Black Lives Matter is the Kate Steinle of 2020

OPINION:

Read the tea leaves. Test the political winds. Smell the smoke of Molotov cocktails in the air. President Donald Trump is on a sure and steady path to win reelection. Why? Two words: Kate. Steinle.

The lawlessness that marked the era of Kate Steinle is a precursor to the lawlessness marking the era of Black Lives Matter. Look back and remember.

In 2015, Kate Steinle, 32, was shot and killed in San Francisco by an illegal immigrant with several previous deportations to his name. Shortly after, Donald Trump told NBC News her shooting underscored the need for America to build a border wall.

And he did what he always did and now still does: He took to Twitter to express his frustration with the political status quo.

“[This] senseless and totally preventable act of violence,” Trump said in July 2015, “[was] yet another example of why we must secure our border. Nobody else has the guts to even talk about it. The American people deserve a wall.”

The message resonated.

The American people were sick and tired of the open border years of Barack Obama.

The American public was frustrated — fed up, really — with political leaders of both parties who wanted to talk, talk, talk about reforming an immigration system that didn’t so much need reform as it did enforcement. As Washington huddled, as Washington elitists pointed reproachfully at U.S. citizens for failing to see the godly grace and humanity in the likes of MS-13 gang members — as innocent Americans suffered one drunken driving wreck and fatality after another, one shooting, stabbing and killing after another, from the likes of those who shouldn’t have been in the country in the first place — Trump seized the moment and offered solutions. He emerged the common sense guy among a field of nattering, chattering overly political classes.

Number one on his list of solutions to stop the crimes of illegal immigrants?

To enforce the laws of this country and put a stop to the flow of illegal immigration. Simple. Easy to understand. Easy to grasp.

Law, meet order.

Steinle, during the 2016 campaign season, became a face of all that was wrong under the Obama administration, all that was wrong with Democrats and Republican-In-Name-Only Republicans, all that was killing America — and conversely, a face of all that Trump promised to rectify, all that Trump vowed to change, all that Trump, if given the chance, would ensure would never happen again.

He was the law and order candidate in a time of rash unlawful, disorderly Democratic Party open border madness.

It’s the same-same in campaign 2020.

Democratic leaders are standing idly by, quietly by, even in some cases gleefully by, as Antifa types, Black Lives Matter activists and thugs bent on upsetting the Constitution and the entire U.S. government take to the streets with bricks and guns, brandishing their arms while demanding White people leave their once-upon-a-time Black-dominated communities, or standing outside the Los Angeles hospital where two shot police officers were receiving treatment, and shouting “We hope they die.”

These are the people Democrats have “embraced.” The party seized hold of BLM social and racial justice agendas at its August convention; as The Washington Post wrote in a headline, “Democrats embrace Black Lives Matter.” So, too, Vox: “Democrats are embracing Black Lives Matter.” Meanwhile, states and communities with Democrats in leadership roles have seen violent overthrows of their daily norms. Think Seattle. Think Kenosha.

Enter Team Trump. They’re the adults in the room.

“I am your president of law and order,” Trump said in June, as CBS News reported.

And here’s the surefire clue the law and order message is hitting home with the American people: Mainstreamers in the media have bent over backwards in recent days to show that it hasn’t.

“Trump’s law and order message falls flat in Wisconsin,” Politico reported just a few days ago.

“Biden leads Trump on law and order, coronavirus: poll,” The Hill wrote, just a few days ago.

“Trump’s Law And Order Message Isn’t Resonating With Most Americans,” FiveThirtyEight wrote, also a few days ago.

Yep. It’s just like 2015-2016. Trump is calling for law and order during a time of widespread unlawfulness and mayhem; pundits, polls and elitists are pooh-poohing his messaging, even mocking his messaging. And meanwhile, the unlawfulness and disorderliness continues. And meanwhile, the regular Americans suffer.

It’s indisputable: Law and order-loving citizens long for an end to the madness. Democrats aren’t going to do it; Democratic presidential rival Joe Biden hasn’t the strength or even political will to do it; the far left has corrupted the Democratic Party and seeped its Marxist talons deep. Trump can easily swoop with a solution.

Black Lives Matter is the Kate Steinle of Trump’s 2020 campaign. Trump is on a sure and steady path for another White House win.

• Cheryl Chumley can be reached at cchumley@washingtontimes.com or on Twitter, @ckchumley. Listen to her podcast “Bold and Blunt” by clicking HERE. And never miss her column; subscribe to her newsletter by clicking HERE.