16th Street Mall Stabbing

Denver Mayor Mike Johnston’s virtue signaling backfires

Jon Caldara January 22, 2025

Turns out even next to a cop the Denver mayor wasn’t safe on his own streets.

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Should police wear masks? Denver’s city council thinks no — and is even trying to outlaw it for federal agents operating in the city (because if there’s one thing municipal governments do well, it’s bossing around Washington, DC).

Like so many issues where people quickly polarize to one extreme or the other, this issue is nuanced. “Nuanced” in today’s vocabulary means “background noise” — something not worth listening to. Like anyone listens to me anyway.

To state the ridiculously obvious, Denver’s policy makers can put restrictions against masking on their own law enforcement (although since they forced masks on those of us who didn’t want it during COVID, there is offensive poetry here), but they have absolutely no authority to instruct the federal government how to operate. Still, virtue signaling is the political sport of our time.

ICE damaging its own brand

Masking is an issue thanks to the ICE immigration crackdowns, where nuanced conversations are not just ignored, they are violently throttled. So, let’s address that first.

I don’t think anything in recent history has damaged the bond between civilians and law enforcement more than the actions of ICE in Minneapolis. And that bond is critical not just for our safety, but our republic.

Even to those of us who support deportation, these heavy-handed raids come across as a thuggish police-state maneuver. (Though it’s been enjoyable to watch inner-city progressives start reconsidering the Second Amendment after one of their own gun-owning protesters was killed. Maybe a world where only government has the guns isn’t the Utopia they dreamt of. Odd how reality interrupts theory.)

I support ICE doing their jobs, but the optics of unidentifiable masked strangers pulling people off the streets and breaking down doors is politically counterproductive to ICE’s own stated ends. And that sucks because I support deporting people here illegally.

You want — scratch that — NEED civilians to support sending illegal immigrants back over the border. Otherwise, the political will disintegrates.

The question is not if the feds have the right to go into cities and grab illegals this way. They do.

The question is, can they do their job if most of America, including many Trump voters, hate how they’re doing it? Trump is bleeding political support on the main issue that got him elected — reversing the open-border debacle.

Sanctuary state sycophants

And though sanctuary-state sycophants are making more Hitler comparisons during their pastime of “democracy is under threat” tantrums (it isn’t, by the way), they too need to be held accountable for their half of this poop-show.

If local law enforcement cooperated fully with federal agents, none of this would be happening. Those sanctuary-state sycophants are equally responsible for the deaths in Minneapolis.

American law enforcement is truly unique in the history of mankind. Throughout world history police answered to the thug in charge — a cartel kingpin, tyrant, or monarch. How comfortable are you with Mexican cops?

American police are the first line of defense for rule of law, which is why they take an oath to the Constitution, not a king or thug. Before America, that simply wasn’t the case.

That uniqueness rests on the relationship between police and the people they serve. Trust works only because the police are us — the neighbor down the street, the guy next to you in church, whose kid goes to school with your kid.

When police become “the other,” it all breaks down. Masking is a big step toward that. Cops wear masks for the same reason bank robbers do: they don’t want you to know who they are. Not exactly a winning branding strategy.

Try enforcing the law

Yes, I concede when police are identifiable it can present risks to them and their loved ones. We feel that risk all the time because we civilians are identifiable (ask a health insurance chief executive). The answer to that risk is the same for cop and civilian alike — enforce the law.

Cops are scared dangerous people will target them. Well hello, same for the rest of us. So, let’s do what Denver and the Colorado legislature refuses — keep bad guys in jail. Radical huh?

There was a time the neighborhood cop was known to all the shop owners he walked by. The community trusted and welcomed him and his mission.

Apart from the Lone Ranger, we don’t connect with or trust people wearing masks — be it Klan members, Islamic terrorists, kidnappers, or cops. They’re not “us.”

A policy that alienates the public doesn’t strengthen enforcement — it eventually kills it.

Jon Caldara is president of Independence Institute, a free market think tank in Denver.

A dose of nuance for Denver’s move against masked policing

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16th Street Mall Stabbing

Denver Mayor Mike Johnston’s virtue signaling backfires

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ICE damaging its own brand

Sanctuary state sycophants

Try enforcing the law

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