This op-ed by SPN Executive Vice President Tony Woodlief first published in The New York Post.
Last summer, several Minneapolis city council members joined Rep. Ilhan Omar at a rally where they vowed to “end policing as we know it.” A local newspaper noted ominously that these officials constituted a veto-proof majority of the city council. Change was in the air.
Four weeks ago, however, the incumbents heard from the thousands of Minneapolis voters who had not attended their anti-police rally. Change was in the air, all right — but not the change radicals were hoping for. When the dust settled, three incumbents were knocked off the council by challengers who promised to maintain or even increase law enforcement. A fourth won by only 93 votes against a newcomer.
The results in Minneapolis are what happens when the political class begins to believe its own press. Emboldened by rallies, donors and a fawning media, those incumbents genuinely believed their fellow citizens wanted to defund the police. It’s the same echo-chamber delusion that leads Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene to claim, “I speak what regular people say,” even as she tweets about a coming “Communist takeover of America.” The reality is that these firebrands on the left and right represent only small minorities of regular Americans.
Read the full article here.
