Progressive hostility toward law enforcement will have some dire consequences.

A serious problem for the Deep State is its perception that its enforcement arm contains a large number of "deplorables."  These deplorables, in their minds, were indistinguishable from actual extremists.  The Daily Beast asserts, "For years, local police and the FBI just couldn't recognize crazy-talking, highly armed white men as a systematic, potential terrorism threat."  A recently retired FBI special agent, Frank Montoya, Jr., claimed that the Capitol siege indicates that far-right extremism is a "fundamental" threat to national security, even more so than foreign terror groups," implying that police were part of it.

Montoya believes: "The threat we're facing right now is not only real but deeply embedded — and cult-like — in our society.  Look at how many military and law enforcement types were involved in the Capitol assault and how many people in Congress supported the effort to overturn a free and fair election on January 6."  DJ Peterson, the president of Longview Global Advisors, claims: "If you look at law enforcement in the U.S., there's generally a high risk of these organizations being permeated by white, right-wing extremists."  John Cohen, who oversaw DHS's counterterrorism portfolio from 2011 to 2014, claims that "the most significant terror-related threat facing the U.S. today comes from violent extremists who are motivated by white supremacy and other far-right ideological causes."

The belief that law enforcement is a threat to national security is rife throughout the federal government.  The State Department's newly installed deputy spokesperson, Jalina Porter, claimed that the "largest threat to U.S. national security are [sic] cops.  Not ISIS, not Russian hackers, not anyone or anything else.  If y'all don't wake up and rise up to this truth, the genocide against Blacks in America will continue until we are near extinct."  Despite her language skills, Porter is something of a renaissance woman.  She was a congressional aide, a communications official for a think-tank, and a dancer for the NFL's Oakland Raiders and the NBA's Washington Wizards.

The Deep State media have joined the fray.  The Los Angeles Times reported, "White supremacist extremists are the nation's deadliest terror threat."  The Times claims that many of the over 70 million Trump voters suffer from a "a mass delusion that government is run by Satan-worshiping child-sex traffickers, or an odd alliance between those misguided souls and violent racists, all cheered on by the president of the United States in service of the lie that his phantom reelection was stolen from him."  The New York Times published an op-ed by anti-criminalization activist Mariame Kaba where she declared, "Yes, we mean literally abolish the police."  Kaba suggests directing funds to "health care, housing, education and good jobs."  This would lead to a lesser "need for the police in the first place," and "community care workers" can "do mental-health checks" for people who need help.

Kaba's vision appears to be shared by Biden's new head of the Domestic Policy Council, Susan Rice.  She believes that to end America's "long history of inequality, of oppression," we should be "re-imagining the role of the police."  The Biden/Harris administration will bring this "re-imagining" of police forces to a national level.  

The "re-imagining" movement (a code word for the voter-unpopular "defund") is based on the demonization of the police.  Police are frequently portrayed as white supremacists.  "White supremacy," however, is a subjective and amorphous term.  Activist Shaun King believes that statues of Jesus Christ are a "form of white supremacy" and should be torn down.  The New York City Department of Education has instructed its teachers that concepts like "perfectionism," "paternalism," and "objectivity" are part of "white supremacy culture."  At the same time, there is a virtual deification of criminals like George Floyd.  Floyd was a felon who broke into a home with a gang and pointed a gun at a pregnant woman's stomach.  He terrorized the women in his community.  He sired and abandoned multiple children, playing no part in their support or upbringing.  He was a drug addict and sometime drug-dealer.  His gold coffin sat upon a horse-drawn bier.  His death is universally described as a murder.  The word "allegedly" is never used, and it is never pointed out that Officer Derek Chauvin is innocent until he is proven guilty.

Nationally, police are "standing down" to avoid violent confrontations.  It will not be necessary to defund them.  Many may be unwilling to enforce the law where there is a chance they might be injured, their careers ended, or their actions resulting in possible jail time.  There will be incidents in the future involving police and black males.  Also, trials of officers involved in previous incidents may result in acquittals.  This will lead to future riots.  How will depleted police forces deal with these situations?  It will be necessary for the federal government to stop it.  The government has a history of jumping in.  They sent 15 FBI agents to Talladega Speedway to investigate a fake noose in Bubba Wallace's NASCAR garage.  It spent untold man-hours investigating Jussie Smollett's false allegations of a men-in-MAGA-hats attack on him in the dead of the Chicago winter.

John Dietrich is a freelance writer and the author of The Morgenthau Plan: Soviet Influence on American Postwar Policy (Algora Publishing).  He has a Master of Arts degree in international relations from St. Mary's University.  He is retired from the Defense Intelligence Agency and the Department of Homeland Security.  He is featured on the BBC's program "Things We Forgot to Remember:" Morgenthau Plan and Post-War Germany.

Image: Pixabay, Pixabay License.