One thing that it would seem nearly all conservatives and/or Republicans could agree upon is that, in the midst of a crime uptick and in the waning months of a soft-on-crime liberal presidency, now is not the time to pass "criminal justice reform" of that president's liking. But apparently that's not true. Roll Call reports, "The House will take up legislation to overhaul the criminal justice system in September, Speaker Paul D. Ryan said."
The Senate version of criminal-justice reform is opposed by Jeff Sessions, Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, and Tom Cotton. They rightly recognize that a Nixonian, tough-on-crime moment is not the time to pursue McGovern-esque solutions on matters of law and order. This is especially true when dealing with an administration that has taken to calling some criminals "justice-involved individuals."
Donald Trump has joined Sessions, Cruz, Rubio, and Cotton in criticizing such "reform" efforts, pairing open-jails sentencing policies with open-borders immigration policies in his remarks. This is an apt pairing.
For what is driving many Republicans to play ball with President Obama on criminal justice reform is their dogged belief that Mitt Romney didn't lose in 2012 because he failed to go on offense, go on defense, or attack Obamacare. Rather, they (want to) believe, he lost because he was the helpless victim of an overpowering demographic wave. The solution, these Romney allies maintain, is not to advance a Main Street agenda (including safe streets) that appeals to all Americans, but rather to try to appeal to specific subgroups of Americans with specific policies. Hence the push for "comprehensive immigration reform" and, now, criminal justice reform.
Saying that such a push requires a political tin ear is putting it mildly. Polling six months ago by Opinion Research Corporation asked, "Thinking about the criminal justice system, which comes closer to your view—that we have too many drug traffickers in prison for too long, or that we don't do enough to keep drug traffickers off the street?" By a margin of nearly two-to-one (58 to 30 percent) respondents said that "we don't do enough to keep drug traffickers off the street."
And that was well before Dallas, which raised the law-and-order stakes.
Given the desire of conventional Republicans to advance such Obama-backed legislation, is it any wonder that Trump, Cruz, and Ben Carson combined to receive almost three-quarters (72.5 percent) of the GOP primary vote?