Democrats and the dying media know they have no leg to stand on when it comes to crime, but because they can never just sit still and be quiet, they’re acting like they have deep thoughts on law and order.
No, thanks! They don’t get to adopt positions like “defund the police,” throwing the country into a violent hell for nearly half a decade, and then have a say in how we pull ourselves out.
The New York Times, effectively the conscience of the Democrat establishment, wrote in a lengthy editorial Thursday on the “lessons” of recent years “that can help policymakers reduce crime even further and make progress against other societal ills.” Those lessons naturally come after the Times repeats the prerequisite talking point among Democrats that “crime is down,” but more importantly, the lessons are the obvious things that Democrats and the media shut down and shamed people for saying aloud for years.
“In 2020, policymakers played a direct role in accelerating [societal breakdown] by shuttering services that promote social cohesion,” the editorial said. “Consider school closures. Whether to keep schools closed after the initial months of the pandemic was a difficult decision. But officials at least should have put more weight on obvious costs of closures, including learning loss, social isolation and the possibility that closures contribute to crime.”
If you’re not already in a seething rage, holding back violent temptations, continue reading.
“Social cohesion is both valuable and delicate,” the Times went on. “America has much to lose when it undermines people’s connections to institutions like schools, churches, government agencies and community groups. If we could find ways to restore confidence in those institutions, the rest of our problems would become easier to solve.”
Anyone who wasn’t hysterically wrapped up in trying to deny President Trump a second term, even if it meant tearing the country apart, already knew this. They knew all of it and they said so at the time.
By contrast, the Times spent 2020 literally lecturing everyone that “the most patriotic thing you can do” was stay away from virtually all social gatherings and keep their faces covered. When President Trump fell ill with Covid in October that year, the Times said it was “so frustrating to watch as Mr. Trump has flouted basic public health guidelines and the advice of his own government’s experts.” By not wearing a mask and urging governors to relax social gathering restrictions, the Times said, Trump “put not only himself but also all of America at risk.” And by attempting to live what was formerly called a “normal life,” the Times said the president had “failed to take this virus, or his own safety, seriously.”
Now the Times has some “lessons” it wants us to heed. That paper can see itself to the nearest shredder. It doesn’t get to pretend it has anything useful to say on the problems it helped create.
Eddie Scarry is the D.C. columnist at The Federalist and author of "Liberal Misery: How the Hateful Left Sucks Joy Out of Everything and Everyone."