It's apples and oranges, but still relevant to the elections

You listen to me!

Just as the average voter doesn’t care about the Greens’ dismantling of our energy infrastructure, and only took notice of the effect of that policy when gas hit $5 a gallon (and from comments I’ve seen elsewhere, have already forgotten that the current $3.65 average is exactly $2 higher than the average price on January 20, 2020), he or she also doesn’t care — isn’t aware, really, that we’re witnessing the abandonment of the “rule of law” that one set us apart from banana republics and dictatorships. Beria’s “show me the man, and I’ll show you the crime” was a nightmare visited on communist states, but not the U.S. Once upon a time.

So while I wish they’d pay attention to the deterioration of our military, the capture of the Democrat Party by its socialists, and so on, I have no faith that the typical voter will. But on the plus side, I doubt they care too much about the great January 6th farce, or Biden’s and his media flunkies’ desperate attempt to whip them into a frenzy over Republican “lawlessness”. My guess is that they do care about street crime and, thanks to those same media outlets’ passion for profits, what happens in Baltimore, say, doesn’t stay in Baltimore anymore: it’s on the nation’s TV screens, every night. The commenter below asserts that it’s a perceived threat to physical safety — an individual’s or his family’s — that will drive votes to the Republican side this fall that; I hope he’s right.

Jack Dunphy: Do MAGA Republicans cause street crime?

If you were to judge the state of affairs in today’s America based solely on President Biden’s assessment, you might assume the greatest threat to your personal safety is that posed by all those “MAGA Republicans” he so logorrheically denounced in his speech to the nation from Philadelphia last week. “MAGA Republicans,” he said, “do not respect the Constitution. They do not believe in the rule of law. They do not recognize the will of the people.”

Such a curious speech it was, with the words inspired by Vladimir Lenin and the cinematography by Leni Riefenstahl. The president mentioned MAGA Republicans 13 times before he finished, with the references growing more and more ominous as he proceeded. “MAGA Republicans,” he darkly intoned, “look at America and see carnage and darkness and despair. They spread fear and lies – lies told for profit and power.”

And the viewer was left to think: “Sinister bunch, those MAGA people. I must secure the doors and windows and be on the lookout for them.”

But if you were to go out on the streets of America today in search of actual acts of violence committed by this group, which the president came just short of labeling as Enemies of the People, would you find any? And when you did encounter genuine carnage and despair, when you witnessed actual affronts to the rule of law, which in most cities wouldn’t take long at all, do you think you could attribute any of it to MAGA Republicans?

Of course not.

If your senses can bear it, take a few minutes to peruse the Twitter feed from Street People of Los Angeles, one of several feeds where you can find videos, photos, and news stories illustrating the lawless, dystopian depths to which large swaths of Southern California have descended. As you watch the videos, ask yourself how many of the people shown committing the various acts of depravity are MAGA Republicans, and how many would be more inclined to vote for Democrats?

Look closely at the hundreds of videos you can find on the internet of the recent phenomenon of street takeovers in Los Angeles, where crowds converge on major intersections and commandeer them into use as temporary raceways, occasionally leaving behind a looted convenience store and even a dead body or two when they move on. Do you see any clothing or bumper stickers betokening allegiance to the MAGA movement?

And of course it’s not just Los Angeles. Street takeovers, or “sideshows,” have become common elsewhere, Chicago, for instance, where responding police officers routinely come under attack from the mobs. Do you see any MAGA hats or T-shirts on any of the people shown committing these crimes, or do you think they’re more likely to vote for the party that’s run that city since the Earth cooled?