We shouldn’t have to choose between excessive Republicans and extreme Democrats | Opinion
Over spring break, I drove about 2,000 miles through the Midwest, and I noticed something on the interstates: I didn’t go far without seeing a Black Lives Matter bumper sticker that became popular after the horrific George Floyd murder or the thin blue line American flag bumper stickers that sprouted up in response to the ensuing “Defund the Police” movement. Bumper stickers don’t necessarily mean Americans are still talking about that, but at least they’re leaving those stickers on and making a statement in doing so.
Never did I see the two stickers together, and that is a shame, because if you think about it, BLM and thin blue line go together.
The reason is simple. Police kill at least 200-250 Black people a year, lumping in cops who take out armed dangerous criminals, mistaken killings, and outright murders of innocents by abusive police officers. To put that in perspective, there are 13,000 murders of Black people a year or 50 killings by civilians for every one by police.
We need effective policing to bring down the outrageous homicide rate among Black men, and we’re not getting it. Since the 1960s, the rate at which homicides are solved — and justice given to the victim — has declined from more than 80% to about 50%. That means that the murderers of 6,500 Black people every year get away with it.
The same disparity that there is in murder statistics — Black people are more than six times as likely to be murdered than white people — exists in robberies, rape and assault among other crimes, taking a terrible toll on the lives of people who live in high-crime areas.
And it is not white conservatives who say that police need to be better about treating Black people with respect and protecting them from violent predators. It is Black people themselves. While more than 85% of Black Americans say policing needs to be completely reformed, more than 70% of them believe that police funding needs to stay the same or even increase, according to nonpartisan polling.
Which gets me to the real topic of this column, which are the words AND and OR.
Too many people in politics are trying to tell us that we have to make stark choices between this OR that.
Donald Trump wants us to choose between safe borders or respect for due process and the law, when what Americans really want is control of immigration AND the rule of law.
Progressive Democrats’ de facto leader Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez wants us to choose between her glorification of big government through policies such as the Green New Deal and Trump’s denigration of government workers through his reckless DOGE organization. What Americans want are government reform AND respect for the people who have given their lives to public service.
OR is a word that is used to divide us, while AND brings us together.
We’re offered abortion on demand or six-week bans on abortion. Americans want “safe, legal and rare.”
We’re offered Democrats’ divisive “diversity, equity and inclusion or Republicans’ repulsive decisions to shutter offices aimed at protecting civil rights. Americans want equality and strong protections to enforce it.
We’re asked to choose between one party that gives foreign aid but undermines American influence by promoting drag queens in conservative Catholic countries — or the other party that cuts off American efforts to help people with AIDS. Americans want to cut counterproductive, wasteful aid and continue genuine charity that makes America more respected around the world.
America needs political leaders who build around AND instead of dividing with OR. Until we find them, I am going to take a stand for AND and put the Black Lives Matter and the thin blue line bumper stickers on my car. I just went on Amazon and bought both.
This story was originally published March 19, 2025 at 4:04 AM with the headline "We shouldn’t have to choose between excessive Republicans and extreme Democrats | Opinion."
