As Republicans move on from a successful national convention, after nominating Donald Trump, the Democrats are closing in on their own convention in Philadelphia next week. Presumptive nominee Hillary Clinton faces no procedural obstacles to a coronation. But the Democrats face a noticeable lack of enthusiasm for their prospective standard-bearer, in a fashion perhaps not quite like the divisions within the GOP, but still carrying the potential for electoral damage down the road.
Hillary’s certainly not helping herself with the voters every candidate needs: middle-class, law-and-order, national-security voters, of all races and backgrounds. These voters acknowledge that cops can make mistakes or misbehave, and believe cops should be held accountable when they do. But they also support the police, believe in their function in society and in their fundamental goodness, and wholeheartedly embrace the axiom that “Blue lives matter.”
So Hillary stands out as weird and out of touch with mainstream voters, when she panders to an artificial constituency — an Astro-Turf movement pretending to be the only one that thinks black lives matter — by accusing the police of systemic racism, as she did in a speech to the NAACP. To make this accusation, LU contributor Jerome Woehrle notes, Hillary had to rely on a pile of false, already-disproven “data points.” That she would go out of her way to do it in the first place — instead of doing something constructive — speaks volumes about where, as they say, her “head is at.” It doesn’t say anything good.
Will this presidential election be the most important in American history?
Now the Philadelphia Fraternal Order of Police is calling her out for having a one-sided speaker line-up at the convention next week. The Philly cops are disgusted that the convention schedule includes the family members of people shot by police, but no family members of police killed by perps in the line of duty.
On the start date of 25 July 2016, the DNC could solicit from among the family members of at least eight police officers who were literally assassinated in the name of bloodthirsty political radicalism, just in the last month. Every one of those police officers was on duty protecting the public at the time he was killed. But if their emotional wounds are too fresh, Democratic planners could look for families affected by earlier cop killings by ambush attackers.
This is all sitting poorly with the FOP:
“The Fraternal Order of Police is insulted, and will not soon forget, that the Democratic Party and Hillary Clinton are excluding the widows, and other family members of Police Officers killed in the line of duty who were victims of explicit, and not implied racism, and ‘being on duty in blue,'” a spokesperson for the FOP wrote. “It is sad that to win an election Mrs. Clinton must pander to the interests of people who do not know all the facts, while the men and women they seek to destroy are outside protecting the political institutions of this country. Mrs. Clinton you should be ashamed of yourself if that is possible.”
The police aren’t the only organization repelled by Hillary Clinton’s bad policy choices. John “Tig” Tiegen, one of the special forces operators in the Benghazi debacle in 2012, told The Daily Caller this week that special ops men are already leaving U.S. government service under Obama, and will probably accelerate their rush for the door if Hillary is elected.
He told The Daily Caller News Foundation that Clinton’s failure as secretary of state during the Benghazi attack has caused many of the nation’s most elite special operations forces to quit their jobs — a problem that will only get worse if Clinton is elected.
“There’s guys leaving now just because of that,” Tiegen told TheDCNF in an exclusive Facebook Live video interview Tuesday. “’Cause they don’t know if the call for help is going to be heard.”
In a world increasingly dangerous and unstable, these guys don’t have to worry about finding jobs in civilian security. This is a prophecy they’re likely to validate.
Just as the police react to being politically indicted by cynical politicians, without proof or a fair hearing, by protecting themselves first. Those same politicians are the ones fanning the flames of radicalism. When they blame the police — husbands, wives, mothers, fathers — for making it a priority to stay alive in an increasingly dangerous job, they just goad a downward spiral in public sentiment and dialogue.
That’s what Obama has been doing for seven and a half years now: goading that downward spiral. Electing Hillary means signing up for four more years of the same.
