Cop under Fire

 

Book Review by Kam Williams

Cop under Fire

Moving Beyond Hashtags of Race, Crime and Politics for a Better America

by Sheriff David Clarke, Jr.

with Nancy French

Foreword by Sean Hannity

Worthy Publishing

Hardcover, $21.99

272 pages

ISBN: 978-1-617-95857-1

“David Clarke refuses to bow a knee to political correctness, and he refuses to give his party over to the hands of black activists whose politics would destroy America. That's why I have Sheriff Clarke on my show so frequently... Some of my colleagues at Fox have said he's too controversial. But I keep inviting him back...

I think Sheriff Clarke makes people uneasy because he defies easy easy categorization. He's black, but he's against Black Lives Matter. He ran as a Democrat in Milwaukee, but he spoke at the Republican National Convention.

He's from an urban area, but he's more conservative than an Alabama Tea Party member. It's easier for people to stereotype than deal with the actual man and his actual beliefs.

In this book, Sheriff Clarke writes about how his traditional upbringing in the housing projects of Milwaukee improbably molded him into the cowboy hat and boots-wearing sheriff we know and love today... Here's the truth: the principles Sheriff Clarke stands for are the same principles this nation was built on."

-- Excerpted from the Foreword (pages xi-xiii)

David Clarke has become a familiar face on the network news channels in recent years, thanks mostly to his many appearances on Fox where he routinely trumpets arch-conservative positions on popular issues while sporting his trademark, ten-gallon cowboy hat. Much of his appeal undoubtedly rests in the fact that he is a confident black man articulately advancing an array of right-wing ideas. 

 

For instance, he's very pro-cop, which only makes sense, since he's the Sheriff of Milwaukee County. However, he's also an outspoken opponent of the Black Lives Matter Movement, which he derides as "nothing more than an AstroTurf operation... of community organizers and leftists who specialize in fostering rebellion in ghettos." Furthermore, he indicts it as a "hate group" with an "anti-cop ideology" whose real goal is anarchy.

Clarke became a national figure after he accepted an invitation from Donald Trump to address the 2016 Republican Convention during prime time. He received the loudest and longest ovation of the week when he opened his speech with, "Ladies and Gentlemen, I would like to make something very clear. Blue Lives Matter in America!" 

 

The Sheriff is pro-gun , too, and explains why in a chapter entitled, "The Second Amendment Isn't Just for White People." His basic thesis there is that "There simply aren't enough of us to protect all of you," and "when seconds count, the police are minutes away." He asserts that "survival is the first law of nature" before concluding, "Sometimes that means fighting off criminal predators." 

 

In addition, Clarke is pro-charter school, anti-abortion and a defender of the criminal justice system who says that prison is supposed to be unpleasant, not a country club. Despite leaning so far to the right, he has been re-elected Sheriff four times by his predominantly Democratic constituency. 

 

Check out his entire, incendiary platform in Cop under Fire: Moving Beyond Hashtags of Race, Crime and Politics for a Better America, a combination memoir/position paper from a charismatic iconoclast likely to be working in the White House before long.

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