Reality strikes: Democrats in Democratically-controlled cities complain about the consequences of Democratic Party policies
The Democratic Party, though always failing it remains
the only party the voters in these cities can support
You get what you vote for: The utter disaster of the Marxist policies of the modern radical Democratic Party are now coming home to roost in numerous cities across America, making them all increasingly “unlivable” in ways that are savage, violent, and devastating. Crime is up, shoplifting is now a sports event, and murderers go free while local prosecutors indict ordinary citizens for simply defending themselves.
These facts are not news however. Since the 1960s Democratic Party policies have routinely done damage to the livability of American cities. What makes this collapse in civilization now even more significant however is who is noticing, as shown by three recent articles in the past week.
Let’s start with Minneapolis, where numerous videos document a formerly pleasant midwest city that has now become a hellhole.
South Minneapolis had been known as a relatively serene urban area, at least until a few years ago. When the extreme-progressive leadership began capitulating on homelessness, things began to change for residents like Dave Marquardt. When the city embraced Defund the Police after the George Floyd riots, the problems got exponentially worse. … The city and the police have abandoned this historic neighborhood, and now the residents feel besieged, robbed, and betrayed.
…[Marquardt] argued that Mayor Jacob Frey treats homeless encampments as a “regulatory” issue and not as a “public health issue.” [emphasis mine]
The horrible situation in Minneapolis described at the link has sadly become typical since the Defund the Police movement pushed by Democrats gained steam after Floyd’s death, combined with the election of numerous George Soros’ prosecutors who decided enforcing the law was a racist act.
Next we have San Francisco, a once magnificent city that is now a symbol of dysfunction. John Chachas, the owner of the retail shop Gump’s that has been in the city’s central core for 165 years has publicly said he is considering shutting the story down because of the city’s rampant violence and theft.
I have in the past spoken to representatives of Mayor Breed’s office. I have never spoken to anybody from Governor Newsom’s office, but I think this is going to galvanize something, I hope, because this is not unique to us. This is every small or medium-sized business in the city of San Francisco cannot survive. These kinds of things are incompatible with successful business. And if that’s something that businesses have to do to depart, it’s just tragic. It’s really tragic. [emphasis mine]
Chachus by the way is not talking about shutting the business down entirely. Though founded in San Francisco, the company operates stores nationwide. Chachus is merely talking about fleeing San Francisco.
Finally we New York City, my hometown, which for decades has been in a steady decline because of one-party Democratic Party rule. The recent influx of illegal immigrants and their placement in hotels throughout this long-time proudly “sanctuary city” is now impacting the lives of many upper class residents in Manhattan.
Joe Germanotta, the father of the famous pop singer Lady Gaga, lives on the block and, along with McIntyre, belongs to a new residents’ association committed to ending the migrant crisis in the [upper West Side of Manhattan]. “The city did not think this through,” Germanotta told National Review. “And we’re all suffering. They dropped 500 people into the neighborhood that have no code of conduct.”
“We’re probably 18 months away from looking like San Francisco.” [emphasis mine]
In all three cases, I think it would be very safe to assume these citizens — complaining about the actions of their government — all voted for that government. When Germanotta says that New York’s city government didn’t “think this through,” what he is really saying is that he as a voting citizen, didn’t think this through.
All these cities have been one-party Democrat strongholds for decades. The last time Minneapolis elected a Republican for mayor was 1973. The last time San Francisco elected a Republican was 1956. And though New York City has elected three Republicans since 1946, two were faux Republicans (Lindsay and Bloomberg). Only Rudy Guiliani could be considered a true conservative in any fashion, and even he had to deal with a government that was still controlled entirely by Democrats from top to bottom.
The bottom line is that you get the government you vote for. The voters in all three of these cities have for decades willingly endorsed the policies of the Democratic Party. Even in the most recent elections, such as those in New York City in 2022, the city’s voters voted overwhelmingly for Democrats, even though the policies of Democrat mayor De Blasio had been horrible, and it was clear that the new Democrat candidate, Eric Adams (now mayor), would be no different. These voters had an option to choose otherwise, but as they have done routinely for decades, they did not.
Thus, it is hard to feel sympathy for them, when in truth they brought hell down on themselves by their own choice. Many conservatives have thus chortled in glee at their distress.
While I don’t feel any sympathy for these partisan Democrats, I certainly get no joy at their agony. Instead, I feel nothing but great sorrow. All of this failure was simply avoidable. All that had to happen was for these voters to act like adult citizens, and (to use Germanotta’s words) “think this through.” Rather than vote based solely on party and partisan politics, they should have looked at the proposed policies and political philosophies of the candidates. Based on those facts, it was a no brainer to reject the Democratic Party, since its policies and political philosophies have led to failure now for a half century, in almost every major U.S. urban city they control (which also include cities like Chicago, Detroit, Boston, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Los Angeles, Portland, and many others).
Even if you don’t trust the Republicans (which you certainly should not), what have you got to lose? Give someone else a chance to run things. You might be surprised by the results.
But no, these voters followed what might be the central founding principle of the Democratic Party: Try the same failed thing over and over again, in the insane hope that it might work next time.
I wonder if this new round of disaster will finally wake these voters up. I have great doubts, but if something doesn’t change soon, the break down in civilization we are seeing now will pale in comparison to the destruction that will follow soon.
UPDATE: Doug Ross wrote a column on August 28, 2023 that provides a nice summary of what the Democratic Party stands for, while pretending otherwise. I think it would be wise for some Democrats to read it.
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Bob, your hometown is New York!! …huh.
Those who proposed, advocated, protested for, and voted for the lawless and alien overrun situations we see in the large ‘Sanctuary” cities need to wallow in it for a LONG TIME There should be no escape for them to the sane rural areas. If they come with their ideas reject them – send them back to the utopia (literary “no land”) they created.
I grew up in the suburbs of Los Angeles, and from what I hear from people that still live in the area, the nice neighborhood I grew up in is no longer a good place at all and anyone who can has long since moved out. Currently I live in a suburb of Portland, and while it’s still very nice here since our county and city government has at least some clue and the overflow from Portland is heading east, not southwest towards me, I’m keeping an ear to the ground and trying to figure out when and where to move out to.
Governor Kotex has just formed a “blue ribbon panel” to deal with the crisis in Portland. This panel has a membership of about 40 persons, will meet all of five times, and every member represents some kind of leftist advocacy. There isn’t a single member of law enforcement or the business community on the board. And the crisis to solve is that office buildings are empty, long standing historic business are closing doors, and nobody wants to go downtown. The crisis is most emphatically not that the sidewalks are blocked by homeless sleeping in towels and sleeping bags, that there are needles, refuse, and human waste evident everywhere, and that gang warfare in NE Portland is claiming lives pretty much every weekend. No, the problem is that people are reacting to this. There is zero chance that they will make more than a token effort to solve the real problems.
Brenden Dilley @WarlordDilley
The streets have never had a President. They’ve never had someone they could relate to, at least on some level, about a particular struggle or unjust circumstance…
Until last night. Last night, the streets were given a champion. They were given someone who they could see being set up, railroaded, arrested, and humiliated, just the way they have for decades.
Real recognizes real, and last night, the establishment uniparty made what will go down as the biggest mistake in modern history.
They martyred Trump and gave the streets a reason to love him.
https://twitter.com/WarlordDilley/status/1695050517909557269
I have learned several things in my life.
Never fish in your own pond. Do not date co-workers.
Never defecate in your own bowl. Do not ruin your own home.
Never help you enemies. If you see them making a misstate let them.
I-94 Westbound Into Minneapolis/St. Paul
The HighwayMan (2015)
https://youtu.be/qH4Oc0c6fr8
3:42
Modern day blockbusting applied now to entire cities (even countries), enhanced with anarcho-tyranny to make law-abiding citizens walk on eggshells.
David Eastman wrote: “…the crisis to solve is that office buildings are empty, long standing historic business are closing doors, and nobody wants to go downtown. The crisis is most emphatically not that the sidewalks are blocked by homeless sleeping in towels and sleeping bags, that there are needles, refuse, and human waste evident everywhere, and that gang warfare in NE Portland is claiming lives pretty much every weekend.”
Leftists always confuse cause and effect.
” . . . have no code of conduct.”
You mad, bro?
Because a more succinct expression of the Progressive view on individual responsibility and sovereignty could scarce be found.
Republicans have blame too..
Business owners who moved factory jobs overseas who then moved out of the city? That’s the ear of corn blaming the husk it leaves behind for being barren.
Now did the cities turn around and make things worse in gouging businesses that stayed? That is also true. Teaching blood guilt in the inner city is no different than a girlfriend blaming her current boyfriend for everything her past boyfriends did to her. That will just make him want to leave too.
All that had to happen was for these voters to act like adult citizens, and (to use Germanotta’s words) “think this through.”
Such thinking by ordinary folks is discouraged in our social technocracy, for they are deemed to lack the qualifications to think and decide for themselves … and the risk and effort to do so, instead of letting the experts and leaders do one’s thinking for them, is (wrongly) seen as too much for the ordinary person to handle,
Jeff … replace “voters” with “workers”, and it also fits.
Treating workers as though they are victims, absolving them of their own responsibility to secure their jobs through delivering more-than-the-minimum to the competitive marketplace their employers must deal with (and staying ready to protect themselves, by firing their management and going elsewhere when management gets stuck on stupid), discourages “thinking this through” and does them no favors.
It encourages them to think that their common sense counts for nothing … which not only is reflected in the workplace, but in the voting booth where they vote, in grand Flounderian trust, for Otters who promise to “protect workers” and “help the little guy” by treating employers as cash cows, social-services surrogates, and virtue signals … and counterproductively eroding the incentives to keep jobs here,
(BTW, many of those jobs just moved elsewhere in the country – like, say, from Detroit to the South., They didn’t all leave.)
At least Governor Kotex has NOT had the problem of the previous mayor needing to always be in the spotlight. She would JUST not shut up where the current mayor is hardly ever in the news. In fact even with this panel to ‘fix’ Portland was only one news article and she didn’t try to parade or anything.
So far she has not made any responses towards the Covid re-lock downs and she doesn’t have that evil ‘dead’ eye look that others tend to have. Maybe she will just let businesses and medical centres decide on t heir own as to whether or not they will lock down and we will see who is liberally paranoid or not. I think she is going to mostly let this one go.
CHANGING MINDS: MAKE SURE YOU READ THIS
“So, what is this panel really about? The other day I was engaged in a conversation with a friend about the recent multiple state and federal indictments levied against the front running candidate that opposes the current Democrat administration who wants and desperately needs to be reelected. And we disagreed about what it is all about. He sees the indictments of a former president and charges related to the time he was president as being well deserved and the consequences must be arrest, trial and imprisonment if found guilty.”……….read the rest”
https://www.sigma3ioc.com/post/changing-minds-make-sure-you-read-this
Robert,
You mentioned Detroit. It is another excellent example. In 1960, after decades of Republican leaders turning it into a jewel, the Democrats took over and declared it a model city for Democrat principles and leadership. It went downhill ever since. While the U.S. as a whole was doubling in size, the population of Detroit was declining by half. Democrats have not claimed it as a model city in many decades.
“what might be the central founding principle of the Democratic Party: Try the same failed thing over and over again, in the insane hope that it might work next time.”
Other Marxists have been saying similar things for years. They say that Marxist policies have not worked because the right people haven’t been in charge or because they were not implemented right.
However, India and China have moved slightly in the direction of free markets and capitalism, and between the two of them, a billion people have risen out of poverty, just on that slight movement. Free market capitalism works even when the wrong people are in charge or even when they don’t implement it right.
______________
Jeff Wright,
The businesses moved because the policies changed to make it too expensive to do business in American cities, not the other way around. Cheap labor was always available overseas. What changed were the policies in American cities, states, and even the nation.
“The city did not think this through,” Germanotta told National Review – NO. NO. NO. That’s where you’re wrong kiddo.
The people pushing these policies are not stupid, they know exactly what they are doing. It’s the progressive voters who have not thought things through. The last words out of these useful idiots will be, “but I am on your side”. They’re gleeful at censorship and political prisoners now, but it will be their turn at the end.
Mr. Wright, you gripe about business owners moving factory jobs (these are the only jobs we are supposed to care about) overseas. Pray tell, why should they remain in a country that is overwhelmingly hostile to business? Why should they remain in a place where localities, state and federal governments punish them with onerous taxation and regulation? Why should they remain in a place where the schools demand more and more money to churn out functional illiterates who cannot perform the job the business needs them to do?
Yeah, jobs do leave the country, and with circumstances such as I described, I don’t blame businesses for leaving. The Final Freedom We Have Is Voting With Our Feet.
I can remember a very prominent politician stating, “You can not be Pro-Labor and Anti-Business” Who was this Neanderthal;? Ronald Reagan? One of the Bushes? I know! It must have been that Nazi, Trump!! Actually, it was life long Democrat Bill Clinton speaking simple, obvious truth.
Of course, THAT Clinton is a non-person to today’s Dems
“All of this failure was simply avoidable.”
Like parking a car on a busy rail line, the results are unsurprising and often tragic.
judd said, “leftist confuse cause and effect”. Maybe that’s it: a simple cognitive thing?
Cotour-
help me out–looking at the sigma3ioc website and I can’t find the content.
“The road to hell is paved with good intentions”
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2021/10/28/president-biden-announces-the-build-back-better-framework/
($1.75 trillion, and one not one single objective obtained)
The Democrats know what they’re doing, they declared it loud and clear. This is “Build Back Better” in real time. The Marxist have a “manifest destiny” to fulfill in which the United States and the constitution stands in the way.
Destroy it, even the idea of it, burn it all down, rebuild it in our own image with no people in it… The few that are left will own nothing, not even their own bodies.
The Superman ideals of “truth, justice, and the American way” is dead… The next generation of elites will not be hindered by restrictions such as these.
“The leftists are creating a generation of lawyers who are not grounded in the Constitution and do not see themselves as its guardians. For them, it’s an instrument of oppression that must be overthrown so that the revolutionaries can have their way. And once that revolution happens, a revolution that has absolute disdain for the rule of law, it won’t be long before the guillotines start to appear.”
https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2023/08/americas_top_law_schools_are_openly_abandoning_the_constitution.html
And;
“The solution, they say, lies in dispensing with the Constitution entirely; the proper solution is in “direct arguments about what fairness or justice demands.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/19/opinion/liberals-constitution.html
Ben Schapiro’s response;
https://get.creators.com/content/release/332269
What fairness and justice demands? And who will be the arbiters of “what is fair?” Or what justice looks like, and WHO’s demanding it? Only one outcome of this action, Tyranny!
Every dictator that takes power does so in the name of the people promising to restore order and justice, to right the perceived wrongs of an imperfect world.
Without exception, they broke every promise.
Once in power, they did whatever they wanted too with no restrictions. The first rule of business, to destroy your enemies and to build fortifications against any perceived opposition.
Enslave the people, show them who’s boss.
Once you’ve destroyed “the republic” and established a democracy… (Where the majority votes to in slave the minority) then you take away the vote from the majority because their voice no longer matters, Ivy League schools have produced an elite class of thinkers that will make the decisions for you! (A new definition of fairness)
“if we want public office to have integrity, we might be better off eliminating elections altogether”
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/21/opinion/elections-democracy.html
(although I like this article and agree with the premise, for reducing the possibility of electing narcissist people who run for office, I know the elimination of voting will be corrupted so that the “fix is in” for those who get in office… not to mention the continuation of the deep state “administrative ruling class” who will control the uninitiated and perceived ignorant figureheads)
Government sanctioned radio;
https://www.npr.org/2022/09/22/1124558393/1a-remaking-america-the-elections-theory-that-could-disrupt-democracy
They stole the election fair and Square, now they are reinforcing there foothold to prevent America from taking back our country. Claiming “rule of law” while breaking the law! Black listing and name calling anyone who disagrees with them. Placing labels on conservatives that sounds like subhuman bubbas below notice. Making up history, and setting up strawman so they can pass laws to knock that strawman down to prevent anyone else from having regress of differences.
There’s a movement across the United States now to prevent constitutional lawyers from practicing law, disbarred and Imprisoning anyone who can contest their legitimacy to power. You see, the constitution was created to limit government… That is no longer a deterrent. They will do what they want, when they want, to who they want because they are above the law… They say what the law is or isn’t when it’s convenient for them. They are the arbitrators of what’s fair and equal which makes them good governance!
That’s why nothing makes sense anymore. A version of “divide and conquer”. Might makes right. Stand up and you will be knocked down… Hard. A boot on your face forever.
One quick correction: Erdall was a (Rep-wing) mayor for ONE DAY in 1973 due to some weird screw-up; I don’t remember the details since it was meaningless. The previous Rep-winger was Peterson from 1957 to 1961. It’s been solid Diffler (“DFL”) with the exception of Charlie Stenvig, who was a complete lunatic, since the early Sixties.
I grew up there, worked and lived there, was even dumb enough to buy a house there, and am now a political and economic refugee from the Soviet Socialist State of MN.
INFORMING MINDS
“This is what IMO extreme partisan “Fundamental Change” political warrior soldiers look like in America today. Subjectively using the law and justice system to cripple a dominant political opponent. There is a theme here, can you tell me what it is?” …… Read the rest.
https://www.sigma3ioc.com/post/informing-minds-make-sure-you-read-this-too
We used to have all kinds of textile mills in Alabama. No Union ever picked up a phone and called a moving company. Only management
I think this commentariat is smart enough to realize that the job movement was all about free trade and comparative advantage.
There is no argument about comparative advantage. Foreign labor _is_ cheaper. Note that Chinese labor is no longer all that cheap, but there is a lot of sunk cost in infrastructure that keeps “Made in China” going. But, moving from China to Vietnam and Myanmar doesn’t help American works.
There are LOTS arguments on the free trade side. The list is long, but two obvious ones:
* Why did we decide to allow China into WTO?
* Why aren’t there tariffs to match “externalities” (e.g. US EPA cost vs no EPA in China)?
Before the Soviet Union collapsed, the justification for “free trade over everything” was “we pay the cost [in lost jobs and Navy], you’re on our side against the Soviets”. After that? Not much logic behind it, which is one reason it’s coming apart, now. And even faster as people finally realize modern Russian is not the threat that the USSR was.
These things are fixable. It’s not even all that difficult. Want it to happen fast? Withdraw the US from the WTO. We’re arguably the biggest loser (jobs lost); although we’re arguably the biggest winner (cheaper goods), too.
It’s all going to fall apart – sooner rather than later judging by the latest BRICS idiocy – anyway because we’ve stopped paying for a Navy capable of doing the “world policeman” job (aircraft carriers are great for threatening countries; destroyers are far more useful for threatening pirates), so the seas are about to get dangerous, which throws free trade out the window. Just sitting around waiting will see jobs coming back to the Americas, if not the US, itself.
I lived and owned a home in South Minneapolis for 11 years, until I ultimately voted with my feet in 2015 and left. Many great things about living there, but not a place I wanted to raise my kids. I did not expect it to fall so far so fast. Sad to see. Would likely take decades to get back to where it was just in 2015, even if the voters choose differently. Managed decline is more likely from here.
Jeff Wright,
It is good to know that you understand the basic process. It is management’s job to make sure that expenses do not rise so high that the company loses its competitive advantage.
Who would have ever guessed that unions demanding more than their workers were worth would be such an anti-American act? Now that we depend upon so much overseas production, we are less secure as a nation. The same goes for governments making it too expensive for businesses to succeed in this country.
markedup2:
* Why aren’t there tariffs to match “externalities” (e.g. US EPA cost vs no EPA in China)?
Before we ask that, why aren’t we asking if those costs are justified in the first place? If they aren’t, adding tariffs to compensate is simply shooting ourselves in the foot with another bullet.
I listened in the 1970’s as my father described how many of this fellow workers acted, having become accustomed to both union protection and working in an industry where American firms had been dominant for three decades* … many of them not only did the minimum as they got the best wages and benefits in the land, they considered you a sucker if you did more than the minimum.
I also remember the reputation those firms had for quality … as in, don’t buy their product if you know it was assembled on a Friday or Monday,
It took the “threat” of legitimate foreign competition who delivered better quality – and value – to their customers, to get the American auto industry to even begin to get their act together. Even then, the UAW still focused more on politics and what they could GET, than what the rank-and-file could DELIVER to support it, misleading the rank-and-file about their responsibilities and capabilities as free people to deliver the productivity that would sustain their high-paying jobs -AND to stay ready to protect themselves by moving on when management and/or union leadership get stuck on stupid.
I was a free-trade-uber-alles kind of guy, until I realized that allowing a totalitarian expansionist to enrich themselves in a free market works against the defense of life and liberty. IMO, President Trump struck the right balance by targeting interventions against only the expansionists, and those who wouldn’t reciprocate and open their markets to American firms … not blanket ‘Murica (workers) First protectionism,
Free trade by honest foreign firms is good for America … it keeps our own firms honest and on-their-toes so they deliver honest value to our consumers, and prevents management and labor alike from becoming complacent to the point that they are caught flat-footed when a competitor takes their business … or the market just stops buying their garbage out of disgust.
Focusing on raw cost alone is short-sighted, We CAN compete, either directly in our current jobs or by finding new areas to do business in, by millions of us leveraging respect for liberty with our individual initiative to find ways to be productive and support our high wages. If we couldn’t do this, I would have been unemployed for most of my 40-year career in American manufacturing, We can bring far more distributed intellect to bear on competing with the world, than the worker-bee authoritarian states whose demand for top-down control disconnects most of their distributed intellect.
That is, if we stop shooting ourselves in the foot, with those who Know Better™ demanding we fire those bullets in the name of “saving the planet” … or “worker protection”.
———————————————–
* Many of the misconceptions regarding the roles and responsibilities of the American worker and management were solidified in the thirty years after WWII, when America was the 800-lb-gorilla in the world economy as the rest of the world was literally rebuilding from the rubble.