With Republicans emphasizing law and order as a central message coming out of night three of the Republican National Convention, some Massachusetts Democrats are reacting to how they think the Biden response should be.
A line that got Vice President Mike Pence a loud round of applause from Wednesday night's RNC, "We will have law and order on the streets of this country."
Law and order was a major theme from night three.
"Democrat-run cities across this country are being overrun by violent mobs," said South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem.
The underlying message: violence and lawlessness will run rampant under a Joe Biden administration.
"We've been here before," former NAACP Boston President Michael Curry said.
More on the RNC
Curry said he has seen Republicans use this strategy since the Nixon administration.
"This is really a conversation about dog whistles. This is really a conversation about motivating Republican voters to vote for Trump out of fear of a Biden administration," Curry said.
And some Biden supporters are concerned it's working. That suburban swing voters may be scared into believing the rallies are made up solely of disruptive anarchists as opposed to what Democrats say they really are "mostly peaceful protests to fight systemic racism."
"You absolutely have to push back on it," Boston City Councilor Andrea Campbell said.
Campbell said it's not about individual police officers who risk their lives to protect the community. It's about a system of over-policing which results in the killing of innocent, mostly Black and brown people, often with video to prove it.
"And so you can't sort of walk the middle line. This is the time to push for reforms to the system, more accountability, more transparency," Campbell said.
"Biden is trying to speak to that suburban mom who is worried about crime and violence and say we won't defund your police. I just hope he doesn't lose sense of the base of his party which wants him to speak truth to racism," Curry added.
Democrats say all of this is an attempt by Republicans to shift attention away from what they see as the real crisis: Trump's botched handling of the pandemic.
