The question of who loves police more has become of the hodgepodge of conflicting claims and issues swirling in a pool of hypocrisy. Both political sides claim to be supportive and protective of “law enforcement” as an overarching generic subject. It is where each side stakes its claims that makes all the difference.
Most folks would agree that, in general, the GOP has been the party of law and order – tough on crime — and supportive of police and policing. That is because we are generally looking at community policing – the hundreds of thousands of city, county, and state police officers who “serve and protect” on a daily basis. Unless you are a recluse, you see them every day.
Community Policing
On the issue of community policing, the answer to the headline question is clear. Republicans win hands down. The Democratic party takes an adversarial position on community policing. Democrats want to defund the police – although they are divided between those who openly admit it and those who hold the same views but refuse to admit it.
Americans have seen seemingly endless examples of Democrats juxtaposed to the hundreds of thousands of frontline police on issues of crime and punishment. You only need to recall Democrat prosecutors not indicting arrestees, open borders, cashless bonds, sanctuary cities, and refusal to turn over arrested illegal aliens to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). In fact, Democrats have called for the defunding and even the elimination of ICE. Conversely, Republicans support ICE.
Democrat mayors order the police to stand down in the face of destructive and deadly force by rioters in America’s most liberal Democrat cities. Left-wing rioters were allowed to “occupy” portions of the commons in those cities – including a police headquarters in Portland. Police are forbidden to respond when harassed on the streets, doused in water or even pelted with urine or feces. More seriously, they are restrained when attacked with rocks, bottles and even Molotov Cocktails.
When it comes to the safety of we the people in our own communities – and the police — Democrats work against the police … period.
Then there are the special instances.
Capitol Hill Police
There should be no controversy over the fact that rabid supporters of President Trump battled and injured members of the Capitol Hill police. What we had on Capitol Hill was a rare riot by right-wingers. That put them in conflict with the understaffed and unprepared Capitol Hill Police.
In many ways, the Capitol Hill Police were left without sufficient reinforcements because the offers of National Guard support from the Defense Department were rejected by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi through the Chief of the Capitol Police, which she oversees, and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer through the Senate Sergeant-at-Arms. It was also rejected in writing by Washington Mayor Bowser. So much for backing your police.
Though it is lost in the media recycle bin, President Trump criticized the attacks on police during the riot – saying “they are our friends.”
Even so, it cannot be denied that an out-of-control bunch of right-wing rioters did attack and injure police. I often wonder why – when their lives and the lives of others were at risk – the Capitol Police did not use their guns. Certainly, a number of situations justified the use of guns — and even deadly force — according to policing standards. Remember the officer being crushed by the door? He or other officers had every right to shoot those endangering his life. In fact, a lot of members of Congress and staffers claim in most vivid terms how their lives were in imminent danger.
Democrats and the left-leaning media use this unique incident to counterbalance years of overwhelming animosity to policing on the broadest scale in riots in cities year-after-year.
National Policing
The most notable national police force is the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Democrats tend to be authoritarians – preferring one-party rule and all power resting in a NATIONAL government run by permanently empowered elitists (aka the bureaucracy) as opposed to the federal system of the Founders (in which most power rests with the people in the states).
Even with that said, they are fickle – shall we say hypocritical – in their love affair with such agencies as the FBI and the intelligence community.
One of the Democrats’ mantras is that Republican criticism of the major national law enforcement institutions, such as the FBI and Homeland Security dangerously undermines public confidence. Their contention that the national law enforcement agencies are beyond reproach sounds hypocritical when you consider how Democrats and the media allies are going after the Secret Service, Homeland Security and the Department of Defense over missing phone and email records. They spent years criticizing the Justice Department under William Barr.
We also hear a lot about the current level of distrust of the national law enforcement community as being unique … unprecedented. But is it really?
The FBI under J. Edgar Hoover was very controversial. Democrat leaders such as Biden, Schumer and Pelosi are old enough to remember how Hoover maintained files on major political figures for political leverage … blackmail.
They should also be able to recall the FBI’s conspiratorial compliance with Presidents Kennedy and Johnson in going after Martin Luther King. King once received an anonymous blackmail letter threatening exposure of his sexual liaisons if he did not “do the right thing” – a suggestion of suicide. It was latter learned that the information came from FBI surveillance – and that the letter was by Hoover’s second in command.
In attempting to head off impeachment, President Nixon attempted to weaponize the Justice Department. That political drama had the wife of Attorney General John Mitchell making drunken midnight calls to reporters – and eventually led to the beheading of the Department in what became known as the “Saturday Night Massacre.” It was an attempt to get Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox fired.
The point is that those who think the national law enforcement leadership is above reproach – apart from politics — do not know their history. The national law enforcement and intelligence leadership all serve at the pleasure of the President. Saying they are somehow independent agencies is like believing in the Tooth Fairy.
Democrats’ current affection for the FBI, Homeland Security and the Department of Justice is because they are doing the Democrats’ bidding. The fact that the huge federal government can be – and often is – corrupted (including the IRS) is good enough reason to limit the scope and power of the federal government – and keep public-policy decision-making closer to home as the Founders so wisely intended.
Republicans have an uncompromised respect for the general work of the FBI, CIA, Homeland Security, etc. But it is not unreasonable to be wary of the political leadership of those agencies.
Summary
Democrats have been using a couple of unique events to spread the narrative that THEY – and not the Republicans – are the pro-police anti-crime Party. If you step back and look at the larger picture, it is obvious that their narrative is not true. Republicans have the backs of the community policy. Republicans have the backs of the rank-and-file national law enforcement agents. Republicans remain the law-and-order Party. And virtually every cop in America knows it
So, there ‘tis.