic liberals, civil rights advocates and others blamed the exodus on racism — “white flight” to the suburbs to avoid blacks. But blacks have been fleeing some cities at higher rates than whites. The five cities whose suburbs have the fastest-growing black populations are Miami, Dallas, Washington, Houston and Atlanta. It turns out that blacks, like whites, want better and safer schools for their kids and don’t like to be mugged or have their property vandalized. And like white people, if they have the means, black people cannot wait to leave troubled cities.
White liberals and black politicians focus most of their attention on what the police do, but how relevant is that to the overall tragedy? According to Statista, this year, 172 whites and 88 blacks have died at the hands of police. To put police shootings in a bit of perspective, in Chicago alone in 2020 there have been 1,260 shootings and 256 homicides with blacks being the primary victims. That comes to one shooting victim every three hours and one homicide victim every 15 hours. Three people in Chicago have been killed by police. If one is truly concerned about black deaths, shootings by police should figure way down on one’s list — which is not to excuse bad behaviour by some police officers.[3]
First, the latest polling shows black voter approval for President Trump rising to 41 percent.[4] There are multiple reasons for this, among them being the recognition by America's blacks that black-on-black crimes have reached epidemic proportions, especially in our cities and targeting elderly blacks, and elderly black women in particular who are terrified and have been for decades.
Second, I investigated complaints of police brutality in the Watts area of Los Angeles, during the summer before the riots erupted there. There is no doubt in my mind that many of the accusations were real. Riots have occurred around the nation and world in subsequent years, including those spawned by the death of George Floyd. What is the common thread that runs through all of them, or so I believe: they have accomplished nothing positive or of lasting value.
Third, as I have written previously:
[W]ith so many rioters massed together and zero “social distancing” taking place, how many will catch and/or spread the deadly Coronavirus? There is no vaccine, and many will die, of all ages.
Lots of them may be high school and college students who are out of school because of the lockdowns, and bored. Thus, they have joined the thugs, slugs, hoods and mongrels as an “adventure,” not realizing fully the price that these lackeys (who are products of America’s Leftist educational system) might pay.
Patty Hearst did something similar years ago, but was “bailed out” by her wealthy family.[5]
Fourth, America's law enforcement and its military preserve order and protect all of us—blacks, whites, Asians, Christians, Jews, atheists and others—from those who would seek to destroy our great nation and its heritage. Abraham Lincoln understood this, and he gave his life to preserve our Union and, yes, to destroy slavery.[6]
Lastly, the police have been under siege in the United States and other countries for decades. Perhaps they are hated more today because they have been viciously targeted, just as they are accused of targeting blacks. Forgotten is their heroism in the wake of 9/11. Or more likely, it is the goal of the thugs, slugs, hoods and mongrels to destroy American history and the very fabric of our great nation under God—which is consistent with the defacing and destruction of our monuments, places of worship and revisionist history.
© 2020, Timothy D. Naegele
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[1] Timothy D. Naegele was counsel to the United States Senate's Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, and chief of staff to Presidential Medal of Freedom and Congressional Gold Medal recipient and former U.S. Senator Edward W. Brooke (R-Mass). He and his firm, Timothy D. Naegele & Associates, specialize in Banking and Financial Institutions Law, Internet Law, Litigation and other matters (see www.naegele.com and Timothy D. Naegele Resume-20-5-11). He has an undergraduate degree in economics from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), as well as two law degrees from the School of Law (Boalt Hall), University of California, Berkeley, and from Georgetown University. He served as a Captain in the U.S. Army, assigned to the Defense Intelligence Agency at the Pentagon, where he received the Joint Service Commendation Medal (see, e.g., https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commendation_Medal#Joint_Service). Mr. Naegele is an Independent politically; and he is listed in Who's Who in America, Who's Who in American Law, and Who's Who in Finance and Business. He has written extensively over the years (see, e.g., www.naegele.com/whats_new.html#articles and https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/articles/), and can be contacted directly at tdnaegele.associates@gmail.com
[2] See https://buchanan.org/blog/the-lefts-coming-war-on-cops-138665 ("The Left's Coming War on Cops")
[3] See https://torontosun.com/opinion/columnists/williams-the-true-plight-of-black-americans ("The true plight of black Americans"); see also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_E._Williams ("Walter E. Williams")
[4] See https://www.wnd.com/2020/06/rasmussen-black-approval-trump-surges-40/ ("Poll: Black voter approval for Trump 41%")
[5] See https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2020/06/07/i-tore-down-my-first-black-lives-matter-sign-today/#comment-24628 ("80 Percent Of Americans Believe The Country Is Spiraling Out Of Control")
[6] See, e.g., https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2010/03/21/ulysses-s-grant-an-american-hero/ (“Ulysses S. Grant: An American Hero”)
