I have seen no evidence that Nikki Bas is getting Koch money. Nor have I seen evidence that she travels to Mar-a-Lago to get secret marching orders from Der Fuehrer. But Ms. Bas does seem to be a crypto-Republican, in the sense that I will describe shortly.
The thing that national Democrats are most afraid of is that Republicans will seize the House of Representatives and the Senate in November, 2022. If and when they do, that will pave the way for a restoration of Trump in 2024.
This is a nightmare scenario, of course, but right now, it’s looking pretty realistic. As was reported just this morning, the national spike in violent crime (which Oakland is experiencing all too traumatically) “has become a Republican talking point.” The GOP, always quick to rub salt into old wounds, has seized upon the “Defund the Police” movement to frighten the public and persuade just enough swing voters to switch from “D” to “R.”
This is why “The President [Biden] has made clear that he is opposed to the ‘defund the police’ movement.” So is former President Barack Obama. “I guess you can use a snappy slogan like 'Defund the Police,' but, you know, you lost a big audience the minute you say it, which makes it a lot less likely that you're actually going to get the changes you want done," he said in an interview.
In fact, every grownup Democrat in the country is aware of how dangerous the DTP slogan is. An enormous majority of Americans, 81%, are opposed to defunding the police. That includes 72% of Black Americans, who understand all too well the mayhem that strikes their communities when police forces are weakened.
The end result is that Americans, in overwhelming numbers, really, really hate the notion of defunding the police; and if there’s a single issue designed to switch power in Washington, D.C. and in the State houses from Democrats to Republicans, it’s the unpopularity of defunding the nation’s cops.
Which brings us back to Nikki Fortunato Bas. Given the self-evident truth of the facts stated above, there’s only one reason why she would be so insistent on defunding the Oakland Police Department: she is a crypto-Republican, who wants Trump back in the White House, and for Gavin Newsom to be recalled so that a Republican—maybe Caitlin?—can be Governor. Indeed, this is the only polite conclusion I can come up with. The only existing alternative to explain Ms. Bas’s rhetoric is that she’s genuinely low intelligence, but I was raised not to belittle other people, so I won’t. (Of course, she’s also running for Mayor, and may believe that, if “defunding” worked for Carroll Fife, it will work for her, too.)
But whatever her reason, Ms. Bas is an embarrassment to herself, to her District, and to the people of Oakland. When she had the chutzpah to lead a “peace vigil” around Lake Merritt yesterday, and told the crowd, “Our safety infrastructure is not only about police,” I almost did a spit take. This is straight out of 1984: Newspeak, Bas-style. A person who wants to wreck OPD talking about peace? George Orwell would have loved it.