Here is an interesting statistic: so far in 2021, there have been some 400 violent incidents on airplanes by unruly passengers. In a full normal year, the number is more like 200. We’re therefore on pace to have 4 times as many incidents as usual.

Then there are the crime statistics we all know about: murder, violent crime, robberies, etc., are up 50-200% in various large cities. Videos of brazen shoplifting are going viral. Some cities, like San Francisco, have prohibited police from arresting shoplifters if the value of the goods are less than $1000. Criminals are being let out on bond as cities — almost all Democratically run — seem hellbent on plunging their citizenry into a chaos of crime and homelessness.

This is not speculation or a self-serving interpretation of statistics. What we are witnessing is a real degradation of public order ushered in by specific policies of mayors and city councils.

Much of this loosening of the rules and consequences of our criminal justice system has been implemented as a kind of sop to the BLM activists. Some if it is done as a sort of mea culpa for centuries of racism.

Whatever the reason, the results are hurting people of color in particular, as their neighborhoods are disproportionately affected by the increase in violence.

But that doesn’t matter to the political classes. They would rather receive accolades on Twitter for their wokeness than save the lives of innocent children and bystanders caught in the crossfire.

What is really going on? The anti-police, pro-social disorder activists start from a position of compassion, claiming to be doing what they’re doing for the benefit of the downtrodden and oppressed.

Now, as a rule, compassion is a wonderful thing. We should always have compassion for those who are less fortunate or caught in a situation that is hard to escape from. There are, in fact, many people in both public and private institutions (including many liberals!) trying to help these folks and often doing a wonderful job.

But what separates these effective practitioners of compassion from the more destructive types is that the latter couples their compassion with resentment and even hate.

They blame the sorry situation of the people they claim to help on the rich, on whites, on “the system,” on capitalism, on Trump, on the United States in general. They don’t typically go to a person who is suffering and say, “I’m here to help you.” Instead they say, “You’re in this state because of someone else. Let’s go get them!”

This was exactly the tactic of the Bolsheviks in early 20th-century Russia. They didn’t just try and help the peasants; they told the peasants that they were bad off because businessmen, doctors, teachers, priests, and anyone who wasn’t a peasant — in the end — was somehow responsible for their plight and needed to be removed. Thus the mass killings and deportations began, as did social disintegration and general misery, and the ones who suffered the most were the peasants.

One of the key things the Bolsheviks did to amass their power is to destabilize society by undermining nearly all aspects of traditional societal norms and rules. The chaos that ensued was replaced by a Marxist structure intended to ensure a worker’s paradise, but only resulted in 70 years of misery, suffering and death for the Russian people.

We are seeing this same dynamic at work now. In order to gain power and marginalize their opponents, many figures in the Democratic Party are calling for and enacting policies that undermine trust in society’s standards and mores.

The cops are now the bad guys; all white people are inherently racist; religion is out; traditional family structures and gender roles are out; capitalism is evil; the education system is biased; etc., etc. There is no institution of American culture which is not subject to this onslaught of criticism and angry denunciation.

As a result, people who are already prone to antisocial behavior are seeing all of this as approval for them to run amok, and so they are. The result is the predictable chaos we are seeing now and the actual injury and death of thousands of innocent victims, for which the politicians seem to care not one bit.

From the angry passenger in the plane who fights the mask mandate to the petty thief to the grifting politician using the chaos to buy votes, this mass assault on core values of decency, respect, and obedience to proper authority is undermining our society at every level.

But, there are large swaths of people who are not buying into this. You will see many people begin to leave the cities since their leadership refuses to protect them. You will also see voters change their minds, especially those in the middle, as they realize they were duped by Democrats pretending to be moderate to let in a Trojan horse of crazy leftists who want to demonize and destroy this country.

This kind of thing happened in the 1960s, and things went from bad to worse in the 1970s and early 80s until a few key figures like Reagan on the national stage and Rudy Giuliani on the local one began rolling back the excesses of the socialistic, destructive initiatives of certain quarters of the Democratic Party.

We can and will do so again, I believe. We will stop kowtowing to those who would use compassion to indict their fellow citizens of crimes that cannot be proven and largely don’t exist. We will realize that we have a truly good society and polity that can and does address inequities and injustices effectively, and stop characterizing entire groups or nations based on the actions of a single individual who failed to live up to the standard.

It will be hard to do this since the press and Big Tech do so much to cover it up and obfuscate the issues, but I believe in the power of truth and the goodness of our people of all colors and political persuasions to overcome the forces of division and hatred.

I invite my Democratic friends to move together towards the light and away from the darkness of certain forces in our culture now, and we on the right can pledge to do so as well if people on our side, as Trump sometimes did, attack the pillars of our constitutional republic.

It can be done. I believe it!

Trey Hoffman

Peachtree City, Ga.