Milwaukee Country Sheriff David Clarke railed against the “progressive policies” on Monday that he says led to the riots in Milwaukee over the weekend.
Appearing on Fox News’s “America’s Newsroom” with Martha MacCallum, Clarke said, “Saturday night the social order totally collapsed in a part of the city of Milwaukee. And when that happens, tribal behavior takes over and tribal behavior leads to you law of the jungle replacing the rule of law.” (RELATED: Milwaukee Riots After Armed Suspect Killed By Cop)
Clarke went on to explain, “All a police shooting does was act as an igniter… here is what causes riots. We have inescapable poverty in the city of Milwaukee. Milwaukee is sixth poorest city in America. You have massive black unemployment, I think at 32 percent. You have a failing K-12 public education system. It’s one of the worst in the nation. You have questionable lifestyle choices. Some of this is self-inflicted. All the kids with no fathers around, father, absent homes. When fathers are not around to shape behavior of young men, they often times grow up to be unmanageable misfits.” (RELATED: Milwaukee Rioters Hunt Down, Attack Whites [VIDEO])
The fiery sheriff continued, ” All this police shooting did of armed individual by the way, when four other murders happened night before, and you didn’t see this sort of reaction. You know and you ask how things are going. It was a little better last night. Not good enough for me. I won’t be happy until these creep rioters crawl back into the hole and let quality of life return.” (RELATED: Sheriff David Clarke Calls In National Guard To Keep Peace In Milwaukee [VIDEO])
Clarke later argued that the “growth of the welfare state” encourages the violence as seen in Milwaukee over the weekend.
He said, “These are underclass behaviors. 70 percent of the kids born in Milwaukee, at least for the last decade or so are born without engaged father in their life. So, I look at the progressive policies that have marginalized black dads. They push them to the side, said you’re not needed. Uncle Sam is going to be the dad. He’s going to provide for kids. He’s going to feed the kids…. but Uncle Sam has been a horrible father. Uncle Sam does not like the kids. He keeps a little food in their mouth and that’s about it. But we all know the importance of an intact family, what it can do to shape behavior of kids.”
“And when you have the situation like we have here in Milwaukee, it is in Chicago, it’s in Baltimore, it’s in New York and some other areas, this has been a total collapse, a disaster, these progressive policies have hit the black community like a nuclear blast. And until we reverse this, this government dependency, that is what creates all of this, and it encourages it by the way, along with questionable lifestyle choices. But until the black community does self-evaluation and until they begin to self-criticize about some of the lifestyle choices they are making, this stuff is going to continue to fester and it’s going to continue.”
Clarke later concluded his interview arguing that the “progressive Democrats” and the “political class” who have “ruled” Milwaukee have “to be honest, and say ‘Look, we set up the government dependency. It has backfired on us.'”
“[Y]ou can’t pull rug out from under people all at once. Let’s slowly start to reverse this and make people, make people reach for self-sufficiency. Over time you can reverse this… But right now this is about political power. Progressives want votes, black votes. And they do it how? Keeping black people hooked on the high of handouts.”