Patrick Lynch, the president of New York City’s largest police union, should be everything the Right hates. Aggressive at the bargaining table, his more than twenty thousand members soak up taxpayer money in the form of negotiated wages, health care, and the city’s most coveted pension plan. Accountable to no one but the membership, this labor organization plays a huge role in shaping city policy.

Yet Lynch has been embraced wholeheartedly by the Right. Hailed by the likes of Fox News host Sean Hannity, Lynch now speaks for a self-proclaimed persecuted minority: cops. Lynch has blamed New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio for the recent shooting deaths of two cops by a clearly mentally unstable individual, claiming de Blasio’s (tepid) criticism of police has fostered a climate of anti-cop enmity.

In response to the wave of nationwide protests against police violence, Lynch has emerged as a spokesman for the status quo. With cops literally turning their back on de Blasio, Lynch’s members have drawn a clear line in the sand not just in New York, but between police advocates and anyone seeking reform.