When London Breed was elected Mayor of San Francisco, every article I could find about it included some version of the phrase, “San Francisco’s first black African-American woman mayor.”
Yeah, but will she be any good?
If you look at the cities that are failing most in this country, it’s an easy exercise to look at what political philosophy has been used to address the city’s problems and how have those solutions performed?
Detroit, the poster child of urban failure, has been run by the same political ideology for the past 60 years. It’s the poorest big city in the nation, and there’s been a history of corruption.
Chicago just passed 90 years since the last time they were run by anyone with a conservative ideology. Last year, more than 2,300 people were shot, and more than 400 were killed. They have no money, and people are moving out as quickly as they can.
It’s been almost 70 years since Philadelphia or St. Louis has tried a different perspective. St. Louis has one of the highest rates of poverty, and Philadelphia could soon be in bankruptcy.
It’s been almost 50 years since Baltimore or Oakland have tried a different approach. Like the aforementioned cities, both are known for poverty and crime.
San Francisco and Seattle were both great cities as recently as 20 years ago. Now, both literally have human feces on the streets, homelessness everywhere, and have city governments doing their damnedest to run their successful businesses out of town.
These examples are everywhere, and they persist. We just need to start doing a little critical thinking and looking at the evidence. Instead of voting for people who pick and choose identity groups they’re going to save, let’s pick the ones who are going to address our problems so that we all can prosper.
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