from those states, you get a much lower number that Democrats don’t want you to see. Defund the Police protests. Antifa riots. Smash and grab theft rings. Gangs ransacking department stores and small businesses. The burning down of police departments by angry mobs. The random but targeted kill- ings of police officers. Empty city streets in parts of town where side- walks are filled with open drug use. Women being assaulted and children trafficked. Many of us have read the headlines, seen the videos online, and heard the stories. Democrat-run cities in America are on the verge of collapsing. Some have already plunged into the abyss. Republican leadership, maturity, and discipline are needed now more than ever. If Republicans don’t fight for our cities, or worse, flee altogether, we risk a dangerous transformation where we leave our children with a world that is worse off than we entered it. We can’t let that happen. Palmer Schoening Palmer Schoening is part of AMAC Action’s advocacy team in Washington, DC. He is a graduate of Hillsdale College and George Mason University’s School of Public Policy.
Democrat mayor switched parties and became an Independent (as did his wife who succeeded him in office). Another sign of collapsing cities is the rise in homelessness. According to Security.org’s latest report cover- ing 2014-2018, among the list of top 10 cities with the biggest homeless- ness problem, seven had Democrat mayors, one had an Independent, and two had a Democrat and Republican mayor during that time. Of the top 10 major cities with the highest home- lessness, four are in California. Another barometer that reveals the corroding effect of Democrat lead- ership is fiscal discipline, or lack thereof. In 2013, the Democrat-run City of Detroit filed for bankruptcy, the largest municipal bankruptcy in US history. One city that encapsulates all of the problems of Democrat rule and that really symbolizes the dysfunction you get from following a persistently progressive agenda, is San Fran- cisco, California. A December 2022 report from the DailyMail.UK high- lighted San Francisco’s woes, such as rampant homelessness due to its widely promoted ‘Sanctuary City’
status, open-air drug use, vacant office buildings, a teetering econ- omy, rising crime, declining popula- tion, and a $728 million budget deficit. The overall crime rate in the city was up 3.9% year over year in 2022, led by increases in larceny thefts (9.6%), assaults (7.6%), robberies (4.9%), and rape (2.8%). Things got so bad in San Francisco that even the Soros- backed socialist District Attorney, who widely pledged not to enforce the law, was successfully recalled by voters. While the media is only now really focusing on the disastrous effects of having Democrats run cities, a 2010 report from the National Review covered ‘America’s 17-most bank- rupt cities,’ which consisted of cities with leadership by two Republicans, two Independents, and twelve Demo- crats, meaning Democrats led 70% of America’s most-bankrupt cities at the time — including one city “so bank- rupt that it [was] in state receivership.” We all know that Democrats lie about their track records and try to spin the news story by saying “Crime is up in Red States,” but when you extract the death and destruction left behind by Democrat-run cities and counties
PUZZLE SOLUTIONS puzzles on page 48
12 • AMAC Magazine
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