Like the latter days of the Roman Empire, in this American republic, much of the elite has abandoned its national duty. So it’s been the commoners, with no higher title than citizen, who have undertaken the hard work of defending. America’s cops have been our steady blue-collar centurions fighting crime. In fact, a 1971 study found that police force had overwhelmingly blue-collar backgrounds; the fathers of 80 percent of NYPD recruits in that era were laborers or service workers.