The Soros-funded social-justice experiment of recruiting progressive prosecutors who function more as a second phalanx of defense attorneys has crashed in flames. California’s Proposal 36 was supported by more than 70% of voters and reversed these ill-considered policies to correct course for public safety. Such strong support in such a blue state reveals the profound disconnect of ideological elites who inflict failed policies on innocent citizens and then label them “racist” for seeking to reclaim public safety.
Proposal 36 and Proposal 47
Proposal 36 essentially repeals portions of California’s progressive 2014 Proposal 47, oxymoronically dubbed by supporters as the “Safe Neighborhoods and Schools Act.” By recharacterizing many non-violent crimes as misdemeanors and reducing monetary thresholds for violation, Proposal 47 seeded a rash of crime that has clearly made California neighborhoods and schools far less safe. Even mail carriers have been victimized. The course correction by Proposal 36 is obviously bipartisan, yet California’s ACLU maligned its passage as “part of a broader conservative strategy in California and across the nation to roll back criminal justice reforms aimed at interrupting the cycle of mass incarceration of Black and Brown people.”
Americans are wearying of such tiresome racist tropes, divorced from the black and brown victims of crime unleashed on California and across the country. The evidence of voter preferences has been manipulated and ignored by delusional progressive zealots, along with the crime statistics that prove unequivocally that their policies are counterproductive and inflict very real harm. Such blind determination begs the question of whether George Soros and the ACLU (and progressive prosecutors such as George Gascon in Los Angeles or Pamela Price of Alameda County – both canned by irate voters) cannot discern reality or if they have been deliberate saboteurs all along.
The entire nation has watched the crime wave in California, but Californians have had a front-row seat. Businesses are shuttering due to rampant crime that threatens employee and customer safety. In-N-Out Burger recently announced the closure of its Oakland location (the sole store closure by the company), claiming there were criminal incidents on 300 out of 365 days last year. Numerous other California employers have been compelled to close or implement costly security precautions to counter the progressive-seeded crime spree.
Progressive Regression
Proposal 47 increased the monetary threshold from $400 to $950 for shoplifting, grand theft, receiving stolen property, forgery, fraud, and writing bad checks. It also decriminalized or reduced punishments for most illegal drug use, including possession of the date-rape drug Rohypnol. Despite progressive portrayals of criminal defendants as victims of prejudice and oppression, the truth is that Proposal 47 made crime profitable. Many criminals are businesspeople, trafficking in the commerce of drugs, sex slaves, and stolen goods (all of which create actual human victims, treated by Soros et al. as if they were invisible).
The business of crime has been booming in blue California – the statistics and anecdotal horror stories do not lie. Major retailers in 2016 reported an increase in shoplifting of as much as 50% following the passage of Proposal 47. Thieves and fraudsters – emboldened by hand-slap penalties, understaffed police forces, and claims that they are victims morally entitled (especially if black or brown) to steal – did just that. Gangs organized to take advantage of the booty en masse; children were recruited to steal because they faced less risk of penalty; cars and vans are now routinely crashed through storefronts; thieves bring calculators to stores to ensure they “only” steal less than $950 in goods (and then reportedly run back in the store for another load, almost like they have a job).
Blaming white supremacy and conservatives for legislation that protects black and brown people from rampant crime is not a good look for the ACLU and Soros crowd, but this does not appear to deter their determination to increase crime yet further in the name of “safe neighborhoods and schools.” Actions must have consequences – for NGO meddlers as well as streetwise petty criminals.
Elites Remain Deluded
The lies of progressive elites seeking power at any cost are coming home to roost. It is specious to attribute the 70+% approval of Proposal 36 as driven by whites or conservatives – California’s non-Hispanic white population has decreased from about 76.3% of the state’s population in 1970 to 33.7% in 2022, and a mere 38.3% of Californians voted for Donald Trump in 2024. It is evident that Democrats and “black and brown people” were involved in rejecting the progressive Soros-funded folly of lax prosecution.
Whether California’s Proposal 36 shake-up will reverberate in other extreme progressive US states and cities remains to be seen. Portland, Seattle, Chicago, and New York are just a few jurisdictions pummeled by the criminal-as-victim hoax, compounded by illegal immigrants that shelter fentanyl-dealing gangs and sex-trafficking operations (and burn innocent victims alive). Encouraging people of color to commit crimes and then portraying their subsequent arrest and incarceration as racially motivated is a pretty sick trick to inflict on these vulnerable communities.
Americans are finally awakening to the profound perils of toxic wokeness. California has figured it out, and that means there’s hope for anyone.
