OPINION:
It is only June.
But already this year, President Trump has endured an impeachment trial, a global pandemic, an economic collapse and, now, unchecked rioting in the streets.
Standing amid the smolder of firebombed police stations and the rubble of looted stores, what is the best solution Democrats have to offer? They want to “defund” police departments across the country.
Because, after all, nothing unites American voters like firing all the police. Especially as they watch endless scenes of bedlam, arson and violence in the streets on the nightly news.
How, you might ask, will this solve any of our problems?
Will shuttering police departments finally get Mr. Trump impeached? Will it make him go away? Certainly not. (Though proposing to just might get him re-elected.)
What will it do to stem the global pandemic? I mean, who would there be to chase people down the beach for violating quarantine rules? Maybe we could deputize a battalion of officious, annoying white women named Karen to handle those duties for us.
Will “defunding” the police bring back the economy? Trust me, governments of every political party will find other ways to throw your tax dollars away.
And, finally, what will it do to end the rioting and looting in the streets? That’s easy. It will supercharge the mayhem.
Sadly, nobody would pay a more grievous price for this lunacy than the very black lives that Democrats claim matter so much. The record could not be clearer that when cops retreat from major population centers, crime, violence and murders go up.
Democratic politicians know this. They simply do not care. “Black lives” don’t matter to them nearly as much as “getting reelected” does.
So, what might be the silver bullet that slays all our problems here?
At the White House this week, radio host Raynard Jackson had an idea as he surveyed the assembled media.
“I wish they would quit lying about what you’ve done, specifically for the black community,” he told Mr. Trump.
Dishonest, left-wing “journalists,” he said, “are putting more poison into the black community than any drug dealer — who are killing more black folks than any white person with a sheet over their face.”
In other words, defund the media.
The political press went bonkers this week when Mr. Trump dispatched a Twitter message this week about an agitator in New York who fell to the ground after threateningly taunting riot police who had been ordered to clear a street. They accused Mr. Trump of peddling a “conspiracy theory.”
Well, at least they are experts on conspiracy theories.
Four years of crazy conspiracy theories about Russia shamelessly peddled by the press in Washington is how we ended up with Mr. Trump’s impeachment trial in the first place. He was, of course, completely exonerated.
The media’s performance during the pandemic has been no better.
It goes without saying, Mr. Trump has been blamed at every turn for the pandemic. Either he is a racist “xenophobic” doing too much to thwart the Communist Chinese plague or he is not doing enough. Apparently, if his name were “Cuomo,” he could do no wrong in the eyes of the media. But that is another story.
When Mr. Trump heralded the discovery that the common drug hydroxychloroquine could be used to treat early stages of Covid-19, he was roundly excoriated in the media for hyping witch-doctor cures. He was accused of killing people. News readers warned citizens not to take the president’s advice — yes, during a global crisis.
Mr. Trump was pilloried as a kook when he volunteered — under his doctor’s supervision — to take the drug himself to ward off the Wuhan virus.
After much back and forth, medical experts now agree that, indeed, it appears that hydroxychloroquine is effective in the early stages of the virus that has reportedly killed over 100,000 Americans to date.
So, who should Americans be ignoring during these deeply troubling times? The press or the president?
I say, “Defund the media!”
• Charles Hurt is opinion editor of The Washington Times. He can be reached at churt@washingtontimes.com or @charleshurt on Twitter.
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