Those who have paid attention to American politics over the past decade are familiar with how political actors adhere to an oft-repeated maxim: Never let a good crisis go to waste.
Whenever a tragedy occurs, media figures and politicians tend to go straight into spin mode, using the disaster of the moment as an opportunity to advance an agenda and score cheap political points against their opposition. We have seen it happen time and time again.
However, in some cases, tragedy actually motivates people to put forth ideas and suggestions that could actually lead to a solution that prevents the tragedy from repeating itself. The key is being able to tell the difference between the two.
Let’s take the tragic death of Nex Benedict, a high school girl who identified as nonbinary. She died one day after a violent altercation with a group of fellow students at an Oklahoma high school last month.
About 10 seconds after her death was reported, progressives pounced on the opportunity to pretend her demise was due to transphobia and bigotry peddled by folks on the right. Chasten Buttigieg, husband of Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, slammed an Oklahoma superintendent and Chaya Raichik, who manages the Libs of TikTok social media account, appearing to blame them for Benedict’s untimely death.
Others like Buttigieg did the same even though initial reports suggested that the students did not kill Benedict. Now, it has been revealed that she took her own life. RedState’s Brad Slager covered the story:
Now, more specifics have been reported, and once again, a shift in the activist narrative is taking place. As many had suspected, the toxicology report just released showed Benedict died from an overdose of combined doses of Benadryl and Prozac, in what is ruled as a suicide.
The passing of a young person is always regarded as tragic, but that inherent misery becomes compounded when that death is transformed into a social and political cause. We see some of this emerging with the death of the Georgia co-ed Laken Riley; while the direct cause of death by an illegal is a valid concern, the broadening political points to be scored are trending to the unseemly. (An illegal who was released numerous times by authorities is the issue; making her into a campaign slogan is crossing the line.)
That last sentence is key. In fact, Laken Riley’s case provides a helpful illustration of what it looks like to respond to a horrible occurrence by putting forth ideas to prevent future such tragedies. While there could be some on the right, who are making Riley’s death a “campaign slogan,” the more common response among conservative leaders and officials is to highlight ways to prevent others like Riley from falling victim to violent illegal immigrants.
Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-GA) used Riley’s death to attack Republicans for suggesting that tighter immigration controls could have saved her life. During an appearance on CNN, he alleged that Republican lawmakers introducing legislation to curb illegal immigration were trying to score points against Democrats.
However, Republican lawmakers have introduced measures that would actually have a chance of fixing the problem at the southern border while safeguarding American citizens.
The first bill, introduced by Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC), would allow people to sue their state and local governments if they are harmed by illegal immigrants. The other would allow the Department of Homeland Security to issue detainer requests for illegals.
North Carolina Republican Sen. Thom Tillis will introduce two bills Tuesday aimed at holding sanctuary cities accountable for what he calls lax policies toward illegal immigration and refusal to cooperate with Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
The first bill, titled the Justice for Victims of Sanctuary Cities Act, would create a private right for victims of rape or other felonies and their family members to sue states and districts if they refuse to honor detainer requests from the Department of Homeland Security. In order to qualify for federal grants, local governments and states would have to give up their immunity against this legal action.
The second measure, known as the Immigration Detainer Enforcement Act, would give the DHS secretary, rather than the attorney general, the authority to issue detainer requests for illegal immigrants. It would further remove language dictating that an illegal immigrant must be considered at risk of escaping before a warrant can be issued in order for a detainer to be sought. The bill would also allow DHS to compensate local and state jurisdictions for claims against them due to their enforcement of ICE detainers.
Tillis touted the bill, arguing that “For too long, we have watched local jurisdictions in North Carolina and across the country ignore the lawful notification and detainer requests made by ICE agents.”
So, what is the difference between exploiting someone’s death for political purposes and using such tragedies as a way to solve problems?
It’s not hard to tell.
Those who respond to a crisis mainly by using it to portray their political opposition as evil are clearly not concerned with solutions. They seek to improve their political positions by taking shots at those with whom they disagree. We see this happen each time a mass shooting occurs – especially at a school.
Gun-grabbing progressives stand on the corpses of the victims to slam those who support gun rights while pushing gun control measures that would not have stopped the shooting in question. Indeed, they struggle even to answer questions about how their proposals would curb these atrocities – because that’s not their actual objective.
On the other hand, if people can see that the border crisis led to Riley’s death, it is only appropriate to push solutions that could help to solve the problem. The difference between politicizing a death and reacting to it in a productive manner lies in whether the people involved are seeking genuine methods for solving the problem in the first place. Anything else is merely mindless politicking.
