Whose Side Are They On?

In May of 2020, George Floyd died of a fentanyl overdose while he was in police custody in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He was a convicted felon who had gone to prison for the armed robbery of a pregnant woman in which he pressed his gun into her pregnant belly as he was demanding money from her. But through his death, he became a beatified saint to the Democrats and the left in our country. They held three separate funerals for him. Former Presidents, civil rights leaders, celebrities gave glowing eulogies for this deceased violent felon. They renamed streets, erected statues, set-up memorials for a person who spent his life victimizing people and society. And we were all to pretend that he was some sort of hero, someone to look up to, someone to mourn. Lately, the Democrats always seem to end up on the wrong side of these types of issues.

This brings me to Kilmar Abrego Garcia, an illegal alien who our courts have already determined to be MS-13 gang member – one of the most vicious gangs in the world that has been labelled a foreign terrorist organization by our government. Abrego Garcia has already been deported from our country at least one time and recently released court records out of Maryland show that he is also a "violent" repeat wife beater. In 2021, his wife, Jennifer Vasquez, wrote in a court filing, “I am afraid to be close to him. I have multiple photos/videos of how violent he can be and all the bruises he [has] left me." But according to the Democrats and the leftwing media, Abrego Garcia is a family man. They refer to him as a “Maryland father”. He is their new George Floyd. He is their new Saint. The evil Republicans are ripping this family man out of his home. But in fact, his own family members wanted him to be ripped out of their home, and they wanted a court order preventing him from ever coming near their home again. But the Democrats want people like this, living in your neighborhood, living next to you, assaulting, raping, killing. That is why, during President Trump’s speech to Congress last month, not one Democrat stood and honored the family of Laken Riley – the Georgia nursing student who was raped and murdered by an illegal alien gang member.  

And now, a delegation of Democrat Senators, led by New Jersey Senator Cory Booker, is requesting permission to head down to El Salvador to do a welfare check on this vicious gang banger and illegal alien. Senator Booker interest in the well-being of an international gang member is curious because he has been relatively silent about, Edan Alexander, a US citizen and one of his constituents from Tenafly, New Jersey, who has been held hostage for almost two years in Gaza by Hamas terrorists. Booker has done almost nothing to effectuate his release or at least bring awareness to this actual victim. Booker was 19 hours into his sham-filibuster on April 1, 2025, at the point when he was talking about anything and everything, when he finally got around to even mentioning Edan Alexander’s name. An El Salvadoran gang banger and wife beater gets deported back to El Salvador, and Booker is getting on the next plane down there to see if he is okay, but a US citizen and a resident of his state is held as a hostage by an evil terrorist organization, he barely mentions it.   

Whose side are the Democrats on? The Democrats have lionized Luigi Mangione who murdered a health insurance CEO in cold blood, and Karmelo Anthony who stabbed to death, 17-year-old Austin Metcalf, an unarmed honor student at a high school track meet. Mangione has received over $700,000 to his legal defense fund, while Karmelo Anthony has received over $400,000 towards his legal expenses. No one on the left is speaking out against fire-bombings of Tesla dealerships across the country. In their mindset, you can shoot someone to death, stab them in the heart, blow up their business if you disagree with them politically. In July, shortly after the failed assassination attempt against President Trump in Pennsylvania, 28% of Democrat voters said it would have been better if Trump’s assassination attempt had been successful. This is who the Democrats are. This is who they represent – murderers, rapists, gang bangers, terrorists, assassins – just as long as they agree with them politically.

George Floyd became the ideal to the Democrats, not because of the way he lived, but through the way he died. In their narrative, he was a victim, and to the left, being a victim is the ultimate achievement. It does not matter how much evil you have committed in your life, if you can paint yourself as a victim, then you become the hero, you can do whatever you want. To them, Kilmar Abrego Garcia is not a wife beater and MS-13 gang member, he is a victim of racist Republican immigration policy; Luigi Mangione is not a cold-blooded murderer, he is a victim of unfair health insurance policies; Karmelo Anthony is not an unhinged murderer, he is the victim of systemic racism. Democrats will step over real victims, like Laken Riley, Edan Alexander, Austin Metcalf to embrace people like George Floyd, Kilmar Abrego Garcia, Luigi Mangione, Karmelo Anthony, in order to serve a narrative that they believe expands their political power, but it continues to backfire on them. Donald Trump is President mainly because the Democrats have completely lost sight of who they should represent and who the real victims in society actually are. The Democrats went after the illegal alien gang banger vote, while Trump and the Republicans went after the law-abiding US citizen vote. And we all see how it turned out.

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Mr. Garrett is a graduate of Princeton University, and a former NFL player, coach, and executive. He has been a contributor to the website Real Clear Politics. He has recently published his first novel, No Wind.