Author Maureen Dowd recently made one of the more self-unaware arguments that the left has been using regarding the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol building. After last Tuesday’s first hearing in what is already shaping up to be a full-on political theater production, many on the left pointed out how conservative influencers were attacking the Capitol police officers who gave testimony about their experience on Jan. 6.

In a piece titled “Why Do Republicans Hate Cops?” Dowd rightly points out the fact that the right abandoned its usual “Back the Blue” stance when it comes to the officers who defended the Capitol building on that day. The author used Fox News’ Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham as examples.

After strangely acknowledging that Hannity’s monologue last Tuesday night included a defense of the police, she pointed out that the commentator did not mention the four officers who testified before the Democratic select committee on the riot. Dowd then mentioned how Ingraham jokingly gave “Best Exaggerated Performance” and “Best Political Performance” awards on her show.

Dowd also brought up how some GOP lawmakers unfairly portrayed the officers who complained about experiencing racist epithets and violence. She wrote:

More than casting the police who told their stories as drama queens and fabulists, four House Republicans, representing the dregs of Congress, turned up at a Washington jail on Thursday to shine a light on the plight of suspects detained in the Jan. 6 insurrection. One of them, Representative Paul Gosar of Arizona, hailed them as “political prisoners.”

Then, she did the most predictable thing ever: She blamed former President Donald Trump. She wrote:

Since when do Republicans care more about criminals in jail than the cops who put them there? Since when do they coddle domestic terrorists?

Since Donald Trump.

Dowd referenced a Daily Beast piece alleging – without evidence – that Trump referred to the officers who testified as “pussies,” and accused him of trying to portray Babbitt as a “martyr” to his cause. The rest of the piece is more “Orange Man Bad” gobbledygook that isn’t worth discussing.

However, what IS worth discussing is the apparent hypocrisy and lack of self-awareness being displayed by Dowd and her comrades in the activist media and Democratic Party. Yes, she does accurately highlight the fact that conservatives temporarily gave up their “Back the Blue” mantra when discussing the Jan. 6 riots.

Conservative influencers were not repeating the usual “comply or die” mantra that is recited ad nauseam whenever a Black person is killed by a police officer after having failed to comply with an officer’s orders. Nobody on the right tried to dig up Babbitt’s criminal record or portray her as a thug to downplay the severity of the officer’s actions.

But it turned out that none of this would have been necessary because the left gladly filled that void. Indeed, they did exactly what they criticize conservatives for doing. They viciously demonized Babbitt and some even insinuated that she deserved to be shot and killed. The left was so gung-ho about defending the police and the murder of Ashli Babbit that I halfway expected to see Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) post a selfie wearing a Thin Blue Line T-shirt.

In essence, the left is guilty of the exact hypocrisy that they love to point out on the right. The only reason why they are defending Babbitt’s murder is that she was a white Trump supporter.

That’s it.

If she had been a Black Lives Matter protester, the name of the officer who killed her would have been exposed ten seconds after she was declared dead, CNN’s Don Lemon would be calling for justice, and Ben Crump would have taken the first plane to D.C. To put it simply, her race and political affiliation determined how the left felt about her killing.

I know many of you hate it when I use the dreaded words “both sides.”

But there is no way around it this time: People on both sides are raging hypocrites when it comes to this issue. In essence, the assault on the Capitol building caused conservatives and progressives to momentarily switch sides and it revealed what many of us already knew: Too many people base their opinion on police and police brutality on the political affiliation/race of the person involved in the incident. Unfortunately, it’s about politics, not solving problems. These types of problems will not be solved until more of us begin valuing consistency over political expediency.