In my opinion, and I’m certainly not alone in this observation, Democrats are favoring the lawless over the innocent American citizens.
From coast-to-coast, Democrat officials have called for fewer police, no or more lenient prosecutions, and in some jurisdictions have legalized petty theft up to a thousand dollars by ordering police not to arrest criminals or simply refusing to prosecute when people are arrested.
How is that working out?
Great for the criminals, not too good for the citizens or the businesses that are closing or moving away from such areas.
One is left to wonder what the endgame is with this “strategy”.
I do think it begins with the leftist idea that enforcement of laws are not the result of wanting to stop crime, they believe that laws cause crime – laws were created by the white majority to keep people of color in a state of oppression. Law is a means to keep white people in power and therefore is simply a tool of white supremacy.
That approach has proven to be a disaster for the general population of people of color in the areas where this idea has taken hold. Black communities are begging city governments for MORE policing and MORE prosecutions of criminals. Businesses are pleading with city councils dominated by white, progressives, mostly white progressive women, to help protect the stores so they can stay in business and serve the community.
But these people don’t listen, even in the face of lives being destroyed by these pro- criminal policies.
I have deduced the reason Democrats prefer criminals to law abiding citizens is that criminals have no issues with constant contact with the state and by committing crimes, they have willingly and knowingly made themselves subject to the direction of the state. For the most part, crime is a way to keep people poor and dependent upon government support.
Soft on crime policies are a twofer – they result in criminals becoming wards of the state – and it causes law-abiding people to cry out for more state protection – and in both cases, the power of the state is increased.
Criminals can be controlled.
I think this is also why we are seeing more arbitrary and capricious prosecutions of generally law-abiding people, the escalation of charges (the way Alvin Bragg is trying to charge Trump with a felony instead of a misdemeanor) and why we see prosecutions of people who, like the bodega owner Bragg prosecuted and the Arizona rancher who was charged with murder, were just protecting their own lives and property.
Those are examples of people being told they have no individual right to act to protect life, limb, or property, unless and until the government specifically allows it.
Law-abiding people can be controlled by making them criminals.
As Ayn Rand’s character, Floyd Ferris, told Hank Rearden, the state has no power over honest and law-abiding people:
“There’s no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren’t enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws. Who wants a nation of law-abiding citizens? What’s there in that for anyone?”
That in a nutshell, is why the progressive Democrat finds criminality so seductive and soothing. More crime means more control.
These pro-criminal and create-a-criminal policies have nothing to do with white supremacy, they are simply a means to an end. From gun control to open borders, from bail “reform” to the criminalization of policing, from selective prosecution to invention of new crimes, it all is a means to an end.
And that end is power.
In their twisted sense of logic, the ends justify the means!
Solzhenitsyn wrote the same thing about the early Soviet Union. The Communist government consistently prosecuted victims for trying to defend themselves from criminals while the criminals themselves were not prosecuted. It's in the preface of one of his books but I don't recall which one.