Not Even One

Below is excerpted from the Democrats’ Secret:

Not Even One

That’s how you know Democrats are promoting a failed ideology. The fact they are unable to point to any areas they run as a template for future success. It’s mind boggling to recognize there is not even one example of a successful Democrat run city that’s thriving, safe, or improving. That all the cities Democrats dominate are plagued by crime, poverty, homelessness, drug addiction, retail exodus, failing schools, and economic blight. There isn’t even an outlier.

Is it any wonder why Democrats always talk about a new and better future? Why they are always promising to “turn the page.” Who would want a future that resembled what Democrats have delivered in the past?

Running the table in any area of life is hard, but when it comes to making things worse in the areas they control, Democrats have done it. And let’s not forget, it’s not as if the challenge for Democrats has been to try and succeed within a weak, poor, or struggling nation. Democrats haven’t been trying to achieve positive outcomes within a failed state. The situation has been just the opposite: Democrats have failed to achieve success within the richest, most powerful nation on earth. A fact that is about as damning as it gets.

How fundamentally flawed do progressive policies have to be that Democrats can’t point to any American city where their policies have been in place for multiple generations and say,

“Hey, look! Here’s a place where our policies have worked. Here’s a city where our policies have generated positive results. Talk to the people who live here and ask them about our policies. Ask them how their lives are going. Ask them about the safe neighborhoods that provide them with a high quality of life. Talk with them about all the ways our progressive policies are helping them thrive.”

No Democrat politician in America could make such a statement because there are no Democrat areas that are thriving.

For decades, Democrats have had near exclusive control of many of America’s largest cities. In 2024, Democrats are in control of 17 of America’s 20 largest cities.[i] But have these cities experienced success under the Democrats’ rule? Can anyone, even the most partisan liberal, say cities run by Democrats are thriving? Of course not. Conditions haven’t improved under Democrat leadership; they’ve become increasingly worse. In fact, American cities may have never been in worse shape than they are today.

Homelessness[ii] has exploded, schools have continued to fail,[iii] and gun violence[iv] has reached epidemic proportions. Illegal migrants intimidate and increasingly assault[v] law-abiding citizens at the same time homeless people have taken over sidewalks.[vi] Public transit systems in major cities have become too dangerous to ride, and crime has become so rampant that police, whom progressives have called to defund,[vii] often don’t bother to respond to 911 calls if no one has been physically hurt.[viii] (Not even Nashville has been immune to the consequences of progressivism. While the heavily Republican areas surrounding Nashville are thriving, the city itself, “a blue island within a sea of red,”[ix] is plagued by all the problems that now define Democrat run cities.[x] It has liberal judges who release criminals on low bonds,[xi] rising homelessness [up by 40% in 2024],[xii] violent crime rates that rank Nashville as the state capital with the 4th highest crime rates in the nation,[xiii] and less than 30% of students in Nashville read at grade level.[xiv])

And make no mistake about it: As much as Democrats may try to blame Republicans, Democrats own the conditions because they are the politicians who have been in charge, and it has been their policies that have been enacted. Democrats, not Republicans, have been the party that has spent trillions to implement and spread policies that have caused so much damage. And it’s all because of one common factor: Progressivism does not work.

A Democrat run city that could serve as an example of success is like a unicorn; it doesn’t exist in the real world, and it never will because of progressivism’s fatal flaw:

It’s a political philosophy that shifts power away from the people, the individuals most incentivized to create success for themselves and thus, society, and transfers it to the government and ruling class, the entities most incentivized to control, oppress, and ultimately undermine the people in order to expand their own power. It is this built in feature of all big government ideologies — moving power away from individuals and to the government and ruling class — that explains why they generate such negative results in every place they are implemented. And it’s this built-in feature of progressivism that explains why bad results aren’t simply a weakness of progressivism but are progressivism’s fatal flaw. A fatal flaw that means no matter how much political power Democrats attain, no matter how much money they spend on their policies, or how many more decades their policies remain in place, failures and bad results will not only continue, but they will accelerate.

[i] “Party affiliation of the mayors of the 100 largest cities,” Ballotpedia, https://ballotpedia.org/Party_affiliation_of_the_mayors_of_the_100_largest_cities

[ii] “How many homeless people are in the US? What does the data miss?” USAFacts, March 28, 2024, https://usafacts.org/articles/how-many-homeless-people-are-in-the-us-what-does-the-data-miss

[iii] Hanna Skandera, “America’s education system is failing–but a growing school choice movement believes it has the solution,” Fortune, June 23, 2023, https://fortune.com/2023/06/23/americas-education-system-is-failing-but-a-growing-school-choice-movement-believes-it-has-the-solution

[iv] John Gramlich, “What the data says about gun deaths in the U.S.,” Pew Research Center, April 26, 2023, https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/04/26/what-the-data-says-about-gun-deaths-in-the-u-s

[v] Michael Stallone, “Migrants beat up NYPD cops: Timeline of investigation into attack,” Fox 5 New York, February 15, 2024, https://www.fox5ny.com/news/migrants-beat-up-nypd-cops-timeline

[vi] Associated Press, “Record numbers in US are homeless: Can cities fine them for sleeping in parks and on sidewalks?” Voice of America News, April 20, 2024, https://www.voanews.com/a/record-numbers-in-the-us-are-homeless-can-cities-fine-them-for-sleeping-in-parks-and-on-sidewalks-/7578145.html

[vii] “7 Minutes of Democrats Saying Defund the Police,” October 7, 2021, The Republican National Committee, https://gop.com/video/7-minutes-of-democrats-saying-defund-the-police

[viii] Pascal Sabino, “911 calls on South, West Sides ignored while ‘rapid response’ cops make traffic stops instead,” Injustice Watch, February 15, 2024, https://www.injusticewatch.org/criminal-courts/police/2024/911-calls-response-delayed-traffic-stops; Alexa Mae Asperin, “LAPD to stop responding to these 911 calls under new proposal,” Fox 11, March 1, 2023, https://www.foxla.com/news/lapd-stop-responding-911-service-calls; Elizabeth Keefe, “Pittsburgh police no longer responding to some calls,” Norfolk Reflector, April 11, 2024, https://norwalkreflector.com/news/515430/pittsburgh-police-no-longer-responding-to-some-calls

[ix] Louis Jacobson, “Nashville: How Tennessee’s Blue Island Was Lost in a Sea of Red,” U.S. News and World Report,” November 4, 2022, https://www.usnews.com/news/elections/articles/2022-11-04/nashville-how-tennessees-blue-island-was-lost-in-a-sea-of-red

[x] Louis Jacobson, “Nashville: How Tennessee’s Blue Island Was Lost in a Sea of Red,” U.S. News and World Report, November 4, 2022, https://www.usnews.com/news/elections/articles/2022-11-04/nashville-how-tennessees-blue-island-was-lost-in-a-sea-of-red

[xi] Dennis Ferrier, “Revolving door of crime: Middle Tennessee grapples with violent offenders free on low bond,” Fox 17 WZTV Nashville, April 25, 2024, https://fox17.com/fox-17-investigates/revolving-door-of-crime-middle-tennessee-grapples-with-violent-offenders-free-on-low-bond-california-rapper-chris-king-adrian-cameron-jr-nashville-easter-sunday-shooting-anton-rucker

[xii] Adam Mintzer, “Chronic homelessness in Nashville increased 43%; millions have been invested to curb issue in recent years,” WKRN.com, May 13, 2024, https://www.wkrn.com/news/local-news/nashville/chronic-homelessness-in-nashville-increased-43-millions-have-been-invested-to-curb-issue-in-recent-years

[xiii] Brittney Baird and Sebastian Posey, “Nashville ranks among state capitals with highest crime rate,” WKRN.com, January 17, 2022, https://www.wkrn.com/news/local-news/nashville/nashville-ranks-among-state-capitals-with-highest-crime-rate

[xiv] Alexis Marshall, “Nashville schools share data on students’ reading progress. An education equity group wants more.” 90.3 WPLN News, June 17, 2024, https://wpln.org/post/nashville-schools-share-data-on-students-reading-progress-an-education-equity-group-wants-more