We live in very strange times.

Our centuries old legacy of civil liberties has been upended in a matter of months. Meanwhile New York City has suddenly started to look like the Segregation era South with Mayor Bill de Blasio declaring war on, in his words, the “Jewish community”, and ushering in a police crackdown on anyone who looks like an Orthodox Jew, and on their synagogues. 

If any other group were this blatantly targeted, say Muslims, there would be massive outrage.

Senator Ted Cruz is asking the DOJ to monitor the situation.

HOUSTON, Texas – In response to a disturbing trend of pandemic authoritarianism, U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), chairman of the Senate Judiciary’s Subcommittee on The Constitution, today called on Attorney General Bill Barr to investigate state and local officials who target and discriminate against religious communities under the guise of protecting public health.

He went on to call for the Department of Justice to closely monitor New York City to ensure Mayor De Blasio’s recent threatening rhetoric against the Jewish community does not lead to discriminatory policies and is not met with violence in a city experiencing a rise in violent antisemitism.

“I also strongly urge you to investigate local officials who target and discriminate against members of individual religions or denominations under the guise of protecting public health. Most notably, Mayor De Blasio recently threatened the ‘Jewish community’ with arrest after Orthodox Jews gathered to pay their respects for a prominent rabbi at a funeral that was coordinated with local officials. The fact that the Mayor made this threat mere days after tweeting in support of a program that would bring ‘hundreds of thousands [of meals] to the 32 sites most frequented by our Muslim communities’ and attending large gatherings with health care workers without protective equipment suggests that the Jewish community is being singled out for special burdens. This is dangerous in and of itself. But it is especially dangerous to single out the Jewish community in a city that is experiencing a substantial rise in violent antisemitism. The Department of Justice should not hesitate to closely monitor New York City to ensure that the Mayor’s rhetoric does not translate into constitutional violations.”

The crackdown on churches, also mentioned by Cruz, and synagogues in New York and New Jersey, is a troubling trend.

If this were happening to anyone else, there would be outrage. But the same media that has tried to desperately read racism into the coronavirus statistics and constantly accuses President Trump of bigotry, can’t spot any hate in Mayor Bill de Blasio’s actions.

Nor has Joe Biden condemned it.