WE’VE DESCENDED INTO SOME SORT OF BIZARRE HELL-WORLD IN WHICH ANDREW SULLIVAN IS A VOICE OF SANITY: Why I’m voting Republican.

Over the past few years, violent crime in DC has been rising fast. Last year, the murder rate was the highest since 2003, and this year the death toll is slightly higher so far. Carjackings are up 36% and robberies are up 57%. Almost all this hideous violence is inflicted on African-Americans, including many children. It permeates outward, creating a deeper public sense of insecurity and out-of-control crime. Tent cities are now all over the city. People suffering from mental illness patrol the streets. You feel the decline in law and order, the slow fraying of the city, every day.

And yet, the Council has decided that now is the time to make it harder to prosecute and easier to defend violent criminals, partly in the name of “equity.”. Yes, it’s part of a longstanding “modernization” of the criminal code, but they had to include these provisions and now? And this isn’t new. Just before the crime explosion took off, the DC mayor had “Black Lives Matter” painted on the street in letters so large you could read them from a plane, and allowed “Defund the Police” to remain next to it. That summer, woke mobs were allowed to harass anyone in their vicinity, yelling slogans that vilified all police — and the MSM took the side of the bullies. After the summer of 2020, the DC police force dropped to its lowest level in two decades.

So guess what? I’m going to vote for the Republican and the most conservative Independent I can find tomorrow. And I can’t be the only Biden and Clinton and Obama voter who’s feeling something like this, after the past two years.

And Kerry. But then, a pundit who poses as a conservative but never votes for Republicans can make a very good living in the media.