With current trends of increasing of looting in cities across America would this play role in independent & middle of road Democrats thoughts of supporting a candidate like Trump or a Republican ? Over the next year this be baggage Joe Biden doesn’t need in a close race.
What current trends?
Purely guessing, but our friend may be referring to the looting that took place Tuesday night. It appears to have been a planned attack on multiple stores after a judge dismissed charges against a former police officer in the shooting of Eddie Irizarry.
That’s the only recent looting of which I’m aware.
It may play a role, but not enough to be decisive.
There is this perception that Democrats are “okay” with small-level store theft or looting in a way that Republicans are not, such as in the San Francisco area. Whether this perception is fair or not is not as relevant as the fact that the perception exists.
If the election were between Trump and Kim Jong-Un, I would seriously consider voting for Comrade Kim.
Maybe this is about the 9 Target stores closing because of theft and violence to their employees?
If so, it does concern me if only because I’ve watched someone I care about blaming liberals for it and this is or was (?) a liberal person.
I wouldn’t vote for any republican ever. They allowed Trump. They continue to allow Trump.
The number of single issue “anti-looting” Democrats who are naive enough to be swayed by Republican “tough on crime” platitudes is zero.
Cite?
We could debate whether or not this is real, but it is being sold as such by the right, and it’s getting traction in peoples’ perception.
Try telling the right that the US is a net exporter of petroleum, or that we’re currently setting daily record outputs. Both are easily proven with data from government websites. They will call you a liar and say that Biden is selling our energy security to China.
Point is: Yes, it’s a real issue whether it’s real or not.
The recent news is that target is shutting down some stores, and it included “organized theft” (e.g. coordinated looting) in its list of reasons. This is not the first chain to announce store closings citing theft.
The phenomenon is at least newsworthy. Whether or not this marks a trend, I can’t say (theft has always been a problem but this level of corporate response seems new to me).
Republicans, however, have no plan for dealing with it, and Democrats by and large don’t care.
According to the survey, the average shrink rate in FY 2022 increased to 1.6%, up from 1.4% the previous year. Shrink percentages can vary significantly by retail sector. On par with previous years, internal and external theft accounted for nearly two-thirds (65%) of retailers’ shrink.
That’s weak compared to the premise of the OP
Retail theft isn’t usually described as “looting”, and a few stores in a few chains don’t use comprise “cities across America.”
Perhaps @JoePockets could name a few of these cities.
@steronz I would be interested in seeing a cite supporting your assertion that Democrats don’t care about this issue.
Umm. I care about looting. I care about the violence that was/is involved. I’m democrat.
No one wants to see that. It hurts us all.
Don’t lump me in the ‘no care’ pile.
OK fine, that was glib. I take it back.
I tried to read up all of the 3 declared SF mayoral candidates’ stance on looting, and found nothing. However, all 3 are leaning on public safety. Here’s Ahsha Safai
The homeless situation, street conditions, and the opioid crisis is getting worse, not better. A lot of it has to do with the ability of the executive, the mayor, to lead the city and bring people together.
Drugs, homelessness, and street crime were 3 things mentioned by all 3 candidates. None of them are focusing on protecting corporations from theft loss, and Democrats tend to talk more about the root of the (crime) problem rather than promising to bust skulls and lock everyone up.
I still don’t see anyone voting Republican over this issue.
I find it hard to believe there are undecided voters who might see footage of people looting some stores and think, “Geez, I’d better vote for Republicans,” when there’s far more footage of Republicans literally attacking the nation’s capitol.
Looting and rioting seemed to help Republicans in past years, even though it was mostly right-wing groups doing it.
Sorry for the lack of cite, but I read the article on my phone. Article from TheStreet is about the growth of “shrink” at suck retailers as Target and Walmart and how Costco doesn’t have the problem to the same extent.
Their CFO attributed at least of the reason why they were experiencing less shrink is in part due to the rollout of self-checkout, in that Costco uses self-checkout in only a limited number of stores.
The article quotes a report from the University of Leicester: “Theft accounts for nearly 4% of inventory for self-checkout, compared to just 1.5% for traditional checkout.”
I fail to see how voters could blame Democrats for the ever-larger number of self-checkout registers, but I suspect some will.
I read the same article.
https://www.thestreet.com/retailers/costco-has-an-answer-to-the-theft-problems-at-walmart-and-target
And I can vouch for the theory that increased retail theft is attributable to self checkout use. As a criminal defense attorney, I frequently get people accused of theft from Walmart (at least in my area, Walmart seems most zealous in finding and pressing charges against people who steal); they always use self checkout.
So doesn’t this become a risk analysis for retailers?
“We can save money on salary by going to self-checkout.”
“But our thefts go up if we go to self-checkout.”
Where’s the balance point?