Say you want a Marxist revolution? BLM steps up
Black Lives Matter has the country’s attention. Now it’s giving us some ideas to debate and discuss. And America — are you gonna love ‘em!
Hey, who doesn’t support completely shutting down the Drug Enforcement Agency and eliminating ICE?
And ending all life sentences for convicted criminals, no matter how heinous their crimes? Aren’t we all looking forward to the day Dzhokhar Tsarnaev and the BTK Killer are back on the streets?
Then there’s that oldie but goodie — reparations. Only now BLM is doubling down: not just a commission to implement race-based reparations, but tax-funded payments to convicted drug dealers and prostitutes, plus illegal immigrants busted at the border, as well.
All these policy proposals and more can be found in the BREATHE Act, developed in cooperation with Black Lives Matter and introduced this week by Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) and Massachusetts Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley.
“Right now the streets are swelling with demands for a new future and a new policy mandate,” says BLM cofounder Patrisse Cullors.”The Movement for Black Lives has responded with a vision that reflects these demands on a federal level. Our movement is strong, and we’re inviting our nation’s leaders to join us in making this vision a reality.”
Cullors, last seen on video calling herself and her fellow BLM organizers “trained Marxists,” apparently expects Democrats like Pressley — and presumably Nancy Pelosi and Joe Biden — to back these policies. And Pressley, whose supporters would re-elect her if she proposed a sister city on Mars, probably will.
But for any #DefundThePolice Democrats out there who think abolishing ankle bracket monitors and emptying out prisons is a platform your party’s going to run on, here are a few numbers for your consideration:
Number of Americans who support abolishing ICE: 24%.
Number of Americans who support defunding the police: 31%.
Number of Americans who support reparations: 20%.
Yes, it’s true that a June AP-NORC survey came with the headline “New poll shows 94% of Americans back criminal justice reform.” But check the data: Just 29% support a “complete overhaul” like that proposed by BLM.
Just a reminder, Massachusetts progressives: In a democracy, any number below 50% is bad.
It could be the case that President Trump is so unpopular this November that Joe Biden can embrace the “No Cops, No ICE, No Problem!” platform and still win in a landslide.
But it’s also possible that the rise in violent crime that began around the first of the year and accelerated after the George Floyd protests puts Americans in more of a “crackdown on crime” than a “release the prisoners” mood. Shootings in Boston are already up almost 27% this year.
Care to guess which way Joe Biden is likely to bet? He’s going to (Democratic) Party like it’s 1994, baby!
(That’s the year he helped push through his infamous “Crime Bill.”)
And if BLM manages to break the criminal justice system, that’s not an end to the agenda.
“As long as our economy and political systems prioritize profit without considering who is profiting, who is being shut out, we will perpetuate this inequality,” says Rep. Ilhan Omar, a fellow ‘Squad’ member with Pressley and Tlaib. “We cannot stop at the criminal justice system. We must begin the work of dismantling the whole system of oppression wherever we find it.”
So once we empty the prisons and defund the cops, progressives say, we can move on to destroying your property rights and killing your jobs!
I don’t know about you, Massachusetts, but I smell a landslide!