Wisconsin Democratic gubernatorial candidate David Crowley does not believe that state and local law enforcement should ever cooperate with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. He puts it quite starkly, repeatedly, on the campaign trail: “When it comes to immigration, I’m not an ally; I’m an accomplice.”
I’m sure that this applause line sounded really good in Crowley’s head, but words have meanings, and “accomplice” isn’t an emphatic synonym of ally; it means “one associated with another especially in wrongdoing,” or “a person who helps someone else to commit a crime or to do something morally wrong.”
Crowley has therefore no one to blame but himself for the Tom Tiffany ad that calls him an “accomplice” to notorious violent acts committed by illegal immigrants in the State of Wisconsin. Tiffany, after all, is just quoting him.