A Tale of Two Democrat Cities

The two largest cities in the United States are Los Angeles and New York City. Both are dominated by Democrats and, last week, both provided excellent case studies in negligence and corruption.

In the City of Angels, dereliction of duty by municipal officials has caused 40,000 acres of residential and commercial property to go up in flames. In the Big Apple, a corrupt district attorney and a politically compromised judge set fire to the credibility of a once respected legal system. If it seems farfetched to connect these events, consider that 27 of the 30 largest U.S. cities are controlled by Democrats who have raised maladministration and lawfare to art forms.

Los Angeles and New York City dominated the news last week primarily because gross negligence and brazen corruption adversely affected the lives of the rich and famous. If the L.A. fires had merely destroyed the homes of the hoi polloi rather than those of celebrities like Ben Affleck, Jeff Bridges, Billy Crystal, Jamie Lee Curtis, Anthony Hopkins, Paris Hilton, et al., the legacy media would have yawned.

Nor would Change.org be circulating a petition demanding the recall of Mayor Karen Bass, despite her obvious culpability. Meanwhile, the crack journalists of the major “news” outlets are attacking — wait for it — Donald Trump, whom they insist is spreading “misinformation.” As Michael Shellenberger notes on X:

As a new wave of fire and high winds threaten Los Angeles, the media is reporting that California’s elected leaders are not to blame and that right-wing influencers and Donald Trump are spreading misinformation and politicizing a tragedy. Racial and gender quotas through DEI aren’t to blame. No, Mayor Karen Bass didn’t cut the Fire Department’s budget. No, Gavin Newsom didn’t cut CalFire’s wildfire prevention budget. And no, there wasn’t any way to prevent these fires or the fire hydrant water from running out. Climate change made the disaster inevitable.

Thus, in addition to being branded a “convicted felon” by a compromised New York judge based on a fictitious crime concocted by a corrupt Manhattan district attorney, Trump is under attack for telling the obvious truth about the Los Angeles conflagration. Moreover, in the most shameless display of hypocrisy since the infamous French Laundry affair, California Gov. Gavin Newsom has been whining about Trump’s failure to return his phone calls or respond to a written request for an official presidential tour of the disaster area.

This, you will recall, is the same character who called a special session of California’s legislature for the express purpose of getting his hands on $25 million to “Trump-proof” the Golden State.

This would be funny were it not so tragic. Good governance is actually possible, even in California and its largest city. Before the corporate media buried Rudy Giuliani’s stellar record as the Mayor of New York City, he proved it. In 1994 he inherited a dangerous hellhole from its previous mayor, David Dinkins, and served two terms during which he saved the city from an ongoing crisis of crime, insolvency, and dysfunction.

Giuliani was dubbed “America’s Mayor” after the 9/11 attacks. He has now been ruined by unrelenting lawfare waged against him for the crime of supporting Trump, but not before he demonstrated what real leadership looks like. As the editors of the Free Press explain, it is absent in Los Angeles:

On 9/11, there was nothing then–Mayor Rudy Giuliani could do to keep the World Trade Center from falling. Yet he became, in that long-ago era, the most popular person in America by staying on the scene and leading at his city’s moment of greatest danger. That brings us to the fires in Los Angeles — the most devastating in the history of the city, with a reported 27,000 acres burned and the fires mostly uncontained. There, authorities have failed not only at protecting its residents but at inspiring confidence that they had the situation in hand.

Are Democrat mayors in America’s other large cities inspiring greater confidence? Nope.

Democrat Cities in Chaos

In Chicago, the nation’s third largest city, there is currently a growing push to recall Democrat Mayor Brandon Johnson, who enjoys a 15 percent approval rating. In Houston, the country’s fourth largest city, the city controller has called for a pay-to-play probe into the finances of Democrat Mayor John Whitmire. In Phoenix, the nation’s fifth largest city, Democrat Mayor Kate Gallego has refused to sign a consent agreement with the DOJ after the latter produced a report indicating that the Phoenix Police Department has consistently engaged in racial discrimination reminiscent of the Jim Crow era. And the beat goes on.

There can be little doubt that the mismanagement of large American cities by Democrats contributed to Donald Trump’s 2024 victory. According to a report in the New York Times the base failed to turn out: “The decline in key cities, including Detroit and Philadelphia, made it exceptionally difficult for Ms. Harris to win the battlegrounds of Michigan and Pennsylvania.” Yet the Democrats don’t seem to grasp that messaging won’t replace basic governing. If they promote luxury issues like climate change, or launch lawfare campaigns against their opponents, they had better make sure that fire hydrants produce water and police catch criminals. Otherwise, the urban blue wall will go the way of the Rust Belt.

READ MORE from David Catron:

Democrats Still Don’t Get Why They Lost

Will Dems Disrupt Certification of Trump’s Triumph?

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