Why The Right Shouldn’t Just Abandon America’s Cities To The Left

The Federalist ^ | January 2, 2020 | Nathanial Blake

[I want the USA back]

dems have turned our cities into $hitholes. They promote welfare, crime and laziness. dems want it that way. They cry their tales of woe and get money from the state and the fed. The money is used to pay off democrat voters and does not help the cities at all.

The people who work have gone to the suburbs, and they are being made to pay to support the cities through taxes. Bad enough, but the dems demonize the people in the suburbs who are working and having their earnings taken and sent to the $hitholes, and call them racist and supremacist.

[SunkenCiv]

Best approach to improve the world is to get rid of leftist NGOs, which alas includes many "foundations".

[the OlLine Rebel]

(Warning: did not read much of article)

Agreed, cities aren’t all bad just of themselves. It’s liberals and certain cultures that are bad. Believe me, they ruin small places as much as big cities.

I have a certain love for Baltimore. It is not just 15 min from me but it is my mother’s hometown. She loved it so and it was a wonderful place when she grew up and lived there, both in tiny row homes and a wonderfully big Victorian.

Oh, and she and her family were as conservative as anyone. Even when barely employed through the ‘30s my grandparents were anti-Dem.

Then the rotten culture was allowed to take over, starting with the Riots of ‘68.

[chrisser]

I know there are exceptions, but the sad fact is that people who live in the cities want to be dependent on government. There are degrees to this, of course, but if they wanted an independent life, they'd move.

The Dems pander to, manipulate, enable and insure this dependence, thus guaranteeing the votes of the populace.

Repubs don't do so much pandering. Heck, sometimes I wonder if they're even on our side, but those of us who don't want the dependent life also don't have much use for politicians - we get the pubbies by default and they're not nearly as bad as 'rats would be.

I'd be fine with all of the above if we had a way to limit the influence of cities to their geographic area, or if they were content to keep their governance to themselves. The fact is, the cities and the politicians therein aren't content with limiting power to the cities and their citizens. They want to rule the rural areas around them and that's where most of our conflicts lie. I would argue they not only want to rule the rest of us, they demand deference to their enlightenment. That is never going to end well.

If they'd just stick to the cesspools they created, most of us in the in-between wouldn't give them a second thought.

[MrEdd]

As a practical matter, it looks like we are heading for civil war.

You don’t want any more of your own people to be collateral damage than you can avoid so if conservatives want to live in cities they should wait until new ones are built after the war.

[DannyTN]

I agree with the article. We don't need to pull a Romney and write off huge sections of the citizenship. Instead we need to educate on:

• Capitalism
• The evils of socialism and communism
• The Bill of Rights
• Checks and Balances in the Government
• Respect for Democracy

[Reily]

There was a Supreme Court ruling in the 1960s that greatly expanded the power of high population areas i.e., cities over the rural countryside. (I think it in some way diminished the power of state senates but I can’t swear to that!) Everett Dirksen then Senator from Illinois made a comment on it and said it would financially devastate his state as well as others. I think we are seeing that now. Maybe some FR legal beagle can find the ruling and post it.

[Clemenza]

As someone who has lived a good part of his life in and around cities. I would not want to return to the 1950s. We need a better agenda for the 2020s centered on more effective/responsive government, privatization of services where effective (airports are a good start), effective policing and lack of tolerance for sleeping and defecating in our streets.

[glorgau]

> I even put ketchup on hot dogs

Damned communist. ;-)

[Bruce Campbells Chin]

The one counterexample I can think of is Detroit, where bankruptcy got them off the hook for a lot of these pension costs. This freed-up money for them to do things like turn the streetlights back on and demolish abandoned buildings.

That's a good point. Bankruptcy may be the only thing that can break the toxic political stranglehold the Democrat politician/municipal worker cabal has on so many cities. Detroit didn't elect a Republican, but they did elect an outsider white mayor from the county that wasn't part of the city worker cabal.

[Bruce Campbells Chin]

The one counterexample I can think of is Detroit, where bankruptcy got them off the hook for a lot of these pension costs. This freed-up money for them to do things like turn the streetlights back on and demolish abandoned buildings.

That's a good point. Bankruptcy may be the only thing that can break the toxic political stranglehold the Democrat politician/municipal worker cabal has on so many cities. Detroit didn't elect a Republican, but they did elect an outsider white mayor from the county that wasn't part of the city worker cabal.

[dfwgator]

[jpl]

They will always lean towards the democrats, but Trump is going out of his way to push for policies to increase job opportunities in the urban cores.

And it looks like it's working, which is why unemployment is the lowest it has been in decades for minorities. This probably helps to explain has Trump has better support in the black community than any republican in a couple of generations (yes, it's still a low level of support, but higher than what others have had).

[glorgau]

> The one counterexample I can think of is Detroit, where bankruptcy got them off the hook for a lot of these pension costs.

The generic term used by Chicago residents I know is “The Reset”. It must happen sooner or later because the math just does not work. The can has already been kicked down the road many, many times. When the next recession hits, somebody is not going to get paid.

[JonPreston]

Encouraging marriage and discouraging out of wedlock births would help many inner cities.

Is it now a conservative mission to explain basic common sense to inner city dwellers? Maybe conservatives would have better success training the San Fransisco homeless to use indoor toilets.

[Buckeye McFrog]

In response to Detroit’s bankruptcy many blue states rushed to pass amendments to state constitutions to prohibit such bankruptcies in the future. So Illinois is pretty much scrooooood.

In Pittsburgh the city’s finances were under a form of state receivership similar to Chapter 11, until the uber-Liberal Tom Wolf got elected Governor. He quickly ended the oversight and they are free to make non-viable pension commitments again.

[Buckeye McFrog]

I can tell you the end game for Illinois.

The City of Chicago will run out of money along with the state.

A crisis will be declared. They will go to Washington, DC, demanding a bailout and making their best Chicken Little case that the sky will be falling if they don’t get one.

Congress will capitulate and they’ll receive one. It’s the lesson I learned in 2008. If you go to Congress with a sufficiently butt-puckering tale of impending doom, you WILL receive a bailout.

[Manuel OKelley]

I’ve lived in large cities most of my life due primarily to the fact that I can make a hell of a lot more money (even considering cost of living) than I could in the hinterlands.

I’ve found plenty of like minded people, most of my colleagues fall into the same top1 or 2% and in the same boat..... and The 10 years I lived in BFE I saw firsthand how dependent the majority of the populace was on disability, county and state contracts, etc and little of anything was created or produced that didn’t have govt money of some sort behind it

Where I live we know we build business, provide value, and can find the people we need to do so. Tried it in the country and it was nigh on impossible

Don’t get me wrong....love rural USA but the lack of skilled people, meth and opioids everywhere, and the education systems (and lack of private educational opportunities) in most of the country is a real thing

One day I’ll retire and move back to the hills but until I have finished what I want and my kids have finished their educations it ain’t happening

[CodeToad]

“As a practical matter I don’t see how the Right re-establishes any significant influence in these places.”

They don’t and shouldn’t. Cities are liberal by their very definition. They are a Ponzi scheme where growth and more congestion is necessary to keep them afloat. Cities enrich those that control the city but few else.

[married21]

Hong Kong. A city conservatives can love. Just sayin.