The
Politics of Disorder
For
much of modern political history, the most dangerous words in public policy
have not been shouted slogans but soothing reassurances.
Jim Cardoza |
January 19, 2026 www.americanthinker.com
For
much of modern political history, the most dangerous words in public policy
have not been shouted slogans but soothing reassurances. They are the claims
that certain policies are “compassionate,” “progressive,” or “humane,” offered
without any serious accounting of how they actually affect the people forced to
live under them. This pattern is particularly evident in the agenda of today’s
Democratic Party, whose policy choices increasingly produce chaos and danger
while being marketed as moral advances.
The
central flaw is not malice so much as indifference to consequences. The pursuit
of ideological purity has replaced the traditional liberal concern for social
order, public safety, and the rule of law. The predictable result has been a
deterioration of civil society -- one that falls most heavily on those with the
least ability to protect themselves.
Consider
first the party’s enthusiastic support for “criminal justice reform” in the
form of progressive prosecutors and judges who are openly hostile to enforcement.
Across major cities, voters have been urged to elect district attorneys who
treat incarceration as a moral failure rather than a necessary tool of public
safety. These officials routinely decline to prosecute entire categories of
crimes, downgrade felonies to misdemeanors, or release repeat offenders back
into the communities they have already victimized.
The
human cost of this experiment is rarely discussed by its advocates. It is not
the affluent professionals living behind security systems and gated communities
who bear the brunt of rising crime. It is working-class neighborhoods,
disproportionately minority, where small businesses are looted, elderly
residents are assaulted, and parents fear letting their children walk to
school. When law enforcement retreats, predatory behavior does not politely
stand down. It fills the vacuum.
Closely
related is the push for cashless bail. The theory is appealing: no one should
be jailed simply for being poor. But the reality is that bail exists not as
punishment but as a mechanism to ensure court appearance and to protect the
public from demonstrably dangerous individuals. When bail is eliminated or
sharply restricted, judges are often forced to release offenders with lengthy
arrest records -- individuals who quickly reoffend, sometimes violently.
Again,
the costs are borne by ordinary citizens, not by the policymakers who champion
these reforms. A person assaulted by someone who should never have been
released receives little comfort from learning that the system was trying to be
fair. Fairness without safety is a luxury belief -- affordable only to those
insulated from its consequences.
California’s
move to eliminate life without parole through measures such as the Youth
Rehabilitation and Opportunity Act illustrates the same pattern. The idea that
violent criminals should automatically be given new chances based on age or
shifting social theories ignores a fundamental reality: some individuals have
demonstrated, repeatedly and conclusively, that they are a permanent threat to
others. A legal system that refuses to recognize this is not enlightened; it is
reckless.
Public
safety is further undermined by sanctuary city policies and categorical
opposition to immigration enforcement. The claim is that shielding illegal
immigrants from federal authorities fosters trust. But in practice, it has
meant protecting criminal illegal aliens -- people who have already violated
immigration law and then gone on to commit additional crimes.
Here
again, the victims are overwhelmingly members of minority communities. When a
repeat offender is released because local officials refuse to cooperate with
federal enforcement, it is not an abstraction. It is a real person harmed,
often by someone who had already been identified and could have been removed.
To describe this as compassion is to redefine the word beyond recognition.
At
the same time, the Democratic Party has embraced policies that deliberately
blur long-standing boundaries in the name of social progress, such as allowing
biological males into women’s private spaces. This is presented as a matter of
inclusion, but it requires dismissing legitimate concerns about privacy,
safety, and fairness -- particularly for women and girls. A society that
refuses to acknowledge obvious biological differences in policy design is not
advancing justice; it is indulging ideology at the expense of reality.
Perhaps
most revealing is the party’s response -- or lack thereof -- to the surge of
antisemitic harassment and intimidation on elite university campuses. Jewish
students have been threatened, blocked from facilities, and subjected to
rhetoric that would be instantly condemned if directed at any other protected
group. Yet institutional leaders and many elected officials have responded with
moral ambiguity, procedural evasions, or outright silence.
This
selective outrage exposes the underlying principle at work. Victimhood is not
determined by harm suffered but by ideological alignment. Groups deemed
politically inconvenient are afforded fewer protections, even when facing open
hostility.
All
of this unfolds alongside a relentless push for gun control legislation that
would leave law-abiding citizens more vulnerable, not less. Criminals, by
definition, do not obey gun laws. Disarming potential victims while simultaneously
weakening policing and sentencing is not a safety strategy -- it is an
invitation to predators. The right to self-defense is most meaningful precisely
when the state fails to provide protection. To curtail that right while
engineering such failures is a profound moral contradiction.
What
explains this pattern? One possibility is ideological romanticism -- the belief
that crime, violence, and disorder are primarily products of social injustice
and that removing constraints will somehow redeem human behavior. This view has
been repeatedly falsified by history, but it remains attractive to those
insulated from its costs.
Another
explanation is political calculation. Chaos can be useful. Social disorder
creates dependency, fear, and a demand for centralized control. A population
that feels unsafe is more easily persuaded to surrender liberties in exchange
for promises of protection, even when those promises have already proven empty.
There
is also a deeper cultural shift at work: a growing hostility toward the very
idea of standards. Law enforcement, borders, prisons, sex distinctions, and
even moral clarity are treated as relics of an oppressive past. But a society
that abandons standards does not become freer -- it becomes governed by force,
often exercised by the least scrupulous.
The
lesson is an old one. Good intentions do not guarantee good outcomes. Policies
must be judged by what they do, not by how virtuous they sound. A political
movement that consistently produces more crime, more fear, and more fragmentation
while claiming moral superiority deserves skepticism, not deference.
Order
is not the enemy of justice. It is its prerequisite. And a society that forgets
this lesson will relearn it the hard way -- at the expense of its most
vulnerable citizens.
