DEMS PANIC ON CRIME – 11:41 P.M. ET:  The Democratic Party seems finally to be "woke" in a different direction, recognizing what crazy crime policies are doing to its chances in upcoming elections.  From Michael Goodwin at Fox: 

Breaking news alert: National Democrats are suddenly worried about the rise of violent crime. We know this because they’re blaming the bloodshed on Republicans.

The previous strategy, meaning before Monday, was a mix of denial and excuse-making, but it wasn’t working. How could it when thousands of people are getting shot and murdered, mostly in cities run by Democrats?

Something had to give, and White House press secretary Jen Psaki tipped the new strategy when she concocted the notion that it’s Republicans who actually support defunding the police. Her fatuous attempt to flip reality on its head relied on GOP resistance to another multitrillion-dollar Biden administration boondoggle. A boondoggle, by the way, that has nothing to do with police or crime.

Nonetheless, desperate times call for desperate measures and so Psaki was making like Lady Macbeth in trying to wipe the blood off Dems’ hands.

The effort won’t wash, but the attempt is telling. Polling everywhere reflects growing public angst, but my guess is the lightning-bolt moment came with the first-place finish of Eric Adams in the first round of New York’s Democratic mayoral primary.

Adams, a retired NYPD captain and the Brooklyn borough president, was the lone candidate to make combating crime his top issue, as did voters. It’s a beautiful thing when politics works like it’s supposed to.

The other seven Dems acted like the Seven Dwarfs in not pivoting to the issue even as the body count climbed, with children and tourists among the casualties. The others continued to parrot the left’s talking points about climate change, systemic racism and free everything for everybody except the wealthy, who must finally pay their fair share. Blah, blah, blah.

We can only imagine the way Adams’s victory was received in Dems’ back rooms: Holy s–t, did you see what just happened in New York? Quick, say something!

So the party that featured police haters and people who see racism behind every badge last year is suddenly sweating bullets. That’s how fast the momentum is shifting.

Give Adams credit – he understood immediately what was happening. On election night, he crowed that "I am the face of the Democratic Party" and warned that if leaders fail "to recognize what we did here in New York City, they’re going to have a problem in the midterm elections and they’re going to have a problem in the presidential election."

His argument cuts to the core of voting blocs. Blue cities and states are blue primarily because blacks and Latinos vote overwhelmingly for Dems.

Yet here, those same voters chose Adams in big numbers and cited growing crime in their neighborhoods as the reason. They don’t want less policing – they want more and better policing.

Brima Sylla, a teacher and general secretary of the African Community Alliance of Staten Island, gave The Post her view of Adams: "He’s not there to defund the police. He’s there because he was part of the police system … He knows how to structure it in a better way."

COMMENT:  All true, but the hard left of the party shows no sign of compromising its ideology.  While it doesn't yet have a majority of Democrats nationwide, it has enough clout to make the difference in close primaries. 

Ideologists would rather lose and disrupt the society than win and improve it.

July 5, 2021