Biden to DC home rule: "Drop dead."

Even as President Biden says he’s for home rule for Washington D.C., he is caving to Republicans - and some Democrats - on how to deal with crime and fear of urban crime.

Biden announced that he supports a provision initially pushed by congressional Republicans to block D.C.’s recent overhaul of its criminal code.

Biden’s decision to override it completely contradicts the goals of D.C. home rule and eventual statehood, in spite of the fact that the president claims to support it.

Biden also purports to support criminal justice reform.

But by opposing D.C.’s provision, he only strengthens those who are seizing on crime as a wedge issue and appeals to white fear.

I’m thinking of Chicago’s Paul Vallas, for example. In spite of advertising claims and in spite of all evidence to the contrary, Vallas is not running as an official Republican, but you can’t fool me.

Of course crime is real for folks in D.C. and Chicago. But the right-wing in both parties are using fear of crime in a racist appeal to white voters.

Vallas, who served as an “unpaid” consultant to the reactionary Chicago Fraternal of Police and it’s Trumper, pro-insurrectionist president John Catanzara, got nearly all his votes from white voters on the north west and south west sides of the city.

Biden’s cave to Republicans on blocking D.C.’s reform of their criminal code is a continuation of what some have called the Democrat’s history of opportunistic appeals to white voters.

A serious discussion of policing wouldn’t reduce it to simply an argument over having more or less cops.

Even where some studies show adding cops has the effect of reducing some crime, those same studies show the downside and the cost to Black and Brown communities.

The economists also find troubling evidence that suggests cities with the largest populations of Black people — like many of those in the South and Midwest — don't see the same policing benefits as the average cities in their study. Adding additional police officers in these cities doesn't seem to lower the homicide rate. Meanwhile, more police officers in these cities seems to result in even more arrests of Black people for low-level crimes. The authors believe it supports a narrative that "Black communities are simultaneously over and under-policed."