Democrats can’t seem to make up their minds. First, they deny that protests in Portland and Seattle are violent and claim that President Trump and the GOP are propagating this “myth” to win over voters, as House Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler claimed this weekend.
But now, after hours of video evidence and multiple insider reports, Democrats are finally admitting that the riots on the West Coast are indeed riots, but with one caveat: Trump is to blame.
Take, for example, David Axelrod’s latest epiphany:
The is precisely what @realDonaldTrump and his campaign were hoping for. He’s an arsonist, not a fireman.
He wants to stir violent protests to fuel his “law and order” campaign ads.https://t.co/XUmo2tSuNW— David Axelrod (@davidaxelrod) July 26, 2020
The idea that Trump wants disorder and mayhem to take over America’s cities is ridiculous. If anything, the inability to contain lawlessness will reflect poorly on his “law and order “administration, and he knows it. That’s why he sent federal officers to Portland, Chicago, and Seattle: to prove to voters that he’s taking this seriously even if Democratic officials are not.
But what’s particularly frustrating about this narrative shift, demonstrated so aptly by Axelrod, is that it denies the failures of city and state officials who have allowed protests to turn into violent displays of anger.
The Seattle City Council, for example, just passed an ordinance preventing the Police Department from using preventive crowd control tools. How are police officers supposed to protect themselves or private citizens from mobs when the city is effectively tying their hands behind their backs? Business owners have already been warned by Seattle Police Chief Carmen Best that she will not send her officers to defend private property if they do not have the proper tools to do so. That sounds a bit like anarchy, and Seattle’s City Council members are to blame — not Trump.
Democrats need to admit that things have gotten out of hand and that their policies curbing law enforcement’s authority have made the present conflict worse. They entertained lawlessness, and now, parts of their cities are on fire.
Trump didn’t set those fires. But the activists that Democrats are so eager to appease did. So, if we’re playing the blame game, let’s start there.
