Democratic performance antics around an Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center in Newark, New Jersey, propelled a protest to a violent crisis and made my state the epicenter of a national fight between officers enforcing immigration law to protect the public and leftists rampaging in nightly riots designed to evoke terror.
Now, the elite troopers of the New Jersey State Police have been called in to restore order, directed by our governor to provide political cover for her administration that’s just realizing how political theater is a flammable substance in the real world.
I’m far from the first person to point out that many Democratic elected officials act more like a weekend at band camp than members of a serious party devoted to governing. Their cloying performances on topics from abortion to migration feature an oh-so-earnest attitude, smug certitude, and crocodile tear-stained overacting that would make Patti LuPone ask them to tone it down.
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Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) has been honing this craft for two decades now: shouting on the Senate floor, disrupting hearings, and jumping on tables to take on the appearance of standing up for something.
The torrent of words that made up Booker’s 25-hour record-breaking filibuster dissolved into empty echoes in the Senate chamber the moment he finished speaking. Over a year later, the only change effected by the senator’s speech was a fattening of his campaign coffers for another doomed run for president.
But words matter when directed toward those poised for violence, and actions that put an official stamp on lawlessness never go unnoticed.
The leading lady of this Delaney Hall production is Gov. Mikie Sherrill (D-NJ), whose previous role as a helicopter pilot who hates President Donald Trump was more than enough to win a statewide race in New Jersey.
On Memorial Day, rather than honor fallen war dead or her fellow veterans, she arrived at Delaney Hall, where 300 migrant detainees are held. Family members had camped outside to protest the detention of their loved ones and conditions inside the facility, but alongside them were leftist saboteurs who laugh at the idea of peaceful protest.
Like Dorothy attempting to see the Wizard of Oz, Sherrill walked up to the barricaded gate and was denied entry. One photo op, a listening session with head dutifully nodding, captured by the press and a social media post fired into a thirsty algorithm later, it was on to a soccer game and dinner. All in a day’s work for a performative liberal.
Yet the official sanction of the governor and Sen. Andy Kim (D-NJ) gave an imprimatur of legitimacy to the direct action of the rioters — and within hours, the language of the mob burned through the governor’s script and spilled throughout the streets.
Today, Governor, there are real lives at stake in your mismanagement of this genuine crisis.
We were fed the line that Sherrill’s military background would give her superhuman skills to tame the unruly Garden State. Sherrill is no Dwight Eisenhower.
Desperately trying to reclaim the narrative, the governor has allowed the New Jersey State Police to do the job they should have been allowed to do from the beginning. These elite troopers do not have the luxury of sleepwalking through a situation where officers are being assaulted, vehicles are being trashed, and the eyes of the world are watching.
The governor should have thought less about optics and more about her oath to promote peace and prosperity to the utmost of her skill and ability.
Delaney Hall, a former halfway house, sits on an industrial boulevard just a stone’s throw from where American citizens are held in the Essex County Correctional Facility. Those inmates share many of the same complaints as those in Delaney Hall. Yet no congressional delegation visits them, no vigils are held on their behalf, and the only sounds outside that facility are trucks backfiring on Doremus Avenue.
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We won’t see a performance staged there. Because the men and women inside the correctional facility are overwhelmingly U.S. citizens — and black Americans to boot. And for today’s Democrats, that’s nothing worth getting worked up about.
They don’t get to see the show.
Alex Zdan is a political reporter for News 12 New Jersey and a Republican Senate primary candidate in the state. He has previously worked as an investigative reporter, covering the intersection of New Jersey and federal politics, specifically in relation to the government response to the coronavirus pandemic. He has won multiple awards for his journalism, including First Amendment awards for stories exposing corruption in New Jersey.