I’ve noticed a particular phenomenon over my years of observing American politics.
Republicans are so powerful, they are responsible for things that happen in locales where none of them are present, much less in elected office.
Like in Minneapolis.
Watching the news, on ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, MSNBC, and reading newspaper headlines, one would think that Donald Trump personally ordered Derek Chauvin to kneel on George Floyd’s neck.
And in the last few days, I’ve come across numerous Tweets, blog comments, blog posts and articles by earnest progressives (including some who claimed to be in Minneapolis or St. Paul) promising that they’ll be turning out to Vote Blue in November so what happened to George Floyd will never happen again.
Apparently, George Floyd’s death was a result of Republicans being in power in Minneapolis. Which was … interesting.
I mean, let’s take a look at the political situation in Minneapolis;
– Democrat Governor
– Democrat Attorney General
– Democrat County Executive
– Democrat County Prosecutor
– Democrat Mayor
– 2 Democrat US Senators
– Democrat US Representative
– Democrat State Senator
– Democrat State Representative
– 100% Democrat City Council
– Democrat Police Chief
Yet the media places 100% of the blame for George Floyd’s death and the collapse of public order in Minneapolis on Donald Trump.
Trump also gets the blame for the rioting and violence in NYC, Chicago, Portland and Los Angeles – despite a similar political situation; everyone with any political power or influence for miles at every division of government is a Democrat.
And it’s not because it’s Donald Trump, it’s because he’s the “nearest Republican” with any form of authority over the city, county or state.
But even the authority part is not necessary.
A few years ago, I read an article that ultimately placed the blame for Chicago’s gun crime on *Wisconsin* Governor Scott Walker. One justification given then was that he, the Governor of a *different state*, had done nothing “to help” Chicago deal with the problem.
At no point was there any responsibility assigned to the President, then Chicago’s own Barack Obama, or Illinois Governor Pat Quinn. Because both are Democrats.
Prior to that, George W. Bush got the lion’s share of the blame for both New Orleans’ failure to prepare for Hurricane Katrina and the failure to issue an evacuation order for the southern part of the state.
Not to be outdone, Mayor Lori Lightfoot last year, to much media applause, blamed Republicans *in Texas* for Chicago’s epidemic of mass shootings.
Today, Andrew Cuomo, Gretchen Whitmer, Phil Murphy and Tom Wolf are in the process of escaping any serious critical scrutiny of their decisions to force nursing homes in their states to accept COVID-19 infected patients into their facilities.
Being members of the party favored by establishment journalism, Democrat politicians have become so used to being allowed to escape responsibility for their failures and even receiving assistance from journalistic allies in shifting the blame to their partisan political foes that they fear no consequences for decisions that literally cost thousands of lives.
They simply “blame the nearest Republican.”
