Elections means something and if you live in the city and you vote liberal after liberal you’re gonna end up with runaway crime and homelessness (that you can see).
We’re supposed to keep this non-political, but the framing that “vote liberal after liberal and you end up with runaway crime and homelessness” is inherently political. And it’s worth examining because it has become a considerable part of the Narrative backing what we’re seeing right now.
It seems that the idea is simple: if you have strong (read: conservative) leaders who “crack skulls” and cut off benefits, you either put people in jail or force them back into work, and the problem disappears. (There's a 3rd possibility, but I'll assume for now that's not planned.) But that doesn’t work. What’s on the table now isn’t solving homelessness, it’s punishing it and hiding it. According to statements out the White House, the plan is to force people into ghettos or tent camps outside of the cities, warehousing them out of sight so the “good people” don’t have to see them. Not only is it not a solution, it’s forced removal…and it edges dangerously close to some of the more terrible ideas in history and could easily tumble into something utterly horrific.
The roots of the crisis go back decades, and they’re bipartisan: deinstitutionalization in the 70s and 80s, housing shortages in the 90s, and conservative-backed moves like the 1996 welfare reform bill. But Republicans have been especially consistent in cutting housing funds and tightening benefits. I saw it firsthand in Indianapolis in the late 90s under Mayor Steven Goldsmith (considered a conservative Republican by the standards of the day). Even during the 80s crime wave, you didn’t see much visible homelessness in Indy. By the mid to late 90s, you did.
It’s true that most cities with visible homelessness are run by Democrats. But that’s because most big cities are run by Democrats. The handful of Republican-led cities like Dallas, Fort Worth, or Fresno have the statistically have the same struggles you’d expect in any large urban area, including crime and homelessness.
And crime is significantly lower today than it was even two or three years ago, and drastically lower than the late 80s and early 90s. The missing piece in the Narrative is perspective. We’re not comparing today’s crime rates to 1982 or even 2022. The comparison being implied is to 1962. The underlying message is “crime has been out of control for 60 years.” The implication of the Narrative is that we need to get back to the Law And Order we had before the Civil Rights Era and the Counterculture.
There’s a larger pattern emerging. First, sow chaos with policies and legislative choices that make democracy look broken and your opponents look foolish. Then, when the predictable results show up, claim that the system itself is the problem, that your opponents aren’t just wrong but enemies, and that only you can fix it with the authoritarian, anti-democratic measures your more extreme allies have been proposing for years. In this case, the playbook is to frame poverty and homelessness as moral failings enabled by the supposed decadence and permissiveness of those you've now framed as enemies of the people, while gutting the very systems that could address the problem. Then, when the crisis deepens, use it as proof that democracy has failed and justify an authoritarian solution: send in the troops. It feels like we're just one Tweet away from the dogs and firehoses of Birmingham in 30 cities nationwide.
The liberals aren't innocent. But, the root of the problem as claimed in the Narrative is at best reductive and the solution disingenuous.
Everyone wants peace and safety, but does this problem justify this solution? And do we really want to go back to 1963...or worse?
), that knows about the US what i readed online and what told me american friends online and american studenst i met in France at university.
except Paramilitaries and irregulars. It may happen and you may chose to worry about it, but for me that is dramatic but remote. It’s down below stocking toilet paper.
