Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) commented recently on President Trump’s ongoing crime crackdowns. He said, “He’s trying to militarize the society and intimidate his political opponents. The whole idea of picking cities based on their partisan leadership is absurd. I mean, there are lots of Republican cities and towns struggling with crime. Everybody is, across the country.”
As is often (usually) the case with the left, most of what Raskin said is demonstrably false. The POTUS isn’t trying to militarize our society. While his actions may be intimidating to his opponents, his stated goal was to make D.C. safer and cleaner. He didn’t pick D.C. because Muriel Bowser is the mayor; he did so because crime was out of control, and the city was filthy.
Raskin’s most startling statement came at the very end, where he said, “Crime has always been part of our history. And yet crime is down, in D.C., for example. It’s at a 30-year low. It’s down in Baltimore, it’s down in Chicago.” If he can rationalize his objection by claiming that crime has always been part of our history, can we say the same thing about alcoholism and drug abuse? How about poverty?
Raskin obviously isn’t alone. Although we’ve seen lies coming from both sides of the political aisle, Democrats increasingly seem incapable of telling the truth, about anything.
People often make statements that are blatantly untrue, especially in high-stakes arenas like politics, where rhetoric, context, and interpretation play major roles. But how many times did pResident (not a typo) Biden lie when there was absolutely no reason to do so?
There are likely psychological, social, tactical, and strategic explanations for this behavior. We’ve also seen that what some reports claim to be false can sometimes stem from misinterpretation or selective quoting rather than outright falsehoods. In these cases, the statements aren’t strictly false on their face but may be framed in ways that invite criticism. If criticism is the goal, then this deceitful framing can become a modus operandi.
Listening to the torrent of lies from people like Raskin, Schiff, Comey, Brennan, Biden, Obama, et al., I wonder just how stupid they believe their base to be. Conservatives stopped believing them years ago, but judging from comments on social media, it’s obvious that a significant percentage of left-leaning Americans are either deluded or pretending to believe things they know are false.
Why do people say and believe things that (they must know) are false? There are obvious, sometimes overlapping reasons:
Leftists like Jamie Raskin are likely motivated to oppose Trump’s policies in order to protect Democrat leadership. Raskin emphasized cooperation over militarization and claimed that declining crime rates make Trump’s approach unnecessary. However, recent revelations from law enforcement in D.C. and L.A. show that many crimes are not reported or recorded, and that serious crimes (felonies) have been downgraded to misdemeanors, rendering the city’s crime statistics unreliable. And how cooperative have the Democrats been of late?
Another astonishing remark (there is no lack of them from the left) came from Illinois lieutenant governor Juliana Stratton. She said that cracking down on crime in her state would “cause chaos.” The idea that fighting crime inherently causes chaos is absurd on its face. An August Facebook post from her official account stated that Trump is “willing to go to any lengths possible to create chaos if it means more political power — no matter who gets hurt.” Her position is that federal intervention could escalate tensions and disrupt local efforts or lead to unrest. This might be tenable if we ignore the past half-century of deteriorating quality of life in Democrat-run cities, not to mention the “mostly peaceful” protests of 2020. Her exaggerations could be a ploy to rally her constituents against Trump, as she may be positioning herself as a U.S. Senate candidate.
Unfortunately for Stratton, Raskin, and Trump’s other detractors, recent events in D.C. confirm the obvious truth that cracking down on crime and cleaning up filth improve quality of life. One D.C. resident praised the sudden reduction in crime, the newfound safety and cleanliness of the streets, by saying, “People don’t understand how big of a deal this is.” Whereas the left claims to prioritize “equity” to protect vulnerable groups, the deteriorating conditions in Democrat-run cities over the last fifty years highlights the left’s failure.
The critiques from figures like Jamie Raskin and Juliana Stratton reveal a pattern of misrepresentation that undermines public trust. Conservatives no longer believe them, and now even their own voters are running away from them.
Their hyperbolic misrepresentations pose a threat to the Republic. James Hodgkinson shot Republican lawmakers who were playing softball because he was led to believe they threatened our health care system. Donald Trump narrowly escaped two assassination attempts from deranged leftists. Jewish college students have been ostracized and threatened, and two Israeli staffers were murdered because of their religion. Catholic and Protestant churches and Jewish synagogues have been looted, vandalized, and burned. Two Catholic children were murdered and seventeen others were injured at a school liturgy in Minnesota by a left-wing psychopath.
Leftist fabrications and hyperbole may serve political agendas, but they’re triggering horrific violence from the lunatic fringe of their base. Moving forward, the left must prioritize facts over narrative to address the real challenges facing American communities and avoid inciting its base to violence.
Image via Picryl.