OPINION:
Few commanders in chief have matched Donald Trump’s skill in countering hypocrisy with the bully pulpit. This week, he shamed the media institutions that willfully ignored the heartbreaking fate of Iryna Zarutska, the Ukrainian refugee whose horrifying murder on the public transit system in Charlotte, North Carolina, was preserved on surveillance video.
It wasn’t long ago that reporters couldn’t stop talking about George Floyd, whose demise came under far different circumstances. Pumped up on fentanyl, Floyd resisted arrest, and his heart failed. The opportunists blamed the White cop who employed force to restrain the Black man, inciting hatred, division and destructive nationwide riots.
Round-the-clock coverage of the tale inspired leftists to empty their wallets into GoFundMe campaigns in Floyd’s honor. The fundraising site’s one-day donation record was shattered, with more than $18 million ultimately raised. Black Lives Matter invested the millions of dollars it received in mansions and swank parties.
Corporate news outlets responded differently last month. A 23-year-old White woman sitting quietly on a train was savagely stabbed from behind with a pocketknife wielded by a Black man. The self-appointed gatekeepers of “all the news that’s fit to print” acted like nothing happened because it didn’t serve an approved political cause.
When Mr. Trump called them out, The New York Times, Axios, Politico and the rest of the usual suspects reacted by decrying “a firestorm on the right,” the Republicans’ “political messaging war” and “MAGA’s crime message,” respectively. On Tuesday, Vice President J.D. Vance identified a motive for those advancing societal chaos.
“The big lie the Democrats told about violent crime is that it’s ‘systemic’ and therefore no one’s really responsible,” he wrote on X. “If the ‘system’ is to blame, then you fund a bunch of nonprofits that don’t do anything besides give jobs to underqualified radicals. The reality is that the gross majority of violent crime is committed by a very small group of people and we should be throwing them in prison.”
The accused perpetrator in Charlotte, Decarlos Dejuan Brown Jr., appears to belong to that “very small group.” Despite his long history of unhinged outbursts and robbery, assault and illegal gun possession charges, courts kept offering him no-cash-bail deals.
Mecklenburg County Magistrate Judge Teresa Stokes could have prevented last month’s vicious deed had she incarcerated Brown, but she let him walk on a promise that he would be good. On Tuesday, Rep. Tim Moore and nine of his North Carolina Republican colleagues urged state judicial officials to commence proceedings to remove Judge Stokes for “willful failure to perform the duties of her office.”
For too long, judges at all levels have relaxed, confident they could retain their positions no matter how badly they bungle their jobs. In states like North Carolina, even the judges facing elections evade accountability because media allies bypass stories that tend to paint left-wing extremism in a negative light.
Republicans are right to demand that judges be held responsible for their conduct on the bench. Black-robed activists who enable violent crime should be hauled before Congress and state legislatures to explain themselves. Impeachment is the appropriate remedy for exposing and deposing partisans who should never be entrusted with a gavel.
With Mr. Trump in the White House, Democrats can no longer get away with sweeping reality under the rug. Americans can see that every major city, especially Charlotte, ought to be as safe as the District of Columbia.
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