One of the longstanding problems with Democrat governance is that Democrat politicians enact policies that affect people other than themselves.  Thus, affluent professional Dems living in chi-chi gentrified enclaves aren't the ones who lose their jobs due to unconstrained illegal immigration.  Likewise, those same neighborhoods insulate them from the havoc their "defund the police" policies wreak.  However, on Wednesday, two Democrat politicians, one in Philadelphia and one in Chicago, were mugged by reality when both were carjacked.  Fortunately, neither was hurt, but I hope it was a learning experience for both of them.

Kimberly Lightford is the Democrat majority leader in the Illinois Senate and a member of her state's Legislative Black Caucus.  To her credit, she was never an ardent proponent of property destruction, nor was she calling to defund the police.  However, she was at the forefront of the movement to reform policing in her state, which included eliminating cash bail (effective January 2023), giving a pass for people who vanish for 48 hours or less while on electric monitoring, and increasing liability for individual police officers.  By October 2021, with crime in Chicago soaring, Lightford had become strident in her defense of policing.

Lightford's disenchantment with attacks on the police may have grown because, on Wednesday, she and her husband were carjacked at gunpoint:

Illinois Senate Majority Leader Kimberly Lightford, who championed the state's criminal justice reform omnibus legislation in January, was carjacked at gunpoint in suburban Broadview on Tuesday evening, authorities said. One of the hijackers fired multiple gunshots at Lightford's husband, but he was not injured.

Three masked men exited a Dodge Durango and hijacked Lightford's Mercedes Benz SUV at gunpoint on the 2000 block of South 20th Avenue around 9:45 p.m., according to a statement from the village's chief of police.

Lightford confirmed the incident in a short statement, saying she was "thankful that my husband and I are alive and physically unharmed. I am trying to process the trauma of what happened."

She thanked the Broadview Police Department for their "quick and thorough response."

In other words, a Democrat just got mugged by reality.

Police eventually arrested one of the men involved, who had been charged with unlawful use of a weapon and aggravated assault with a deadly weapon — but was out on bail.

Image: A carjacking in Texas.  YouTube screen grab.

Ironically, Lightford was not the only Democrat lawmaker who got mugged (or rather, carjacked) by reality on Wednesday.  In Philadelphia, Mary Gay Scanlon, a House member from Pennsylvania, was also carjacked in broad daylight:

The incident occurred Wednesday afternoon at FDR Park in South Philadelphia, where the lawmaker had been attending a meeting. Ms. Scanlon was walking to her parked car when she was approached by two men driving a dark-colored SUV.

Police said both men, who were armed, demanded the keys to her car.

They got away with her 2017 Acura MDX, her personal cell phone, her government cell phone, her purse and her identification. There was no immediate report on suspects.

As was the case with Lightford, Scanlon also joined the police reform movement after George Floyd's death.

We have seen too many lives taken and communities devastated by police brutality and racial profiling. Action is long overdue. @HouseDemocrats are fighting for REAL reform in our country’s police departments. #JusticeInPolicing pic.twitter.com/IS9n6LZXCg

— Congresswoman Mary Gay Scanlon (@RepMGS) June 8, 2020

There is nothing wrong with making policing in America better.  There is nothing wrong with expecting the men and women in blue, who have a great deal of power because they have guns and the criminal justice system at their back, to behave with honor and decency (as almost all already do).  However, the criminal justice reform that Democrats have been pushing over the last year has had less to do with helping police be the best they can be and a whole heck of a lot to do with making life easier for criminals.

It turns out that, when you do away with bail, shrink police departments, make police officers feel unsafe, have prosecutors who refuse to prosecute, and have both prosecutors and judges who are loath to place even hardened or extremely violent criminals in prison, you end up with an extraordinary escalation in violent crime in all of America's Democrat cities.  Although all these changes have mostly made life worse for poor and working-class people, the odds were that the problem would eventually hit one or two of the politicians who created this pro-crime environment.

However, I have a hard time calculating the odds of the same crime happening on the same day in two different cities to two Democrat politicians.  Honestly, when something happens in this way, you might think the universe is trying to send a message.  I only hope Democrats start listening.

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