President Joe Biden is about to learn the most often stated lesson in politics: History repeats.
Exactly 28 years after the former Delaware senator guided then-President Bill Clinton to a victory with his 1994 crime bill at the height of a wave of violence, a new wave threatens to doom Biden.
“History is repeating itself,” GOP pollster John McLaughlin said. “If the Democrats don’t turn this around, if they keep pushing these radical policies, they’ll get beat. The voters have had it.”
In 1994, the crime bill Biden authored came too late to help Clinton in the midterm elections, and Democratic majorities in the House and Senate were wiped out, though it helped Clinton win reelection two years later.
Leading the attack was then-Speaker Newt Gingrich with his “Contract with America.”
This year, Biden appears on his own and unable to deal with rising crime and the fears the public has with it. And Gingrich is back, tapped to write a new contract that is based on a mountain of data and polling that shows the nation fearing more crime.
In his polling and Gallup’s, crime is a top concern — and one voters no longer trust Democrats to solve.
“We’re at a pivotal moment,” McLaughlin said. “Usually, when you poll crime, it is a local issue. Today it is a national crisis, which is really unusual.”
New this time, also, is the surge in attacks on and killings of police, now nearing a record. In 1994, the Biden crime bill cleared the way for adding up to 100,000 police.
But instead of anything concrete, Biden — who skipped two high-profile funerals in New York City for slain officers — is fighting with liberals over defunding police and letting prosecutors release violent offenders.
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And that has prompted police unions to criticize the administration for a lack of support. This week, Patrick Yoes, national president of the Fraternal Order of Police, ripped White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki for seeming to belittle concerns about rising crime.
“I think it’s wrong — very wrong — for Ms. Psaki to suggest that violent crime in our country is of no concern or to just laugh it off,” Yoes said. “She may feel safe in the White House, one of the most protected buildings in the United States, but not everyone feels safe in their workplace. The world we find ourselves in is dangerous and is becoming increasingly more so. Tens of thousands of people have been the victims of crime this month alone, and some of them never made it back home.”
