That’s what Bill McGurn and some others think as Progressive-Democrat-run cities suffer increasing rioting and looting and chaos while those same Progressive-Democrat mayors increasingly vociferously object to Federal law enforcement personnel presence and actions.
Opening with
Because President Trump believes such [foreign] concerns aren’t America’s business, he has been reluctant to involve US troops abroad. So it’s surprising that he now appears eager to intervene in the mostly Democratic-run American cities that have been wracked by chaos, shootings and destruction in the weeks since George Floyd’s death at the hands of Minneapolis police.
Then, near his close:
There’s no doubt the president has both the responsibility and the authority to protect federal property, which is what DHS is doing in Portland. But Mr Trump would do well to narrow his rhetoric to make clear any federal intervention will be for this purpose and this purpose only—unless cities specifically ask for federal assistance.
Let the cities burn. Let the innocent burn in them alongside the thugs. Don’t exercise any initiative.
Trump may not be responsible for the welfare and safety of a metaphorical 25 million Iraqis (as Colin Powell once suggested to President Bush the Younger), but he is responsible for the welfare and safety of 330 million Americans—all of us.
That includes the innocents whose lives are being destroyed and businesses razed—literally and through denial of access to customers—by rioters and looters in cities where Progressive-Democrat mayors, with the full backing of their Progressive-Democrat governors, have abrogated their responsibilities for the welfare and safety of the residents of those cities, the citizens of those States.
It might, in the short term, feel good to let the cities burn freely without Federal intervention, but it would also burn millions of innocent Americans, all to make a political point—which is what those mayors and governors are doing, to make a political point.
Then McGurn had this bit of excuse-making—it’s all the cities’ residents’ fault.
It’s difficult to argue that these leaders have done so without the consent of the governed. Whether it was Bill de Blasio running against the police in New York or Jenny Durkan offering her own progressive agenda in Seattle, they didn’t hide from voters what they stood for.
Those leaders were not elected unanimously, however. A significant minority voted against them or for the opposing candidates. We must protect the minority from the tyranny of the majority—that’s the basis of our federal republic structure of governance.
McGurn closed with this:
The chaos now consuming American cities has arisen on the watch of progressive politicians just like Mayor Wheeler, and they don’t deserve to be so easily let off the hook.
But the innocents don’t deserve to be hung on that hook along with the cities’ governing politician failures.
The misapprehension is widespread on the left, too. In response to a comment on McGurn’s article warning of the tyranny of the majority, one commenter asked, “[T]yranny of the majority? So who gets to rule?”
The answer would be obvious to anyone who’s actually had a jr high Civics class. No one gets to rule in the United States of America. Governing, though, is done by the majority—within the framework of respect for and protection of the wishes and rights of the minority.
Trump just needs to make the case directly to the people—around the nation and especially in those Progressive-Democrat-forsaken cities—bypassing the NLMSM gateway/filter/censor.
Update: Left out a couple key words that changed the meaning of my comment on McGurn’s excuse-making. Now corrected.
