Conservatives have every reason to celebrate the “vibe shift” that has occurred in much of society following last fall’s election. But three stories on crime, the transgender agenda, and immigration from this past week show why there is no room for complacency on the part of patriotic Americans.
The first is an entirely preventable tragedy that occurred last month but received no nationwide attention until this week when it began gaining traction on social media. On August 22, Iryna Zarutska, a 23-year-old refugee who had fled war-torn Ukraine, was riding the Charlotte, North Carolina light rail and quietly looking at her phone when she was approached from behind and brutally stabbed to death by 34-year-old Decarlos Brown. The attack appears entirely random.
If you understand the principle of what makes any event a “national” story for the legacy media—it benefits Democratic Party narratives—you might wonder why this one was not chosen. Since it’s the brutal murder of an immigrant by a native-born American, why wouldn’t national media run with that to evoke sympathy for immigrants? Moreover, why wouldn’t the political movement that has been waving Ukraine flags for the past three years take this opportunity to highlight the gruesome murder of a Ukrainian refugee?
There are two main reasons why the corporate press tried to bury this story.
First, Brown is black and Zarutska is white. According to the left’s victimhood hierarchy, Zarutska cannot become a sympathetic figure because of the color of her skin. Because portraying a savage killer as the real victim in this case is unpalatable even for the likes of CNN, MSNBC, and The New York Times, those outlets (and the rest of the liberal press) have refused to cover the story at all.
But there is another very important reason for this silence: Brown had a history of 14 arrests for serious crimes ranging from threats of violence to armed robbery dating back to 2011 – and spent only about six years in prison. Local Charlotte reporter Joe Bruno posted on X that in January 2025, Brown was again in court because of his misuse of the 911 system. Magistrate Judge Teresa Stokes decided to release Brown without him paying anything merely on the promise that he would appear before the court – making Zarutska yet another victim of the left’s “no cash bail” policy.
The homeless, most likely mentally ill, and definitely dangerous Brown continued to prowl the streets because Democrats refused to lock him up. Because of liberals’ suicidal empathy, Iryna Zarutska tragically found out that Charlotte’s public transit system is more dangerous than an active war zone.
This is the reality that Americans have to deal with: judges who refuse out of ideology or misguided compassion to protect the people whom they serve.
The politicians are just as callous. Called upon to make a statement, Charlotte’s mayor Vi Reynolds (a Democrat, of course) never mentioned the murder victim and insisted, “We will never arrest our way out of issues such as homelessness and mental health.” Certainly, Madame Mayor, but if you figured out a way to imprison those violent criminals who were arrested, you could prevent more victimization of the innocent.
The second story comes from Massachusetts. Kristen Waggoner, President of the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), reported on Friday on Nick and Audrey Jones, who have fostered a 17-month-old girl nearly all her life and are now being threatened with having this little girl taken from them. Why might that be?
The Bay State now has a new policy that demands all foster parents affirm allegiance to trans ideology or lose their license to foster children. Specifically, Waggoner writes, the state is demanding that parents who volunteer to foster a child must agree:
- to use a child’s “preferred pronouns” if requested
- to provide a child with “gender-affirming clothing, such as binders, packers, body shapers, bras, breast inserts, and similar items in a timely manner”
- to facilitate a child’s medical “transition” via harmful puberty blockers or cross-sex hormones
- not to voice any religious or moral beliefs that conflict with gender ideology
Massachusetts is currently in the midst of a crisis in which one in five children in need of foster parents can’t find any. Yet now the state is actively hostile toward a significant portion of the population willing and able to meet those needs because they believe that boys are boys and girls are girls.
The brave folks at ADF are filing a federal lawsuit against the State of Massachusetts. But it’s truly sickening that, in yet another blue state, the government is waging war on common sense and children are being caught in the crossfire.
The third story demonstrates that it’s not just blue cities and states that pose a threat to last November’s hard-won victories. Some politicians in red states will, if not watched like hawks, start to go along to get along.
On Friday, Lieutenant Governor Micah Beckwith of my home state of Indiana posted on X about his meeting with local Haitian pastors in Marion County (Indianapolis). Beckwith mentioned that there are 40,000 Haitians applying for asylum status in Indiana, then declared: “What I saw was not a community asking for a handout, but people determined to work hard, raise their children to become contributors to the great Hoosier state, and assimilate to the American way of life.”
Just to provide some context that Beckwith is apparently unaware of, according to the Center for Immigration Studies, “Of households headed by Haitian immigrants, 52.7 percent use at least one major welfare program.” That figure for native-born Americans is 28.4 percent. In other words, it is a statistical probability that those 40,000 migrants applying for asylum will indeed be asking for a handout – and getting one.
After Beckwith disabled replies on his post, the internet was filled with people reposting his comments with their outrage at the seeming intention to help move such large numbers of people from a dysfunctional country into the midst of the American heartland. It was as if Beckwith had learned nothing from the enormous scandal last year after enterprising independent journalists revealed the havoc wrought on Springfield, Ohio, by a similar influx of Haitian migrants.
We can be thankful that, if Beckwith isn’t particularly bright, he’s also not stupid enough to persist. By Saturday, Beckwith had posted again, declaring that he was not advocating that the Haitians all be moved to Indiana. Far from it, he was really in favor of keeping the borders shut and halting asylum claims until the country could get a handle on “the current crisis.”
He concluded: “I am not advocating for us to have Haitians come to America or Indiana. I am saying that if Haitians come to our state, they must do it legally, learn English, and assimilate to our culture.” Only time will tell if his apparent change of heart persists.
Conservatives have much to be thankful for in 2025. We have won a good deal of order, liberty, and even sanity in this country lately. But these victories need to be secured more consistently over the whole nation. As the saying goes about liberty, so too with all good things: the price is eternal vigilance. It’s a price worth paying.
David P. Deavel teaches at the University of St. Thomas in Houston. A past Lincoln Fellow at the Claremont Institute, he is a Senior Contributor at The Imaginative Conservative. Follow him on X (Twitter) @davidpdeavel.
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