Democrats Can’t Run from Defund the Police

BUCK: Essentially where Biden and Democrats are in charge, whether it’s federal or state, they’ve made a mess of things. They’ve lied, they’ve been wrong, they’ve been heavy-handed, they’ve been unconstitutional. You can also say many of the same things about the Democrat approach to crime. And the numbers are in, so to speak. Same way we look at covid cases, hospitalizations, breakthrough cases, which as we know don’t even count those anymore because they’re everywhere, all over the place. You look at the numbers for crime in the last year, and what you have isn’t just a bad look for Democrats.

It’s really a fundamental repudiation of their philosophy, if you can call it that, on law and order, that putting social justice over societal safety has disastrous consequences. It’s exactly what we’ve seen. At least 16 cities saw record homicide rates according to local police department data compiled by Fox News in the last year, and the nationwide increase is just staggering as a percentage.

But we often talk here — and I want to make sure we spread this out because I know Clay’s in Nashville; I’m in New York. We spend a fair amount of time in Florida and we’ll talk about L.A. and some of the big cities out there. But even a lot of mid-size cities had terrible years, and there are reasons for this. It’s not just an anomaly, an aberration, something that happens. There are reasons for this huge crime surge. Albuquerque, New Mexico, all-time high in homicides.

Atlanta, Georgia, homicides highest in 30 years. So not technically an all-time high. Austin, Texas, the highest ever. That is the highest ever. Baton Rouge, Louisiana; Columbus, Ohio; Indianapolis; Jackson, Mississippi; Louisville, Kentucky; Macon, Georgia; Milwaukee, Wisconsin. We’ve got our Milwaukee, Wisconsin, listeners, as you know, with us right now on WISN. I sit here, Clay, and I say there are reasons for this, and I’m most familiar with how they’re playing out in a place like New York.

But then we can extend this out to the national level. Here’s what’s going on. We got a new mayor who’s supposed to be friendly to cops. He was a cop himself. So what’s going on? He’s reinstituting the plainclothes unit. These are some of the best cops that you’re gonna find in New York. And their job is just to… They don’t do… They’re not arresting people for having a joint on the street or something — well, not that they do that at all in New York anymore.

They’re not. They’re going after violent gang activity, illegal guns on the streets in the hands of bad people. That’s all they do. De Blasio got rid of that. Adams is bringing it back. We’re supposed to say this is great. But hold on a second. Now today it’s come out that the new district attorney in New York is putting out all these guidelines for the carceral sentencing of people essentially. (summarized) “Hey, maybe we want to just avoid locking people up whenever it is humanly possible without the public turning on us in outrage.” They don’t seem to get it yet. I don’t actually think the message has been fully received, Clay, at least not by the bureaucracy. Maybe by some of the politicians.

CLAY: Yeah. What’s going on is being concerned about how you treat criminals is a luxury of a low-crime environment, and I don’t think many people have really understood the root cause of this. You only can say “defund the police” when crime is so low that people feel incredibly safe. And what has happened, as Buck just pointed out, with cities all over the country is many of you have lived in cities where you had gotten to the point where you were used to crime basically going down every year.

Because we were putting criminals behind bars. Because we were allowing police to do their job. And in the space of one viral video… Obviously you can go all the way back to Ferguson in 2016 and also connect it there with the “hands up, don’t shoot” Michael Brown lie. But really in May of 2020, one viral video of George Floyd in Minneapolis directly led to police coming into attack all over this country — to such an extent that they were pulling COPS, the television show, off of television, and cops were under attack. Think how crazy that is. They went after —

BUCK: Paw Patrol, the kids’ show! Paw Patrol.

CLAY: They went after the puppy that is dressed like a police officer on Paw Patrol, the left-wingers did, to argue that it was too positive of a representation of police. So what we are seeing now is Democrats — and I think this is important, ’cause I think it ties in with what they’re gonna try to do with the shutdowns and the lockdowns and school and everything else, Buck. Now it’s almost impossible to find any politician in the country that is in favor of defund the police.

And in fact, they now argue, Buck, “Oh, we never said defund the police! We didn’t actually mean defund the police,” because thousands of people all over this country are dead, and most of them are young minorities in inner city neighborhoods — ’cause that’s where the overwhelming number of victims are — and that’s why people white, black, Asian, Hispanic of all stripes, persuasions do not want police to be defunded because they know how important they are. And I think we’re seeing it spin back in the other direction now where we’re going to be supporting police more, but it’s all based on one video.

BUCK: This is why I’m concerned. In New York — and again using that as the canary in the coal is mine, so to speak. What you have in New York is a change, okay, a little more supportive of police. I think that’s correct. That’s part of it. They’re gonna have to say, “Oh, we’re gonna refund the police. But it’s more than just that. We’ve talked here about the Soros-backed progressive prosecutors. We’ve talked about Republicans — and I will not forget this — and this was a moment where I did disagree with the initial Trump administration approach.

I thought they were running a little scared from this in June of 2020, when we’re hearing about criminal justice reform and all these criminal justice reform bills that we have to pass and how we’re gonna have greater police accountability. A lot of that stuff — and that often comes down to prosecutors’ offices. That’s what I mean by the bureaucracy and the progressive virus, if you will, that has spread throughout a lot of major city bureaucracies. A lot of that is maybe gonna continue on for a while here because they’re less accountable, because the public is less aware of it.

And that’s why I get concerned when you see the new mayor saying, “Okay, we’re gonna back cops,” but the new district attorney coming up with this social justice framework for when the district attorneys can actually try — or the assistant district attorneys can actually try — to get prison sentences for people. We have been too lenient on violent criminals the last year. That is a reality with the bail reform laws, with the way that these major cities approach this.

So the police part of it — again, I think you’re right that that is switching back because the politicians know that’s a vulnerability. But the overly criminal justice framework? You’re still gonna hear Biden and Kamala and the rest giving all this talk about how we need “greater equity,” and what does that really mean? I mean, what does social justice in the context of law enforcement as the left sees it mean?

CLAY: Well, and this is where every four years Black Lives Matter reemerges. So in ’16, we had a presidential election, “hands up, don’t shoot,” Black Lives Matter becomes a politically viable force. In ’20, they show back up, George Floyd. Are you telling me really that nothing happens in between those years that is going to justify the relevance of that group being active? I guarantee you… You want a prediction right now?

In 2024, they will find – -because it will exist — a viral video which is not representative of what most police officers do on a day-to-day basis that is going to make police look bad, that will give Black Lives Matter a reason to believe out in the streets protesting to try and hang the responsibility for misbehavior on police on Republicans. I guarantee you it’s gonna happen. But in the meantime, thousands of people are gonna die because of the failures to stand up to BLM and to support police.