'Woke' politicians won't stop crime

The poor Democrats trapped in the bloody and broken city of Chicago finally came to their senses.

In their primary election for mayor last week they gave the boot to their goofy and dangerously woke mayor, Lori Lightfoot.

Unfortunately, when Lightfoot leaves office, Los Angeles, where I live, will have the honor of having the worst mayor in the country – Karen Bass.

Elected only last fall, Bass has already proven she is just as clueless as Lightfoot when it comes to fighting crime and cleaning up a city.

For example, to get more cops to join the depleted ranks of the LAPD, she’s already lowered the physical and mental qualifications.

Now, to bring more diversity and equity to her police force, she wants to lower the standards again.

She apparently hasn’t heard yet what just happened when the Memphis police department lowered its recruiting standards and put diversity above quality – it wound up giving guns and badges to a bunch of thugs who beat a man to death.

Mayor Bass has also made the city’s cops mad at her by telling them they aren’t allowed to wear “Support the Blue” pins on their uniforms.

She’s also tried to get rid of officers she claims are associated “with right-wing domestic extremist organizations.”

Meanwhile, she and her woke administration have done nothing about the population of 69,000 homeless people, crazy people and drug people whose tents make whole blocks of downtown LA unwalkable, filthy and dangerous.

Bass also has done nothing to address the rising crime rate.

Homicides – which spiked to nearly 400 in both 2021 and 2022 because of the effects of COVID lockdowns – are still elevated.

And while violent crime was up only slightly in 2022, there’s been a recent jump in carjackings, car thefts and assaults to go along with the familiar smash-and grabs in malls and sidewalk assaults in Beverly Hills.

Adding to the problems of policing a city of 3.8 million, the police union has just come out with a list of 28 calls for service that it thinks would be handled better by cops or service providers who are not armed.

Their list of exclusions includes ending arguably dumb things like using armed police to respond to calls for parking violations and complaints about loud parties and noisy dogs.

But what will no longer get a response from an armed cop also includes calls for homeless encampment clean-ups, defecating/urinating in public and drinking or using drugs in public – which sounds like some ruined and unsafe neighborhoods are likely to remain.

On top of the problems caused by the city’s woke policies, liberal Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascon continues to make things worse.

His progressive ideas include not prosecuting some minor offenses like drug possession and a cashless bail policy that puts many arrested criminals back on the street right away .

Gascon survived two recall elections, but his woke agenda still seems more important to him than arresting criminals and making streets safer.

California is losing population for the first time in its history – and it’s not because of climate change.

It’s because of the woke ideas and policies being pushed by destructive politicians like Mayor Bass and D.A. Gascon.

Life is not going to make a turn for the better in California unless its voters wake up and do to Bass and Gascon what Chicago’s voters did Lori Lightfoot – give them the boot.

Michael Reagan is the president of The Reagan Legacy Foundation. Contact him at:

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