What the Philly Election Tells us about Democrats and the Crime issue
What does Tuesdays Mayoral primary election win by Cherelle Parker in Philadelphia reveal about how Democrats will talk about Crime?
What does Tuesdays Mayoral primary election win by Cherelle Parker in Philadelphia reveal about the mood of big cities regarding issues such as crime? And not just crime, but to a (far) lesser extent also such major urban issues as poverty, affordable housing, mental illness, guns, fentanyl addiction and inequality.
In the absence of a rogue asteroid annihilating the planet, former state representative and City Council member Cherelle Parker will be the next Mayor of Philadelphia. She will also be the first woman in that role. I can write this with confidence because registered Democrats outnumber Republicans in Philly by more than seven to one.
As it happens, the next Mayor’s origin story is also pretty compelling. Born to a single teenage mom and raised by her grandparents, Parker went to public schools, then was the first person in her family to go to college, ultimately earning a master's degree in Public Administration. Her mother died when she was 11, and she interned at her City Councilpersons office in high school. After graduating from college she was a teacher, then gravitated back to city politics in Philly. More, from The Philadelphia Citizen:
Parker has described her mission in government as “closing the gap between the haves and the have nots.” She says her priorities as mayor would be safety, jobs, and city services. After resigning from her post on Council, she registered as a lobbyist in Harrisburg.
During her campaign, Parker promised to hire 300 more police officers, including community officers, and restore stop-and-frisk. She also put forth the idea of making school year-round, and, like the other candidates, vowed to support small businesses along neighborhood corridors and increase affordable housing.
And while closing the inequality gap is an admirable goal for any Mayor, the restoration of stop and frisk is … problematic at best. Particularly for a Democrat. In NYC, stop-and-frisk was an unmitigated disaster. Young and brown men were disproportionally harassed by the police, including the writer of this newsletter. The “Terry Stops,” as they are called, are much debated and don’t need a warrant or probable cause if there is reasonable suspicion of criminal activity.
Crime as a wedge issue
Democrats are in a bit of a pickle. Republicans have been using the COVID crime uptick as a wedge issue in elections, particularly in big cities, to mixed but growing success. Vulnerable Wisconsin Senator Ron Johnson won wielding it in 2022. Big cities are hellscapes, statistics notwithstanding, goes their argument. You have to give the police every tool imaginable to deal with the Visigoths from invading Rome. “All the suburbs in New York are watching the 5 and 6 o’clock news on all the networks, they’re reading the tabloids, and they’re seeing these really high-profile incidents of someone getting pushed in front of a subway, a shooting, a stabbing, and there is somehow a fear that this could happen in their front yard,” Democratic consultant Mike Morey told Politico last year. Morey worked for former DCCC chair, Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney. Maloney was defeated in the midterms and Republican gains in New York ultimately cost Democrats the House of Representatives. So, there’s that.
Never mind the fact that GOP-led cities like Oklahoma City, Miami, Omaha, Fresno and Colorado Springs all had higher crime rates than NYC. Because, to be sure, math is too woke a discipline to bring up in a discussion of crime. We all, of course, know the GOP formula — pick off conservative Democrats in a majority-minority city (horror!), like Washington DC — and play to the anxieties of those voters by distorting crime statistics while adding sanguinary stories of mentally ill people slaughtering white and Asian-Americans people in the streets.
There will be blood!
Now, set up a black face — a Mayor or a DA, like Alvin Bragg — as the bogeyman. It’s almost too easy. Finally, add those “anxious” conservative Democrat votes to Republicans and you probably have a winning majority in any urban environment. Divide and conquer. Even allies like President Biden have occasionally fallen prey to these tactics tactic, trying to appear “tough on crime” and in the process getting it all very, very wrong. From Ja’han Jones of MSNBC:
Republicans have repeatedly tried to portray Washington, D.C., as a hellscape unworthy of self-governance. Biden, with a few pen strokes in March, effectively agreed when he overturned changes to the district’s criminal code and said some of its punishments weren’t harsh enough. But White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Thursday that Biden would veto the new legislation if it passes in the Senate.
"The president believes that building community trust is integral to fighting crime," she said during a news briefing. "While he does not support every provision in the D.C. policing bill, he will not support congressional Republicans’ efforts to overturn commonsense police reforms."
If an ally as stalwart as Biden could fall for this, what chance do conservative Democrats have in the onslaught of these tactics? Especially when the stories of zombie apocalypse are coming, in a warm speaking voice, from their favorite evening news anchor.
Philly and Crime
But back to Philly. Some data for context. Philadelphia is a city of 1.576 million (as of 2021). The racial disparities in the prisons of the alleged city of brotherly love are breathtaking. Despite a 47 percent decline in the prison system, Black Philadelphians make up 73% of the city's prison population. By contrast, white Philadelphia residents make up 8.5%. Further, the poverty rate among the state’s Black community remains at nearly 25 percent, according to the State of Black Pennsylvania 2010-2020 Report.
The decline in the prison system is largely due to the work of Philly’s wonderful District Attorney, Larry Krasner. Cities are often laboratories for experimental public policy. And Krasner, a former federal public defender before going into private practice as a civil rights and criminal defense attorney, has introduced the concept of social justice to the practice of prosecution. He won re-election comfortably.
So far this year, Philadelphia has had 154 homicide victims. Like most major cities, Philadelphia has seen an uptick in homicides since the onset of COVID. In 2021, a year into COVID, Philly saw a record high level of homicides, according to the Philadelphia Police Departments statistics. Year-to-date, homicides in Philadelphia are down 14% and the number of shooting victims is down 15%. That having been said, the mind’s eye has difficulty perceiving year-to-date differences in existential issues like safety. The fact that the urban landscape post-COVID has changed significantly is what the mind’s eye observes, darkly. And with a little prodding by Republican messaging, actual statistics are less compelling than fear-mongering from tabloids and from a trusted local news source, saturated with apocalyptic horror stories about urban Hieronymous Boschean horrors.
Crime, Beyond Philly
Sara Burnett and Brooke Schultz at the Associated Press do an amazing job at summing up the latest Democrat approaches to crime in big cities and comparing them to Parker’s rhetoric:
New York elected Mayor Eric Adams, a former police captain who vowed to invest more in public safety, and San Francisco voters recalled a progressive prosecutor amid frustration about public safety. In Chicago, progressive Brandon Johnson — who favored investing in areas like housing and youth jobs — topped a more moderate rival who had support from the police union. And progressive prosecutor Kim Foxx, who prioritized violent crimes over lower-level offenses and faced blowback for dropping charges against actor Jussie Smollett, said she will not seek reelection.
In Philadelphia, Parker was the only Black candidate among the top tier of hopefuls on Tuesday and she was backed by majority Black precincts across the city in both early and Election Day ballots. In addition to 300 more officers, her public safety plan also called for fixing broken streetlights, removing graffiti and investing in programs for at-risk youth.
Regarding New York City, the crime issue is front and center. The Murdoch press, of course, is stirring up racial resentments with the devil’s zeal. Daniel Penny, the white ex-marine who choked a black homeless man to death in a three-minute rear naked choke hold — also known as a “blood choke” — is being lauded as a hero. His funding page is at $2.6 million; the Wall Street Journal Opinion page is calling him “the Subway Samaritan.” Also, from The New York Post:
“Mr. Penny is a hero,” Kid Rock, whose real name is Robert James Ritchie, wrote on the site. “[Manhattan District Attorney] Alvin Bragg is a POS — Kid Rock.”
Classy! As always, great, hard-hitting investigative journalism coming from the paper of record, founded (really and truly) by Alexander Hamilton and a group of investors from the Federalist Party in 1801. $2.6 million is a staggering sum compared to, say, $10.97. That, dear reader, is the price of a six-inch roast beef Subway sandwich and a bottle of Dasani water.
Because that was all Jordan Neely was really asking.
Before he was choked to death.
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