Straight from A Clockwork Orange, the prescient Anthony Burgess novel (and equally visionary movie by Stanley Kubrick), a caravan of hundreds recently spent two days looting dozens of stores in Philadelphia.  A social media influencer even livestreamed it to thousands.

Clockwork Orange questions whether an authoritarian government should reprogram humans to make evil impossible.  This is in response to a revolt by part of society (the “Droogs”), devoted to “a bit a’ the ol’ ultraviolence” by adopting nihilism, a deliberate absence of morals and values.

Fifty-one years after Burgess’s novel, the Droogs seem starkly familiar: menacingly dressed sociopaths, speaking near-incomprehensible dialect, who burn, loot, and murder their way across the urban landscape.

But Burgess got the conundrum only half right: the question today is not whether authoritarianism can engineer morality but instead whether governmental leftists can destroy rational incentives for mutually beneficial behavior with the goal of engineering nihilism.

Why would any government do that?  Because nihilism promotes civil disorder which, in turn, justifies more governmental intervention to “solve” the problem it created.  As Saul Alinksy, strategist for the Left, put it: “The first step in community organization is community disorganization.”  To create the socialist utopia they envision, leftists must first degrade existing society.

‘Success’ in social engineering

The answer as to whether government can create nihilism, as demonstrated by the last three years, is “yes.”  Starting with Antifa and BLM riots of 2020 -- fully supported by leftist local governments -- urban centers in Democrat-led cities like San Francisco have spiraled into a “doom loop” wherein urban business flees “flash mob” looting and skyrocketing violent crime.  A few examples:

• San Francisco: After flash mobs looted Neiman Marcus and other stores, two dozen retailers have left.  Walgreens closed 12 San Francisco stores, while upscale Nordstrom pulled its two stores, including its Westfield mall flagship. Australian furniture retailer Coco Republic, which invested heavily in its showroom off Union Square, abruptly closed the store less than a year after opening across from Macy’s.  Once fashionable Union Square is now a ghost town.
• Los Angeles: Even two years ago, 20 robbers at the popular Grove shopping center used a sledgehammer and assorted weapons to smash one of a Nordstrom’s windows, reportedly taking men’s clothing.  That was child’s play, however, compared to the recent flash mob of 100 that looted a 7-Eleven.
• Philadelphia: Even the examples above pale in comparison to the two-night Philadelphia flash mob spree featuring caravans of hundreds who wrecked dozens of stores, including T-Mobile, Apple, Lulu and Footlocker outlets.  One of the looters, a social influencer calling herself “Meatball,” gleefully livestreamed the event to 181,000 Instagram followers, rationalizing it by explaining “Everybody gotta’ eat.”  A tearful “Meatball” seemed less gleeful when charged with six felonies.

Nor are these isolated phenomena.  In 2022, crime in New York City increased by 31%, including increases of 41% in grand larceny, 36% in robbery and 34% in burglary. Similarly, Chicago experienced a 35% increase in violent crime, Seattle’s increased by 23%, Baltimore by 8%, and the District of Columbia by 21%.  In D.C., mayhem reigns, with increases of 38% in violent crime, including 63% in robberies, 27% in homicides, 14% in sexual abuse, and 4% in assault with a deadly weapon.

Meanwhile, as Target closes stores in New York City, Seattle, San Francisco-Oakland, and Portland, OR, the National Retail Federation concludes, “Retail crime, violence and theft continue to impact the retail industry at unprecedented levels,” detailing increasing “shrink rates” resulting in $112.1 billion in 2022 losses.

Leftists love to hide this phenomenon by citing national statistics rather than for urban centers they control or, with homicide, by citing declines from 2021 without noting that 2020 and 2021 experienced horrendous increases over previous years.  According to FBI Uniform Crime Reports, nationwide homicide increased by 30% in 2020. In 2021, 12 major U.S. cities achieved record homicides.

Despite rising homicide, however, 2020 FBI crime data reveal that nationwide arrests plummeted 24%, attributed by criminologists to the large number of police officers who retired or resigned in 2020 and 2021.

Engineering nihilism

Anyone who studies behavioral psychology understands why urban crime is exploding: withdrawal of incentives to obey the law.  First, Democrat-led cities prosecuted shootings by law enforcement officers (LEOs) as “racist,” leading said LEOs to reduce personal risk by backing off, a phenomenon labeled the “Ferguson effect” after the “Hands up, don’t shoot” lie about the justifiable shooting of Michael Brown in Missouri.

Next came “defund the police,” featuring multi-million-dollar cutbacks in police funding (including our own little Portland, OR, aka Asheville).  Together with the “systemic racism” fraud, it created not only cutbacks in law enforcement, but retirement or resignation of thousands of LEOs who understood that they, not criminals, were now the target.

According to the Police Executive Research Forum, nationwide police department retirement rates jumped 45% over 2020 and 2021. Another 18% of officers resigned.  Meanwhile, Black youth who bought the “systemic racism” lie increasingly resisted arrest at rates, as suggested by informal news reviews, of between 8 and 10 times higher than whites.

But the coup de grâce was implementation of “progressive criminal reforms” like no-bail release; downgrading sentences for what previously was grand larceny; ostensible “harm reduction strategies” like legalized open-air drug markets; refusal to prosecute even violent crimes; and widely publicized prosecution of lawful citizens in New York and St. Louis who had the audacity to defend themselves against criminals and looters.

Hijacking American justice

Enter uber-leftist billionaire George Soros.  Yes, Soros gets accused of every evil befalling American society.  But in this case, he earned the rap.

Since approximately 2015, Soros and his “Open Society Foundations” have been shoveling millions to “justice reform” political action committees and dark-money non-profits such as the Community Resource Hub for Safety and Accountability, which itself is sponsored by the notoriously leftist multi-billion-dollar dark money fund, Arabella Advisors.

George also discovered where he could get the most bang for his leftist buck: cheapo down-ballot district attorney races where just a few hundred thousand dollars can install a leftist into position to control an entire justice system.

In a New York Post article, Matt Palumbo, author of The Man Behind the Curtain: Inside the Secret Network of George Soros, says Soros spent $40 million electing “social reform” prosecutors -- chump change for a billionaire, but enough to elect at least 75 prosecutors in low-turnout races.

According to the Law Enforcement Legal Defense Fund, Soros prosecutors now control:

• 25 of America’s 50 most populous cities
• 20% of America’s population, but 40% of America’s homicides
• More than 1/3 of all violent and property crime

The names of many Soros-backed prosecutors are notorious:

• Kim Foxx: Chicago, refused to prosecute Jussie Smollett, oversaw Chicago’s exploding crime
• George Gascon: Los Angeles, subject to attempted recall three times
• Chesa Boudin: San Francisco, recalled by voters after retailers fled the city
• Alvin Bragg: New York City, currently torturing the law to persecute Donald Trump
• Andrew Warren: Tampa, FL, removed by Governor Ron DeSantis
• Kim Gardner: Prosecuted Mark and Patricia McCloskey for defending themselves against looters, resigned under pressure

Incidentally, Soros is now worth “only” $8.6 billion because he donated $32 billion to his leftist Open Society Foundations.

‘A Clockwork George’

Senator Tom Cotton’s comments to the NY Post said it best: “Everywhere Soros-backed prosecutors go, crime follows… The only good Soros prosecutor is a defeated Soros prosecutor.”  You can’t convince me one of the world’s richest billionaires is so stupid he doesn’t realize his impact on crime.

While A Clockwork Orange questioned an authoritarian government that eliminated moral choice, “A Clockwork George” deliberately creates criminality to degrade society and necessitate socialist authoritarianism.  As Burgess said in his novel, “To devastate is easier and more spectacular than to create.”

As always, leftism creates nothing; it only destroys.

F. Paul Valone is the author of Rules for Anti-Radicals: A Practical Handbook for Defeating Leftism, the culmination of three decades directing conservative political organizations.

Image: Warner Bros.