River News: Our View

It was a specter of two cities. More than that, it was the specter of two nations.

We are speaking of two very separate events in the New York area last week and what they tell us about our country — both of them.

Over in Long Island the mood was somber and the grief was palpable as thousands of police officers gathered for the wake and funeral of New York police officer Jonathan Diller, the latest victim in America’s spiraling out-of-control crime spree. Diller’s murderer, who shot him as officers attempted to question him for being illegally parked in Far Rockaway, had been arrested 21 times prior to the fatal day and until last year was on parole after serving five years in prison for drugs.

Always a man of the people, former President Donald Trump made his way to Diller’s wake, at the family’s request. He sought to comfort a grieving widow and family, to reassure outraged and concerned fellow officers, and to pledge better times ahead to a nation anxious about its safety and future.

“Such a sad, sad event,” Trump said outside the funeral home, surrounded by police officers. “Such a horrible thing. And it’s happening all too often and we’re just not going to let it happen. We need law and order.”

Trump intuitively understands the role of a true national leader, which is both to enact policies that make life better and, second, to empathize with the American people — to let them know he truly understands their daily trials and tribulations and is working both to provide support to those injured and to prevent future misery. 

A leader without that empathy can’t possibly know what policy course to follow. 

By attending the wake, Trump gave that needed comfort, praying the Lord’s Prayer with the family. Afterwards, Rev. Michael Duffy told Human Interest, “It was just such a beautiful human, simple moment that meant so much to the family and so much to the people in that room.”

It was a national hug for the family, and for all grieving families, a promise that they will not be abandoned by this nation, and it was provided by Donald Trump.

On a separate post for all the world to see, Trump wrote: “To Officer Diller’s family, and all of the other brave men and women of law enforcement who put your lives on the line every day, we love you, we appreciate you, and we will always stand with you!”

Last week Trump was certainly standing tall with all of law enforcement and with all Americans as they hope and dream, just as he did when he visited the residents of East Palestine, Ohio, after the catastrophic train derailment that devastated their town.

While Trump was standing with the American people, President Joe Biden was standing alongside an entirely different crowd, a much smaller subset of America, whose members were once called “the beautiful people” but who these days are simply referred to by their political and social preferences: The Elite.

The elite were nowhere near Diller’s wake. They were gathered in the gilded and protected halls of Manhattan’s swankiest venues, assembled for a fundraiser featuring not just Biden, but former Presidents Bill Clinton and former/current President Barack Obama, and a glittering A-list of stars, including the likes of Stephen Colbert, Jason Bateman, and Sean Hayes.

Even Annie Leibovitz was there taking photographs. Of course she was.

No one was mourning there, and why would they? While Trump grieved with the serfs in the street, Biden raked in $28 million while partying in the posh palaces of those who think the rest of us are deplorable.

The startlingly different scenes showed us in no uncertain terms how New York has become two separate cities of haves and have-nots. It also served as a metaphor for the entire nation, which is similarly divided into the working class and what’s left of the middle class, on the one hand, and the elites of the corporate and bureaucratic and political power structure on the other.

The New York scene underscored the hypocrisy of the Democratic Party. Their positions on cultural issues are designed for an amoral avant garde fringe, and it makes no difference whether their agenda injures — physically, mentally, socially, politically — entire population groups, including women and children, so long as they get what they want in the pursuit of decadence and narcissism.

Progressives happily subject women to age-old oppression if it means furthering the agenda of the cultural elite.

The Democrats’ cries for social justice also ring hollow as they sing pretense after pretense of helping the working classes but pursue globalist policies that line their pockets and hollow out middle America.

The Democrats have become a shameless party of billionaires and more billionaires, smug in their superiority, laughing at each others’ jokes, telling each other how compassionate they are and how lovely America is these days — as they look around the manicured gardens of their estates, or upon the dressed-to-death 1 percent dancing on the ballroom floor.

Several weeks ago, we scorned Biden for essentially telling Americans to eat Ramen as he devoured gourmet ice cream cones in boutique confectionary parlors. In between bites, Biden reminded Americans struggling to buy groceries and gas just how lucky they are to have him.

Let them eat Ramen, was what America really heard.

Last week, the Democrats doubled down. No, they tripled down. They brought onto the stage three former and current presidents to toast each other with their champagne and deep pockets, all three seeming to say in unison, as they lifted their eyes to the crystal chandeliers: Let them all eat Ramen.

And — they said by their absence in Long Island — let those grieving and injured and killed by our policies suffer alone, as all deplorables should.

Of course the deplorables — and all of America — were not alone. They had a real leader standing among them. And, in their disconnect, the elite seemed to have missed something else: Just how much America seethes in anger at their hypocrisy.

It showed in the way the police and Diller family greeted radical New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, who did try to attend the wake. And the anger showed in the brave speech given by officer Diller’s widow.

Stephanie Diller described the lives of most Americans when she said: “Together we lived a very simple life in Massapequa. We worked hard, we relaxed at home when we could and we had the cutest dog, Tucker. We did everything together and I really mean that. We were best friends.”

She called out the politicians who always promise change but never quite get around to it: 

“It’s been two years and two months since Detective Rivera and Detective Mora made the ultimate sacrifice — just like my husband Jonathan Diller. Dominque Rivera stood before all the elected officials present today pleading for change. That change never came. And now my son will grow up without his father, and I will grow old without my husband. And his parents have to say goodbye to their child. How many more police officers and how many families need to make the ultimate sacrifice before we start protecting them?”

To enlarge the question, how many more Americans must be sacrificed in the globalist scheme before our government makes the changes that need to be made. When will help come our way?

Time grows short, but the Democrats, they just stand on the stage with their fellow billionaires, clinking their glasses, smiling their smug smiles, unaware of just how much average Americans detest them.

If there is any real social justice, in not too many months they are going to find out.