The Kyle Rittenhouse trial has certainly shined a blinding spotlight on the extent of liberal media malpractice. But it’s also important to remember that the Democrats on whose behalf the media often operates are helping to drive this liberal media malpractice.
Glenn Greenwald is thinking about that today:
Democrats Are Profoundly Committed to Criminal Justice Reform — For Everyone But Their Enemieshttps://t.co/nJcm6n4Wgj
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) November 11, 2021
But after this 2020 protest movement, all of that changed. That radical reform was needed to both policing and the criminal justice system — to make the “carceral state” far less punitive and sprawling — became the mainstream view, practically the obligatory view, in Democratic Party politics. One of the most centrist corporatists in the House Democratic Caucus is the former corporate lawyer Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY), the fourth-ranking member of House Democratic leadership and one of the leading candidates, if not the leading one, to replace Nancy Pelosi when she finally abandons her position as House Democratic leader. Despite his careful centrist image, Jeffries, in mid-2020, began advocating slogans which, just months earlier, had been confined to more radical precincts of academic and leftist activism.
Greenwald highlights this 2020 tweet from Democratic Rep. Hakeem Jeffries:
End. Mass. Incarceration.
Defund The Prison Industrial Complex.
— Hakeem Jeffries (@hakeemjeffries) June 29, 2020
Fast-forward to yesterday, and this is where Jeffries is currently at with regard to criminal justice reform:
Lock up Kyle Rittenhouse and throw away the key.
— Hakeem Jeffries (@hakeemjeffries) November 10, 2021
Quite a difference.
Principles of rehabilitative justice, reform of the carceral state and liberalized criminal justice evaporate when Democrats demand harsh prison for their political adversaries.
When it comes to their political enemies, they embrace the harshest possible law-and-order framework. pic.twitter.com/Ib3V2ljHly
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) November 11, 2021
This is why liberal politics was driven in the Trump era by reverence for George W. Bush's ex-FBI Director, who they literally sung and danced in homage, craving that he would come to lock up their political enemies for decades. They view political opposition as the worst crime.
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) November 11, 2021
Every time someone perceived by Democrats as having the wrong ideology faces the criminal justice system — Julian Assange, Russiagate defendants, non-violent 1/6 protesters, now Rittenhouse — the entire framework shifts, and the carceral state cannot be harsh enough.
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) November 11, 2021
It’s important to note that Julian Assange did some very bad things, but we take Greenwald’s point. When it comes to perceived political enemies, Dems are out for blood.
Yet a profound dilemma is visible from the momentum of this movement: a large bulk of liberal politics is driven by precisely the opposite impulses. The most loyal Democratic partisans are frequently venerating prosecutors, advocating for harsh criminal punishments, championing punitive theories of criminal law that have long been rejected by liberal jurists and, above all else, often demanding the longest and harshest punishments in “the carceral state” for a large group of people.
Why are so many Democrats simultaneously chanting radical criminal reform slogans to abolish or greatly reduce the police and the prison state while simultaneously demanding harsh prison terms for so many people under the classic law-and-order ideology they claim to oppose? The answer is clear: Democrats believe that the only real criminals, or at least the worst ones, are those who reject their political ideology and are their political adversaries. And thus, while they work with one hand to usher in radical reforms to the policing and prison state, they work with the other to concoct theories to justify the long-term imprisonment of their political opponents, even when their alleged crimes involve no violence.
Correct.
Scathing essay by @ggreenwald.
A true test of one’s principles is their ability to apply them to those they ideologically diverge from.
Democrats abandoned all notions of justice, equity, and due process because Rittenhouse is both white and a Trump-supporter. Shocker. https://t.co/lFFoUbEdkL
— Rav Arora (@Ravarora1) November 11, 2021
Democrats are all for justice, equity, and due process unless they don’t agree with your politics; in that case, they’re quite content to let you rot.
That is what happens to a movement that comes to view criminality – the worst criminality – as consisting not of violence against innocent people but ideological dissent and political heterodoxy against their party, its leaders, and their movement.https://t.co/nJcm6n4Wgj
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) November 11, 2021
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