"Soft on Crime"

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And yet, here in the States Democrats absolutely do, letting career criminals out with no bail for serious felonies, while simultaneously trying to blame everything on the guns out of the other sides of their mouths. They're trapped by the progressive activists in their base who think they can magick crime away by redefining some words and invoking the proper incantations regarding systemic racism and such, while the cities they control turn into slums right in front of everyone. The political right in this country may be exploiting the situation, but their is definitely a situation and it's definitely attributable to the political left, it's not some mass hallucination. Don't get me wrong, I'm a huge criminal justice reform guy, but the way the left has gone about it is nuts, and it's turning people against the whole idea.

So how did it happen that Trump's Republican administration did the same thing?

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/dozens ... data-shows

Oh, you should have said that you don't understand US politics up front, that would have saved a lot of time.

I ask a question and you respond with nothing but a defamatory remark. If you think you understand it, why don't you try to explain it instead of taking a pop at me?

I think this is a slightly different thing.

Dox is talking about people released on bail with no collateral. This happens when they have been charged but not convicted.

Generally people accused of violent crimes or those deemed a flight risk will be held until trial, but policies vary from locale to locale. In most places, cash bail is required as a collateral, but no-cash bails have proven popular with progressive activists. I think the bail system is flawed but generally support incremental rather than radical reform.

That bipartisan bill signed by Trump seems to primarily be about adjusting when people become eligible for early release. There are some other ideas there that were progressive causes celebres about 15 years ago but are now pretty mainstream.

Aside from those differences, one important difference is that a large part of politics is about presentation. If you’re seen as the party of “heads over hearts” then you can do lots of “heart” things without earning much criticism, but if you do too many “head” things you will be called cold-hearted. Likewise if you are seen as the party of “hearts” then you can do a lot of “head” things without being called heartless, but do a few “heart” things and you’ll pretty quickly be called headless.

Thanks for your explanation.

Yes, I agree the bail issue is a slightly different thing, but I wouldn't have thought it safer to release convicted violent criminals early than it is to release people accused (but not convicted) of violent crime on bail with no collateral. And (sustainable) public safety is the main issue here for me.

I get the heads-hearts meme, which I think would make a fascinating intellectual discussion per se. I remember saying during a discussion with some "hippie types" IRL a long time ago, it's one thing to know what's fair, but it's another thing to know what's wise. It didn't go down well. Yours is an interesting insight about the way the main parties can get judged differently for the same policies.

To my mind it doesn't matter much whether a policy comes from the left or the right (unless I'm specifically evaluating political parties), but I'm not the public. I gather somebody once touted a petition which was essentially the American Constitution with its label removed, and in staunchly patriotic right-wing districts it was mostly met with contempt, a typical response being "I'm not signing that commie crap." But maybe the story is a myth.

Narratives on the right involving crime focus almost entirely on the inner city, and almost entirely on people of color. They think crime never happens anywhere else, and is never perpetrated by white people, and when it does (including the majority of mass shootings that have happened over the years), no answer other than "thoughts and prayers"

On the other hand, some on the left think releasing violent criminals and eliminating bail is the only way to achieve racial justice.