The president can do a great deal to fix what’s wrong in America’s cities. How he does it will be key.
Someone once told me a story about an orthodox doctor here in Jerusalem. It was the 1960s, and Israel also had its adherents to flower power, hippie living, and the like. A woman was having contractions. A nurse called the doctor. He came to her bedside and heard her saying, “Nature, please help me. Nature, please make this an easy delivery.” The doctor indicated that there was no hurry and to call him if the contractions became more frequent. Sure enough, they did, and he returned. The woman’s requests were more forceful: “Nature, please, please help me. This hurts. Nature, please help me.” “No, I don’t think she is ready. Let’s wait a little while longer.” After another half hour, the nurse came running to get the doctor. He ran to the patient’s bedside and heard her saying, “God Almighty! Save me! Help me, God!” “Okay, get her to the delivery room. She’s ready to give birth.”
Donald Trump has sent the National Guard to Washington, D.C. This move is in addition to putting the local police under federal control. According to locals and tourists, there is a noticeable drop in crime and “youths” roaming around and engaging in trouble. To make the changes last longer than 30 days, the president will need Congress’s approval. Democrats like their constituents committing crimes, so it’s not clear if Congress can be made to give more time for the new policing arrangements. There has been talk about extending the program to other cities that are mired in crime. The president should not do so, at least not until after the 2026 elections.
Americans have very short political memories. I would imagine that if Washington continues for say six months of reduced crime, better streets, and a safer life, the current Democratic mayor, Muriel Bowser, would win reelection. New Yorkers had a fairly safe and thriving city under mayors Giuliani and Bloomberg. Instead of learning the very simple rule that if they want their city to remain clean, safe, and successful, they should vote in somebody like these two guys, they put in Bill de Blasio and kissed the city goodbye. Between the portly mayor and his wife who received $850 million of city money that cannot be accounted for as well as the Covid emergency, New York went south and has not much improved under Mayor Adams. Many wealthy citizens have left, the city is dirty, crime is up, and people are afraid to use the subway. Americans take a good condition for granted and then vote for the party that will destroy it.
Donald Trump is the bookend of LBJ’s Great Society and all of the well-intentioned ideas behind “civil rights”. Affirmative action and DEI were supposed to help mostly black Americans succeed. Modified policing and criminal sentencing were supposed to go light on mostly minority criminals to give them a second chance. And while there is no doubt that there are stories of affirmative action college graduates or corporate hires who succeeded in life, for the most part, these programs did not succeed. The goal of moving blacks up to a standard of living of whites was noble, but one can’t get to the Olympics by buying cool sports clothing. Governmental good intentions cannot fix the fundamental problems of broken homes and lousy schools. We have seen at the highest level of American life DEI hires like Claudine Gay and Kamala Harris, who were incompetent and, in the latter case, unable to string together a sentence that anyone could understand. How did they rise to the president of the greatest university in the galaxy and the vice-president of the greatest country in the world? That’s all you got? With all of the help along the way, you couldn’t put forth two people who were more impressive and prepared for the important jobs given to them?
If Donald Trump continues his program in Washington and expands it against the will of local mayors in Los Angeles, Chicago, and New York, two things will happen. The first will be that the locals will live better lives. I remember when a judge threw out “stop and frisk” in New York. Poor New Yorkers said how much that program had helped them, as bad guys would not have knives or other weapons on their persons for fear of being stopped. So let’s say that Donald Trump effectively takes over America’s three largest cities. The people are happy to sit outside on the lawn, walk down the street at night, and go out for dinner without fear that their car will be gone when they finish dining. The problem is that these people will vote Democratic in the next election. Only a few would tie their improved life and life expectancy to Donald Trump and his policies. They would say that somehow it fell from Heaven or that it was the local Democratic leaders who made their lives better. Like the lady in the story above, the locals have to reach a point where they understand that if they want a better standard of living with good schools and safe streets, then they need to vote for REPUBLICANS and not knee-jerk vote for Democrats as they have done for the past 60 years. Giving them a better life is noble; not tying it to voting for a better future is a recipe for Democrats benefiting from strong Federal action. Use Washington as a model city and then tell the citizens of all of the urban disasters (Philadelphia, Baltimore, Detroit…) that if they also want to be able to roll down the window while driving in town, then vote for politicians who can work with the White House to bring the National Guard to protect them.
On the one hand, you want the millions living in big cities to have better and safer lives. On the other hand, you want long-term solutions for failing cities, and that means functional homes and better schools. Democrats have run all of the big cities for decades, and life there has become more expensive, less safe, and uglier. Donald Trump needs to tie any improvement in policing to its direct connection to politicians supporting personal responsibility over governmental handouts and school choice to get around the corrupt Teachers’ Union. Sending in the National Guard to re-elect the present Democratic leaders is a waste of American resources.
There is a well-known story of Richard Nixon meeting with Anna Chennault to push off peace talks between the two Vietnams. There was a plan for meetings to end the war during LBJ’s presidency. Nixon told her to pass along to the South Vietnamese not to join the peace talks, as they would get a better deal under his administration. His actions led to thousands more American and Vietnamese deaths, but helped get him elected. Politics can be hardball and ugly. Saving great American cities only to have corrupt and unaccountable leaders benefit from the improvements would be a recipe for no change: we have bad policies, and Washington picks up the mess we have made. Donald Trump can extend the policing to other locations, but it must come with a political change that supports strong policies that will lead to a better future once the National Guard departs. When people know that the government will not bail them out, maybe they will realize that their future is in their hands and not dependent on some faceless bureaucrats.