It might be good for Dems to remind the public that the passage of time has blunted people’s memories of just how things were in 1994. The precipitous drop in overall crime since the 90s has lulled people into this belief that such was an inevitability, that such bills in the 90s were written purely to oppress POC rather than address what was (at the time) seen as a very real “war” on crime. Before he was “America’s Mayor,” Rudy was the guy who ran around telling people he’d “cleaned up” NYC, a city that was practically synonymous with crime for decades.

Films like Robocop in the 80s and Demolition Man (released the year prior to the bill’s passage) predicted a future where crime and anarchy would only continue to rise and cops would find themselves on the losing side. It was the decade of the Columbine shooting, the North Hollywood Shootout, the World Trade Center Bombing, the OKC bombing, and other acts that had the nation convinced that shit was only going to get worse. But then 9/11 happened, the nation decided that foreign terrorists were the existential threat to America, and the 90s became that period of milk and honey by comparison. Now you practically sound like you’re talking about the bombing of Pearl Harbor when you talk about events from the 90s.