Denver Mayor Mike Johnston’s virtue signaling backfires

By Jon Caldara

A warning to the left: obnoxious virtue signaling can be a two-way street.

Denver Mayor Mike Johnston has a nice warm office. So why instead hold a press conference out in the cold on the violence-ridden 16th Street Mall? Well, for image management, of course.

What better way to show how safe and non-stabby the streets of Denver are than a picture of Mayor Johnston calmly standing on those blood-soaked streets, worry free for his own safety.

I could almost see the mayor’s taxpaid, cocky communications expert saying, “I’ve got it mayor! Do a press conference out on the 16th Street Mall and when people see you’re not getting stabbed or accosted it’ll prove how safe you’ve made the city! They’ll love you even more!”

Brilliant! That is, until the mayor himself got accosted during his own press conference.

The image the mayor hoped he gave: “Denver is oh-so-very-safe.” And wouldn’t you feel safe on the 16th Street Mall if you too were virtually glued to a cop as Johnston was with Denver’s chief of police. So, the image the mayor actually gave: “Denver is oh-so-very-safe if you hire a guy to openly carry a gun to protect you.”

While we’re talking about the manipulating use of imagery, can we take a moment to celebrate politicians obnoxiously displaying their deep care for the hard-of-hearing? When giving a speech politicians enjoy hiring, at taxpayer expense, some goofy looking guy performing silent modern dance as sign language.

Please stop bringing mimes playacting epileptic seizures to your press conferences.

Note for the virtue signalers: it’s 2025 and we all have speech-to-text translators in our pockets called smartphones, and we watch closed captioning on all our TV sets. Mayor, do you really think deaf people need to see a Cirque du Soleil performance while you’re talking rather than just reading the instant translation?

We all get it. You’re not doing this for the hard of hearing. You’re doing it so we all think you care about the hard of hearing. But what we really think is, instead of hiring pantomimists to signal how inclusive you are, you could use that money to fix some potholes or hire a cop.

Back to our picture-is-worth-1000-words, Denver-streets-are-safe, crazy-people-won’t-yell-obscenities-at-you, stab-free mayoral press event.

It turns out even next to a cop the mayor wasn’t safe on his own streets as a passerby participated in his own unscripted virtue signaling. The mayor was accosted by a crazed man screaming obscenities at him for making Denver such a dangerous place.

If you haven’t seen the unedited video, you really must. While the mayor and police chief are talking about the butcher knife Elijah Caudill employed on his killing spree, a man looking like he was walking to work (unlike the derelict homeless Denver taxpayers support), and without breaking stride, virtue signaled back to our virtue signaling mayor these polite words: “I saw you at the parade, you fucking coward mayor! Fucking, this is your fault! Crime-loving Democrats are burning this city down! Fucking asshole! You should do your job. The city is burning! People are being butchered! Crime-loving Democrats are terrorists!”

Okay. Maybe he went heavy on some vulgarities (but many people are desensitized to the word “Democrat”), but the man spoke for multitudes. Or should I say, virtue signaled for the rest of us.

Denver has rolled out the welcome mat to attract masses of chemically dependent, mentally unstable homeless people, including Elijah Caudill.

Violent criminal immigrants the mayor and his militia of assault-weapon-toting Highlands mommies will protect from deportation are nestled in the loving arms of sanctuary laws.

And the progressive-controlled state government, concerned more for criminals than the law abiding, have made it nearly impossible to keep dangerous criminals, including Elijah Caudill, behind bars.

The mayor can spout off as many statistics as he likes. But those of us who don’t have bodyguards and cannot legally carry a concealed gun in more and more places, don’t feel safe in Denver. Because we’re not.

Mayor, welcome to what the rest of us deal with all the time — having some stranger violently scream a symphony of F-bombs at you.

But unlike you, since we don’t have bodyguards, we don’t know if they’re going to stab us to death.