Americans will not tolerate the mob rule mentality

OPINION:

Cynical politicians have always counseled to “never waste a good crisis.” The corollary to that is that crises have short shelf lives.

The restrictions imposed by the COVID-19 crisis became oppressive enough that — after several months — a collective resistance developed both on the right and left, and authorities began to realize that they were losing the moral imperative that they had in March and early April. The progressive-driven hysteria following the George Floyd killings will pass as well.

In those areas of Minneapolis and Seattle that have declared autonomous zones and police-free areas citizens will quickly find that militia and warlord rule in places where governance have broken down is not sustainable and will soon demand a return to some form of civil order.

I’ve operated in places such as Somalia and Lebanon where militia and warlord rule has replaced formal governance, and Americans will not tolerate it for long. Organizations such as the John Brown gun club in Seattle and the self-organized civilian policing groups in Minneapolis are not substitutes for professional policing.

Militias and warlords need funds to operate. They resort to protection rackets, tolls at roadblocks to collect funds. They also fight among themselves for control of turf. Americans will not tolerate that kind of anarchy for long and the police defunding and disbandment movements will collapse under their own weight even in radically progressive places like Minneapolis and Seattle. The president does not need to send in troops.

The absurdity of mob rule will undermine itself quickly. Seattle’s Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone already has a self-proclaimed warlord, and there was quickly a desperate plea for vegan food as the mob has consumed everything.

It would be interesting to see what the opinion of the considerable Minneapolis Somali immigrant community will be to the idea of having militias replace professional police in their community. Presumably, most of that population left Somalia to get away from militias. It would seem ironic that they may facing the same situation here in the United States.

There will be urban police reform, but not before it badly undermines the morale of the hundreds of thousands of good cops who keep this nation running. Unfortunately, what the new police reform will not solve is the death rate among young black males. Last year, about half of the Americans shot by police were blacks, mostly young males. The number was approximately 500 of the 1,000 police-related shootings.

African Americans — who make up less than 20 percent of the population — represent half of the shooting deaths at police hands. That is far too high, and admittedly should be addressed. However, that figure is dwarfed by the number of African-Americans killed by other African-Americans.

In 2018, 2,600 of the 2,925 black homicides were at the hands of other blacks; and a vast majority of the victims and the assailants were young African-American males. No amount of volunteer community policing will change that fact. That is an inconvenient truth that the Black Lives Matter movement conveniently ignores.

Since at least the time of the Roman Empire, the people who have managed large urban areas have realized that they needed a constabulary force to maintain order that was less heavy-handed than the army and more familiar with culture of a city’s population.

When they work well, police forces blend into the fabric of the urban landscape. Police reform has been an ongoing part of metropolitan life for ages. Most American cities have tried hard for decades to get their police organizations to more resemble the community, but you cannot draft people onto police forces.

The irony of the debate over police reform is that many of the urban inner cities where police relations with minority communities are the worst have been run by Democrats for years who have supported police unions that have systematically made it near impossible to get ride of bad cops like Derek Chauvin in Minneapolis. Mr. Chauvin had multiple misconduct allegations but remained on the force due to union protection. That is a problem that needs addressing.

The current wave of anti-cop mania will abate as we move onto other issues. Responsible politicians will realize that it is bad public policy to systematically undermine and demoralize those wearing badges who stand between us and the worst angels of human nature. We Americans need to stand up and support the thin blue line against radical media progressives, the Hollywood elite and overpaid — but undereducated — athletes who would break it.

• Gary Anderson is a retired Marine Corps colonel who served as a U.N. observer in Lebanon and as a military adviser to the State Department in Mogadishu. He also served as a civilian adviser in Iraq and Afghanistan.