One of the most important principles in life is the idea of cause and effect. Children start mastering the concept at around 18 months. A toddler might drop a block on his foot, and very quickly realize that the block caused him to feel pain. He won’t assume that the television across the room had somehow hurt him. He won’t blame the neighborhood cat. And in the future, as a result of this deduction, the toddler might think twice about dropping a block on his foot.

In politics, for various reasons, cause and effect can be difficult for some people to figure out. Sometimes it’s because life is complicated. Sometimes it’s because of all the propaganda people are subjected to. And sometimes it’s because people just aren’t that bright.

That would explain the scene that took place the other day in Brooklyn, where there was a massive protest against the shelters for illegal aliens that have popped up all over the city. You might have seen the footage on social media. The protesters said they were shocked by all of the violence and mayhem these “migrants” have brought to their community, apparently oblivious to the fact that they voted for exactly this outcome. Of course, there are similar scenes playing out all over the country.

But even when you take into account all of these factors — the propaganda, partisan politics, et cetera — it’s still hard to come to terms with what’s happening right now in Jackson, Mississippi. Politicians and black activists in Jackson have just made it clear that they have no understanding of causation whatsoever. This basic concept completely eludes them. It’s not simply that they’re blinded by politics. Instead it appears that, like infants, these activists do not comprehend that certain actions naturally lead to certain results. And it’s worth exploring what’s happening in Jackson in some detail because it has implications for the whole country, including the presidential race.

Here’s the background. There’s a Texaco gas station in Jackson located on a street called Medgar Evers Boulevard. And recently there’s been a lot of crime near the gas station — including several homicides and shootings this year. In response to this crisis, the solution that politicians and activists have come up with is not to blame the criminals. It’s not to hire more police officers and increase patrols. Instead, their response has been to blame the Texaco gas station.

And now these politicians — including a councilman named Kenneth Stokes — are calling for the gas station to shut down. In fact, Stokes has said he’ll bring a vote of “no confidence” against the city’s law department for refusing to have the gas station declared a public nuisance. Watch:

As the man in the video said, “If you’re providing a business that you see is detrimental to the community, and that your business is causing people to lose their lives, then you should have the integrity of a human being to say, you need to shut this down.”

In other words, the Texaco gas station is causing people to shoot each other. The gas station — a collection of snacks and pumps distributing gasoline – is “causing people to lose their lives.” Therefore the local councilman is holding rallies to get the place shut down. 

WATCH: The Matt Walsh Show

When I first saw this story I had to check if there was something I was missing, because I figured this can’t possibly be the full story. Is the Texaco gas station executing its customers when they walk inside? Do they have guards posted at the doors who shoot you in the head as soon as you enter the place? If so, I totally agree that they need to shut it down. I am completely against that business practice. If I went to the gas station and it tried to murder me, I would be cranky pretty upset. That’s fodder for a bad Yelp review, no doubt. No more than two stars.

But after looking into it, I can conclusively say that these are crimes being committed by community members at — and against — this gas station. So the real problem in Jackson, Mississippi is that so many people in that community are violent criminals. 

The rush to avoid blame and accountability is so extreme that now they’re robbing businesses and then turning around to the business and blaming the business for being robbed. We’ve seen this kind of thing a few other times — for example, the politicians in Minnesota and other major cities who have blamed car manufacturers for making their cars too easy to steal. But this is a whole other level of delusion that we’re seeing in Jackson.

Now, I can’t help but compare the situation in Jackson to what I’ve experienced in my own life. Before we moved to Nashville four years ago, we lived in a small blue collar town in Pennsylvania. We had a local gas station that doubled as the town’s supermarket. People used to park their cars outside, leave the keys in the car with the car running and the doors unlocked, and stroll back out 15 minutes later with a bag of groceries and a coffee, and their car would still be there. So how is it that a gas station in one town is so safe that you can leave your keys in an unlocked car, while in another town you can’t fill up your tank without getting shot? And it’s not just about gas stations, obviously. 

The violent crime rate all across Jackson is extremely high. Jackson is more dangerous than 97% of all the cities in America. It is among the least safe places you can live. There are cities in third world countries safer than Jackson. By comparison, and for the record, in the town where I lived the violent crime rate was less than half of the national average. Property crimes were about a third of the national average. It was very safe. So again the question: why is one so safe and the other not? Forget about where I lived. Jackson is in the 97th percentile for crime. You could compare it to almost any town and the comparison will be very unfavorable for Jackson. Why is that? Can any politician in Jackson answer that question? 

Well, we all know where the answer starts, except we aren’t supposed to say it out loud. Every single person reading right now is thinking the same thing, but you aren’t supposed to say it. The population of Jackson is 80% black. You might know nothing about Jackson at all, but just based on the crime stats, you already made assumptions about the racial demographics — and your assumptions were right. Indeed, if you look at any town in America and see that it has a predominantly black population, you can assume that the crime rate is probably pretty high. And you will almost always be correct. We all know that. But we aren’t supposed to say it. Which is very unfortunate because it prevents us from asking the next question: why is that the case? Why is crime so prevalent in black communities? 

There isn’t one single answer to that question, but there is one major, overwhelmingly significant answer that we must begin with. The fatherless rate in the black population in Jackson (just as in cities all across the country) is more than 70%. You’ve read stats like that before so it might not really sink in, but really think about that. More than 70%. We are rapidly approaching a point where married parents and intact families simply don’t exist in Jackson — or cities like it — at all.

In fact, the fatherless problem is so pervasive in Jackson and other cities in the state that the out-of-wedlock birth rate in all of Mississippi is now over 50%. A child in Mississippi is more likely to be born to an unmarried mother than to a married one. It’s not possible to have a functioning society with statistics like that. It’s a guaranteed recipe for crime, violence, dysfunction, and chaos.

WATCH THE TRAILER FOR ‘AM I RACIST?’ — MATT WALSH’S EXPOSÉ ON DEI

There is no solution to the problems facing black people that doesn’t begin with addressing this issue. It is not possible to have a productive and worthwhile conversation about the plight of black community in this country if that conversation does not revolve around the fact that the black community, generally speaking, has given up on the nuclear family. Politicians — like the one currently running for president on the Democratic ticket — will never talk about it though, as much as they claim to be voices for that community. For Democrats, any criticism or uncomfortable observation of black communities — even if it’s well-intentioned and completely reasonable and absolutely necessary in order to solve any of the problems — is tantamount to donning a white hood.

The inevitable result is that black communities will continue to stagnate and devolve into more needless violence. That’s obviously a very bad outcome that will ruin millions of lives. But really, the problem is even worse than that. This attitude is so cancerous that it’s now destroying our national political discourse too.

If you doubt that, take a look at what happened yesterday at the National Association of Black Journalists in Chicago. (Yes, apparently we have segregated associations for black journalists, just like Kamala’s campaign has racially segregated Zoom calls.) Donald Trump showed up, knowing it would be hostile territory. He didn’t duck the event, like Kamala — who still hasn’t answered a single serious question from a single journalist since becoming her party’s presumptive nominee. 

And then as soon as the event began, the ABC journalist didn’t ask Trump a policy question. She didn’t talk about inflation or interest rates or the price of housing or any issue that actually matters to a single American. Instead, she started barking about how Donald Trump is racist because he’s said mean things about some people who happen to be black. Watch:

NEW: Donald Trump demolishes “reporter” after she tries race baiting him at the National Association of Black Journalists conference in Chicago

Reporter: “You have used words like animal and rabid to describe black district attorneys. You've attacked black journalists calling… pic.twitter.com/ZCOjkB4zuh

— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) July 31, 2024

What’s going on here is pretty clear. This woman knows that Donald Trump has called white people a lot of insulting names. Everyone’s well aware of what Trump has said about Rosie O’Donnell, or Jeb Bush, or Rand Paul, or John Bolton, or dozens and dozens of other people who happen to be white. There isn’t a single person on the planet who thinks that Donald Trump only uses nasty names to refer to black people.

What’s happening here, pretty explicitly, is that the moderator is saying Trump is racist because he treats black people the same way he treats white people. He insults them the same way he insults everyone else who crosses him, and she can’t tolerate that. She’s demanding special status for black people. She wants to completely shut down any criticism of black D.A.’s, black politicians, and black journalists. This is the same mindset that gets gas stations blamed for shootings in black neighborhoods. It is the pathological avoidance of criticism. And now it’s being used to derail debate during a presidential election.

This is not some fringe ABC reporter I’m talking about. This is a mainstream view now on the Left.

I recently came across this post on Twitter, which had millions of views and tens of thousands of likes and supportive comments. There’s been a lot of commentary like this on social media and in corporate media since Trump’s interrogation by the black journalists. This is just one example: “If you are Black… and watched how Trump talked to those Black journalists and women and you still want to vote for him. Please keep your Black ass away from me. Thanks.”

In other words, he’s saying very clearly that Trump should have treated that black journalist differently from any other journalist. Even though she was being as hostile and unprofessional as she could’ve possibly been, Trump should’ve pretended otherwise, because she’s black and it’s not possible for black people to do anything wrong whatsoever. That’s what a critical mass of people on the Left now believe.

It’s also apparently the view of Washington Post columnist Karen Attiah. In response to the event, she tweeted: “I am so angry right now. N.A.B.J., this was a colossal mistake.”

This is how you know that Donald Trump completely neutralized their attacks, by the way. If it had gone badly for Trump, they’d be glad he was invited. But it went well for Trump because instead of falling for the trap, he called it out. He treated black people the same way he’d treat anyone else. He was honest. He wasn’t tip toeing around or walking on egg shells.

This is what we need now — we’ve needed it for a long time. A radical, straight forward honesty — an honesty totally unconcerned with coloring inside the PC lines. When people aren’t allowed to say the truth, they’ll very quickly start believing in absurdities — like the idea that gas stations cause crime.

Only a party that wants more crime and more violence would push a lie so absurd.

And only a party that wants to push even more deception and propaganda, even when reality is staring all of us in the face, would ever dream of installing a candidate as obviously fraudulent as Kamala Harris.