Assigning blame (or responsibility) for any widespread social movement is always tricky; there’s rarely one person, or even one group of people, solely answerable for the actions of many.
But if you want someone to hold accountable for the wave of anti-cop sentiment that has been embroiling America in recent months, you don’t have to look much further than the White House.
Even before President Barack Obama made his disgusting attack against law enforcement officers Sunday, the connection between his presidency and the violence had started to become clear. Sunday’s comment, however, certainly cemented it.
“There are legitimate issues that have been raised, and there’s data and evidence to back up the concerns that are being expressed by these protesters,” Obama said in response to a question about the killings of five Dallas police officers on July 7.
Typical of his rhetoric, the president failed to reveal any of the “data and evidence” upon which he based the assumption that led him to this conclusion — a conclusion that is inevitably going to lead to more police deaths over time.
“And if police organizations and departments acknowledge that there’s a problem and there’s an issue, then that, too, is going to contribute to real solutions,” he added. “And, as I said yesterday, that is what’s going to ultimately help make the job of being a cop a lot safer. It is in the interest of police officers that their communities trust them and that the kind of rancor and suspicion that exists right now is alleviated.”
In other words, it’s up to the cops to engage in introspection and fix their own institutional racism — or whatever it is that Obama meant by “there’s a problem and there’s an issue” — if they want to end the violence.
And what he really meant was, “This won’t get better until everyone agrees with me.”
You can watch his comments for yourself here, courtesy of MRC, if the thought of listening to the leader of the free world compare these anti-cop protests to the abolitionist and women’s sufferance movements won’t turn your stomach:
Why are these remarks going to lead to more violence? Because that’s what happens when leaders take sides in conflicts among their own people.
Interestingly, in addition to using civil rights and environmentalist protesters as points of comparison, Obama also mentioned those Americans who protested the Vietnam War as similar to the current anti-police demonstrators, indicating that he remembers or has studied some of that history from the late 60s and early 70s.
Apparently, however, he has failed to learn from that important example.
Former Democrat adviser and strategist Dick Morris, even before Obama made these comments on Sunday, had compared Obama’s actions to those of President Richard Nixon in the 1960s that led eventually to what became known as the Kent State Massacre in May of 1970.
At the time, Nixon — another commander in chief who always thought he knew what was best — spoke publicly against the growing sentiment in the country against America’s involvement in Vietnam.
Note here that the point is not whether or not we were right to send the American military into Southeast Asia — the point is that Americans were in serious disagreement about an important issue, and the president, rather than trying to unite the factions, took a side.
As a result, a movement against the anti-war protesters grew, and both sides became not less violent, but more so. Americans turned on other Americans until each side distrusted the other so much that bloodshed became all but inevitable.
Eventually, in 1970, Ohio National Guard troops killed four Americans, two of whom were innocent bystanders who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. One of those two was, in fact, an ROTC student and might have joined their ranks someday.
The president’s job in times of civil unrest — in all times, really — is to find common ground among all the factions and bring the American people together on that. Then, and only then, can Americans of good will who disagree about important issues engage in a productive dialogue about those issues.
While he did eventually acknowledge in his comments that the “vast majority of police officers are doing a really good job,” those should have been some of the first words out of his mouth.
Even better, he could have started with something like: “All Americans want to feel safe in their own homes, in their jobs, and on the streets — and that includes both our citizens and the men and women of every race and ethnicity who make up America’s law enforcement community.”
Who could disagree with that? That’s a place where everyone can meet. In fact, anyone who disagrees with that — believing either that police have the right to make American citizens unsafe or that they have no right to safety themselves — isn’t likely to be a productive participant in any useful resolution of the unrest anyway.
But those who fail to understand history are doomed to repeat it, and Obama, while he’s apparently aware of historical facts, apparently cannot grasp their significance for our troubled times.
George Upper is the managing editor of Conservative Tribune. His weekly column, “The Upper Cut,” appears each Tuesday morning. In addition to sharing it on social media, you can also connect with him on Facebook or on Twitter @georgeupper.
http://conservativetribune.com/the-upper-cut-obamas-cop-killer/