The societal decay that occurs in areas of concentrated liberalism/progressivism are factually proven - the breakdown of the family, moral decay, the breakdown of stable and nurturing homes for children, the breakdown of education, addiction, and the laundry list of societal ills pervasive to inner-cities throughout American brought on by the evil nature of government unchecked.
The Progressive government, failed ideas, and policies are there throughout the decay to nurture and fertilize it with redistribution policies that are supposed to fix the problems. They will never admit they only grow the problems. Parent(s) abdicate their parental responsibility to the government and become inmates in an asylum they never recognize. The inmates have more children who are born as inmates.
Liberals are so blinded by their utopian ideas they fail to see the absolute reality that such a system is corrosive and unsustainable. Politicians today make the same promises and promote the same ideas every election cycle they have made for the past 50 years. The answer is always more money - never a new idea. Stockton is another Detroit and government continues to rob wealth to feed the problem.
Look at the numbers - welfare is the largest expenditure of our government now and it provides less than half of each dollar to the recipient - government absorbs the rest. The progressive war on poverty is evil. The system is self-sustaining.
Can anyone show a single city in America that was saved by welfare? Anyone? Can anyone show success for these programs? Anyone? Can anyone show a single progressive leader that has fulfilled his/her promises to fix the problem through wealth redistribution and larger government? Anyone? Can anyone show a new idea to address the problem?
The answer is clearly no, the left has brainwashed the rest of America that it is morally wrong to not fund these failed programs. I believe it is morally wrong to continue these same programs. Our nation will spare no expense or effort to rescue a child that has fallen into a deep hole. The media will breathlessly cover the rescue and we will all pray for that child and his/her rescuers. However, our nation is blind to the fate of millions of children born into the same hole statistically each year. We are blind to the reality that we created the hole.
You fail to realize that the politicians and public employees and public sector capitalists have all done quite well under these progressive policies.
There is a politician running for a House seat in Illinois whose wife retired after 20 years of government service with a $156,000/yr pension — and he has the audacity to talk about helping the little guy.
California is all about CalPERS — the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow that some politicians are cashing in on and some to the tune of $500,000/yr + colas.