By Rich Lowry
Tuesday, August 25, 2020
The Democratic National Convention portrayed an America
suffering from every possible sort of malady — except urban unrest.
Is the country going through a terrible pandemic? Yes. A
punishing recession? Absolutely. Is our democratic system itself under threat?
Of course. Is the planet about to be destroyed by inaction on climate change?
Check. Are systemic racism, income inequality, and corporate greed blighting
our national life? Most definitely.
The Democrats put an accent on every disturbing
development during the Trump years, but not on the disorder that has caused
countless millions of dollars in property damage, killed and injured innocent
people, and contributed to rising lawlessness in cities around the country.
About that, they maintained a discreet silence. Across
four nights and eight hours of programming, no one mentioned it — not the
community activists, not the mayors or governors, not the former presidents and
first ladies, and emphatically not the party’s current nominees for president
and vice president.
As far as the Democrats were concerned, recent events
that have had a profound effect on urban communities — places almost uniformly
governed by Democratic mayors — simply never happened.
The Biden campaign surely doesn’t want to risk a
discouraging word about anyone marching under the banner of Black Lives Matter
for fear of alienating African-American voters, yet the convention’s portrayal
of the protests seemed quite sincere. The Left’s narrative is that the George
Floyd protests have, with very few exceptions, been peaceful and above
reproach, and only haters could think otherwise. This abiding belief is
impervious to all evidence to the contrary.
There have been riots in Minneapolis, New York City,
Washington, D.C., Atlanta, Philadelphia, and Seattle, among other cities. Just
a couple of weeks ago, looters ransacked stores in Chicago, and nightly riots
are now part of the urban identity of Portland, Ore.
You would think that Democrats would want, merely as a
matter of political cover, to make some nod toward denouncing this violence and
disassociating their cause from it. Even during a week when they were
remembering the work of John Lewis, an inspiring and courageous devotee of
nonviolence, they couldn’t bring themselves to do it.
Instead, the party’s alternate reality reigned. Waving
the bloody shirt of the clearing of Lafayette Square prior to a Trump photo-op
in front of St. John’s Church, Washington, D.C., mayor Muriel Bowser declared
that “it was here that, just weeks ago, Americans donned face masks and, safely
and peacefully, protested the death of George Floyd. But while we were
peacefully protesting, Donald Trump was plotting.”
The truthfulness of this statement depends on her
definition of “we” and of “peaceful,” since it’s a matter of record that
protesters set a fire at the historic church and threw projectiles at riot
forces. (Peaceful protesters do the damnedest things.)
In the wake of all the not-so-peaceful protests, cities
have experienced spikes in shootings. This, too, would seem to demand some
acknowledgement, to keep the GOP from exploiting the lapse if nothing else, but
speakers blithely skipped over it.
Michelle Obama complained that “here at home as George
Floyd, Breonna Taylor and a never-ending list of innocent people of color
continue to be murdered, stating the simple fact that a Black life matters is
still met with derision from the nation’s highest office.”
Why not mention the innocent people of color murdered
every day, and not by law enforcement? Don’t they count, too?
No, the Democratic Party prefers not to grapple with the
uncomfortable truth that the riots have almost certainly materially harmed the
lives of vulnerable people. It doesn’t want to admit the necessary work of cops
patrolling dangerous urban neighborhoods and how if this work is stymied, poor
people suffer.
It considers itself the party of decency, as long as you
don’t ask it to condemn mindless destruction and the shootings blighting our
cities. It celebrates itself as the party of norms, except the ones necessary
to law and order.
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