FLOWERS: Cry Me a Schuylkill River
(This column first appeared on Substack)
May 20, the people of Philadelphia, at least the ones who cared enough to get out of their lounge chairs and vote, reelected Larry Krasner for a third term as district attorney. Despite an okay but far from perfect alternative, Judge Pat Dugan, the usual suspects (including some people I personally know and who at least on the surface seem to be sane) voted for the same old, same old.
That SOSO manifested itself in a mass shooting last night, leaving two dead, nine injured and countless more traumatized. I have to say that given the fact that so many of the people who chose Krasner live in the neighborhoods that are most impacted by crime, my well of sympathy is pretty dried up. I feel for the children who were caught in the crossfire, the ones too young to pick a George Soros protégé for the chief enforcement officer in the city.
But unless the other victims actively campaigned against Krasner and his “empty the jails” philosophy, I’m not weeping. It’s a shame, but frankly, it was a massacre foretold.
And that’s the problem with Philadelphians, my blighted and benighted siblings. I am as much of a native of the city as you can be without being born at Pennsylvania Hospital. My parents were located in Baltimore in December of 1961, when I made my entrance into the world trailing clouds of glory, as Wordsworth would say. (I was probably trailing other things too, if family lore is to be credited.) But they were generational Philadelphians, and my birth below the Mason-Dixon was a tiny blip in the LaSalle-Flowers-Dicocco-Fusco continuum of our DNA.
I am a Philadelphian. I love my city. I weep for my city when these things happen. I do everything within my limited power to stop things like this from happening. I write. I vote. I talk on TV and on the radio. I encourage others to reject the policies of progressive anarchists like Krasner.
And I continue to see how fruitless these efforts are, because of the money pumped into these races by the aforesaid progressive anarchists who want to destroy civil society and remake it into a dystopian version of “Logan’s Way,” where if you don’t die by the age of 30 (meaning, you aren’t killed by gunfire) we are doing something wrong.
I also blame the aforementioned Philadelphians who care more about posting on their most recent visit to the nail salon or “influencing” bored suburban housewives or discussing which sandwich shop makes the best cheesesteak than about getting their asses to a polling place to actually vote. As between the two, I think I hate the latter a bit more. People who have too high an opinion of their mediocre selves are worse than deranged partisan zealots, who at least have authentic feelings of hatred towards civilization.
On second thought, they can both burn in hell.
Sadly, though, they are taking the rest of us with them and allowing toxicity like the arrogant DA to fester. It is turning us into people who no longer weep at the sight of children dodging bullets, because we know that somewhere, someone decided those kids were less important than being a woke asshole who fights for criminals to get out of jail.
I’m fed up with it, I’m over it, I no longer even want to pretend that I think there is a solution. There is none, as long as Philadelphians continue to vote for people and policies that make us all sitting ducks for drive by shootings.
The irony in all of this is that, when the perpetrators are apprehended, Larry and the Krasner Krew will work hard to reduce any felony charges against the offenders, who will be found to have had challenging childhoods, mottled with racism, poverty, drug abuse, absent fathers, blah blah (insert expletive in the form of an adverb) blah.
So no, I’m not weeping. My eyes are completely dry. Unless I know that the victims went to the polls and voted against Krasner, I’m not sending any sympathy cards or lighting any candles.
I reserve my compassion for those who actually have some for others.
