Posted on 02/26/2025 6:49:14 PM PST by simpson96
When Eric Johnson made headlines last September for leaving the Democratic Party for the Republican Party, I sent him a text asking if he’d talk. Johnson, a Dallas native who served six terms in the Texas House before first getting elected mayor, in 2019, didn’t put me on his calendar then, and he later explained that he preferred to speak to national media rather than local and statewide outlets. But when I contacted him again this spring, he was eager to talk—and he didn’t hold back.
(snip)
TM: Last year you announced that you were switching your party affiliation from Democrat to Republican. I know you’ve talked about this a lot already, but for our readers’ sake, give me an executive summary of your motivations.
EJ: The Democratic Party today is not the same party it was when I joined it thirty years ago—it has ticked considerably to the left, while I have moved to the right. So, we moved in opposite directions, but I think the party has moved faster and farther than I have. There was a time when you could be a conservative Democrat, and I fancied myself one of them. But that faction of the party is gone.
The Democratic Party now ranges from true European-style socialist to liberal. That’s it. That’s the range now. There are no more Democrats who want to fully fund police departments or who want to always lower your taxes. They’ve adopted ideas that are very pro-offender and indifferent to or hostile toward victims of crime. During the defund-the-police, post–George Floyd era, I learned that the real heart of the Democratic Party is with the criminals and that it feels more sympathy toward the offenders. The Democratic Party does not take public safety seriously. Eventually I just said, “enough,” and realized I couldn’t be part of that. I can’t look my own kids in the eye as their father, who withstood protestors at our house, and say that I went with what the protestors wanted and defunded the police. I just couldn’t do that. So, I joined the party that’s right on public safety. That’s the most important issue to me, both as the mayor and as a father.
TM: I don’t know if that’s a completely fair characterization of the Democratic Party, especially considering its standard-bearer, Joe Biden, has long opposed calls to defund the police. Other large municipalities, too, like New York City (Eric Adams) and San Francisco (London Breed), have Democratic pro–law enforcement mayors. Do you think you’re painting Democrats’ law enforcement policies with too broad a brush?
EJ: Not really, no. You have to pay attention to what these lawmakers and Democratic mayors actually do while in office. They all know how to campaign on a law-and-order platform when they get polling showing that their voters want to live in a safe city. The problem is that the residents of these cities want a conservative-minded mayor on the issue of public safety, but they don’t often get one. Look at the largest cities in the country, most of which are run by Democrats. They will campaign on a law-and-order platform, but once they get into office, they don’t do much when it comes to criminal justice reform. There’s a general attitude that law enforcement is the problem.
If you listen to these people talk between elections, they’ll say things that cater to the activists and the liberal wing of the Democratic Party. Then, when elections come around, and they see that crime in their city has reached levels where the voters are now ready to do something at the ballot box, they change their tune. That’s London Breed, for sure. Breed was never a pro–law enforcement or pro–public safety mayor until she started to feel electoral heat. The Democratic Party does not care about victims or supporting law enforcement. The party is, in a lot of ways, on the side of the perpetrators, and I just don’t believe in that and am not going to pretend like I do.
Communist doctrine is that criminals are victims and proto-revolutionaries.
Headline in The Daily Mail , July 12, 2020.
AOC defends rise in NYC crime saying people are ‘stealing bread to feed their children during record unemployment’ despite weeks of bloodshed and 130% surge in shootings.
AOC on increased NYC crime: “Maybe this has to do with the fact that people aren’t paying their rent & are scared to pay their rent & so they go out & they need to feed their child & they don’t have money so... they feel like they either need to shoplift some bread or go hungry.”
Classic Communist theory.
As with most communist theory, it confuses cause and effect.
Most crime in the USA is not caused by poverty. Much of the poverty in the USA is caused by crime.
Good for him.
Which shows how bleeped up Marxism is.
Fixed it for them.
Thank You for posting this article. Interesting read.
“The Democratic Party today is not the same party it was when I joined it thirty years ago”
Yes it was. There just wasn’t the media resources we have now to expose them.
The Democrats are the party of lawlessness.
ping
A party of the Criminals, for the Criminals and by the Criminals.
AOC has been studying “Word Salad” speechifying at the knee of whatshername The Hoe!
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