Somebody had to say something. And my National Post colleague Kelly McParland did, beginning a recent column "Something weird is going on in two of the biggest, most liberal, environmentally-conscious, high-taxing, high-spending, morally upright states in the U.S. [New York and California.] They're in a mess. And the mess they're in isn't helping Joe Biden". To which I have to blurt out "Riots!"
McParland isn't talking about riots. They aren't a major issue in the Empire or Golden states, where he's discussing governance more generally. And he's right because while there are many reasons to dislike Donald Trump, there are also a lot of reasons to think that "if New York and California are the Democratic vision of the future, it could be a pretty disquieting future." But I am talking about riots because the problem of the Democratic vision of the future goes beyond those two states to places like Portland with underreported chronic violence where the Democrats are also in charge.
One might blame the unrest in the streets on America's painful racial history. Many people do, and obviously they are connected. But here's my weird thing: All the cities experiencing the worst disorder are… run by Democrats. At the ward level, the city level, the state level, in Congress and in their presidential votes. These are places where people have tried to implement the Democratic vision including on race, and it doesn't seem to be working.
Some Republican partisans might say the explanation lies in the Democrats' unquenchable sympathy for anarchy in the soul and in the streets. And while Democrats would say the sorts of things partisans say in response the Republicans have a point.
The GOP has, at least since Richard Nixon, been the party of law and order and, on many issues, the party of reform through due process and the rule of law. And yes, the party of Watergate and other breaches of law as well as decency; nobody's an angel here or even close. But from the late 1960s on a lot of Americans who were, on most economic and even some social issues, natural Democrats leaned Republican at the presidential level because of their fear of disorder in the streets and, a secondary but not trivial issue, disorder in the world.
The same is true today. In "red" states displays of urban insurrection get short shrift from law enforcement whereas in too many "blue" states the authorities cannot bring themselves to act decisively even in the face of arson, never mind aggressive bad manners from young thugs with their identities concealed that frighten normal people. And it matters, politically, governmentally and even morally.
The Seattle CHAZ/CHOP was a nightmare. Not just for country club white Republicans in lime-green pants but also black urban Democrats, progressive small business owners and others who shudder at the very name of Trump. Violence scares people and rightly so. And in democratic countries political violence also repels them because they know it is based on a lie.
The United States for all its painful past and its present dysfunctions, including the man in the White House, is a dynamic self-governing society where anything and everything is up for debate and attempted policy remedy. There's no reason for rioting in the streets and nothing good comes of it. Not even votes for Joe Biden if you think those are good. But it gets worse.
If all the cities experiencing significant disorder are run by Democrats, and there is more of this disorder in more places than the MSM is reporting because of partisan sympathies, and if all these places have been run by Democrats since the 1960s or even earlier, the problem is not just a lack of sympathy for law and order. There's something more basic wrong with the results of liberal governance including, and let me be frank here, on race.
If the Republicans reproach the Democrats for their bad attitude on law and order with some justice, the Democrats do the same to the Republicans on race with some justice. Prior to the 1960s the GOP was actually better on the issue, though it's not saying much. But that turbulent decade was a long time ago now. And since then there's no question that anti-racism has been closer to the core of the Democrats' identity and program. Far closer. I'm not saying most Republicans are bigots. I don't think they are. But a speech on historical injustice in America goes down much better at the DNC than the RNC. You know it does.
So why didn't it work? You can say what you like but the results are in. Cities that are run on the basis of liberal prescriptions for social harmony seem on the whole to be failing badly. And not just when it comes to suppressing chronic rioting, and for that matter non-political street crime.
They seem to be failing badly at creating harmonious communities more generally. Just as the general Democratic, and liberal, prescription for good government has miscarried badly in California and New York on everything from taxes to, yes, forest management in the former, specific Democratic, and liberal, prescriptions for good government on race seems to have miscarried badly.
One important reason, I submit, is that they encourage a sense of grievance dangerous to personal and social well-being. Even if the grievance is as real as grievances about race are in America historically. A focus on victimhood, on seeing things through the lens of race, gender and other tropes of identity politics, on lavish government spending as the path to human fulfilment, has led to places where the police seem out of control along with spending, public trust in authorities and one another is low and the mood is sour and surly.
I realize the pandemic lockdown has not helped; an unappreciated factor in the rioting is bored, angry, underemployed young men who see no meaningful future. But this problem didn't start in March. And arm-waving about how "America" is "racist" won't help us understand or fix it.
There's something Orwellian about the notion of "unconscious racism" whose main symptom is not being actually racist. And even if you think there are a significant number of Americans whose racism is not unconscious, the plain fact is that (a) many of America's most troubled cities, including when it comes to police brutality, are run by Democrats and have been for decades; (b) these Democrats are not the old Harry Byrd/Bull Connor kind but genuinely woke folks; and (c) they are also in many places black or Latino at the local level.
So it won't do to suggest that they lack good intentions on race let alone that they are bigots. Even if you think Trump is a bigot and many white Americans are bigots and capitalism is racist and on down the PC line, there are large parts of America where Nancy Pelosi and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and their fellow-travellers have effective control of the governing machinery and those parts are falling apart fast.
It is weird. But it won't do to call it weird and stop. What's weird is that good intentions coupled with bad methods are failing to produce good results. At least, it's weird to some people. But they better wake up.
As in 2016, it really shouldn't be that hard to beat Donald Trump. The electoral map favours the Democrats and has done, increasingly, since at least 2000. And Trump brings a uniquely awful set of qualities to the battle. Yet the race seems close.
So anyone who cares about social harmony, racial justice or just the political prospects of the Democrats ought to consider what that party is bringing to the battle that makes Trump a plausible contender despite everything. Perhaps it's that when they get power, the things they care most about go badly wrong because their ideas are badly wrong.
It would explain a lot.
Photo Credit: KPTV
