‘Republicans Pounce,’ Minneapolis Edition

By Kevin D. Williamson

Wednesday, June 10, 2020

 

Just for fun, I googled “defund the police” with “Republicans pounce.”

 

You know the drill: The Democrats propose something insane, or Joe Biden says something daft, and all the headlines say: “Republicans pounce!” on this or that. It’s classic redirection. Never mind the principal buffoonery — look at these wicked Republicans hoping to advance their own agenda by pointing out that the other side has gone entirely bats!

 

This headline at the Minneapolis Star Tribune is “Republicans pounce!” in unabridged form: “Republican pounce on Minneapolis plan to dismantle the police.” That the newspapers’ headline writers would embrace such a tired cliché so unselfconsciously is testament to the fact that the media bias conservatives are always droning on about isn’t imagined.

 

How’s the pouncing going? “In campaigns, [Republicans] are using the push in Minneapolis to paint all Democrats, from top to bottom, as ‘extreme.’” The Minneapolis proposal is extreme. It may be extreme and good or extreme and bad, but there is little doubt of its extremism. And if Democrats wish to disassociate themselves from the madness in Minneapolis, there’s a pretty easy way for them to do that. If they don’t, that’s on them, not on Joe Republican in the wilds of rural Minnesota — the GOP has precisely nothing to do with how Minneapolis is run under the management of a city council consisting of twelve Democrats and one Green.

 

At MSNBC, it’s Republicans “seized upon” the Minneapolis proposal. That’s not quite the full pounce, but it’s pretty pouncy.

 

Republicans are “pouncing” in the Walla Walla Union Bulletin, with a reprint of the Star-Tribune headline. At NBC KARE, eleven Republicans are merely “tapping into” the controversy and trying to “to capitalize on debate over defunding MPD” by demanding “Democrats to go on the record.”

 

Devious! Naughty, pouncing Republicans!