The president has been working hard trying to convince Americans that crime is so bad right now that he has no choice but to send armed military to patrol major cities to restore law and order, in the process stripping citizens of rights and liberties in the name of public safety.
Unfortunately, the reaction among Democratic leaders has been mixed, to put it mildly, but I think California Governor Gavin Newsom has shown a way forward. He said that if Donald Trump truly cared about crime, he would “invest in crime suppression” in states like “Speaker Johnson’s state and district.” Look at the murder rate in Louisiana, he said. It’s “nearly four times higher than California’s.”
The implication, of course, is that neither Trump nor the Republicans in the Congress actually care about crime. They only say they do as a smokescreen for trying to subdue, control and “own” their perceived liberal enemies residing in cities and states governed by Democrats.
And because Newsom’s allegation – that Trump and the Republicans care less about crime than they do political oppression – rang so loudly and clearly, the House speaker was asked this morning on Fox to respond. What I want to tell you is that it was a sight to behold!
“We have crime in cities all across America and we are against that everywhere,” Johnson said. “My hometown of Shreveport has done a great job of reducing crime gradually. We’ve got to address it everywhere that it rears its ugly head, and I think every major city in the country, the residents of those cities are open to that, and anxious to have it, and we’re … the party that’s going to bring that forward.”
Amazing! Why? Because in that brief moment, the Republican leader of the United States Congress sounded just like a Democrat would sound after being attacked by a Republican. Johnson does not counterattack. He did not say Newsom was lying (Newsom was not lying). Instead, Johnson did what his counterpart Hakeem Jeffries often does after a Republican lays into him. He retreated to a “reasonable man’s” position to show that his party is the party that really cares about crime.
How did this happen?
First, Newsom told the truth. Red-state crime surpasses blue-state crime. Second, by telling the truth, he questioned Trump’s intentions. If crime is such an emergency in Washington and Chicago that he has to send in the military to restore public safety, why isn’t he doing that in Louisiana? Why isn’t the House speaker demanding law and order? The implied answer is they don’t really care about law and order, only whether what they say about it leads to the subjugation they desire.
But importantly, Gavin Newsom did not accept as true anything Trump and the Republicans say about crime and public safety. He did not validate any of their lies. He did not concede any ground to them. He did not say to himself, “Well, Americans really are concerned about crime and Democrats shouldn’t ignore that.” He knows Trump does not care, and did not cover up bad faith with good faith. Most of all, he did not, as historian Timothy Snyder often warns, surrender in advance.
The result?
Johnson retreated. In the face of attack, he tried making himself seem like “the adult in the room.” “We’ve got to address [crime] everywhere that it rears its ugly head.” He did what Democrats do. That’s amazing.
Most Democrats do not have the megaphone that Newsom has. Most are not going to force Fox to ask high-level Republicans to respond to them. Even so, what Newsom is doing is replicable. Do not accept in any way the lies told by Trump and the GOP, even when, or especially when, those lies come out of the mouths of independent voters. The Republicans do not mean what they say. They do not act in good faith. Overlooking this fundamental truth inevitably makes things worse.
This is why I see potential disaster in efforts by a “new coalition” of more than 100 “new Dems” in the House to show voters they really care about immigration reform. The Postreported on the group’s “bipartisan” proposal, a mix of increased “border security” and more ways for immigrants to reside legally. And while that may sound reasonable, it’s not, because it accepts as true the allegations against undocumented immigrants: that they are committing serious crimes.
They are not. Entering the US without authorization is a misdemeanor on par with reckless driving and breaching the peace. Because it’s also a civil offense, judges hear cases in immigration court, not criminal court. “Unlawful entry” doesn’t rise to a felony unless it’s been done many times over, and most immigrants, once they come, they stay.
This is not news to the Democrats, but they have ceded this ground over and over for decades in the mistaken belief that it was better to compromise with the Republicans than to fight them head on, even though the Republicans, especially after 2016, did not act in good faith.
They said the immigration issue was about “law and order.” They said it was about “border integrity.” They said it was about an important thing that mattered to everyone. It was never so. The immigration issue was always about maintaining the dominance of white people in America.
But by accepting the Republicans’ lies in “the spirit of bipartisanship,” the Democrats made the lies real. They also made themselves complicit in turning immigrants into threats so monstrous that the president was justified in creating a secret police force (ICE) that is now breaking the law and profaning the Constitution to expel “the criminal aliens.”
Worst of all perhaps is that while finding “common ground” with liars and bigots, the Democrats have not mounted an unadulterated defense of immigration. It is good, in and of itself – for our economy, our communities and our culture. We should want more immigrants to become Americans. We should make it easier for them, not harder. And we can do that by upholding the true meaning of law and order.
That immigration is an essential good is implicit in recent polling that shows the uglier Trump gets with immigrants, the less popular he gets. To me, that suggests an opportunity for the Democrats. But before they move ahead, they should follow Gavin Newsom’s example in believing bipartisanship does not require surrendering in advance.
NOW READ: The GOP has no one to blame but themselves for this unspeakable horror — and they know it