OPINION: John R. Smith

We are reading and seeing much hullabaloo lately about Baltimore, formerly a grand old charming city decades ago. But Baltimore’s politicians over the years have run it into a stench-filled city, with possibly 3 million rats freely running around, and now labeled one of “the worst American cities to live in” according to a local TV station in 2017.

The Baltimore Sun reported that the city is “worse than” many Central American countries, where people are fleeing to seek asylum in the U.S. Specifically, the Sun stated in 2017 that the Baltimore murder rate is continuing “to be higher than Central America’s most dangerous countries.” Yes, more than Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras. And PBS aired a 2018 one-hour special called “Rat Film,” on the rat infestation in Elijah Cummings’ city. Also in 2018, USA Today named “Baltimore ‘the nation’s most dangerous city’… the ‘deadliest big city in the country”. In addition, it has a severe garbage and trash mess.

Its public schools rank lowest in Maryland. There were 13 schools in Baltimore that did not have even one student who could pass the standard math test!

How did all this happen? How did Baltimore fall on such hard times? The un-sugar-coated answer is that the city was ruined because it was under Democratic city-council control for the last 77 years. The last Republican mayor left office 52 years ago.

Front-and-center on the list of politicians responsible for Baltimore’s descent into hellhole status is Rep. Elijah Cummings. He has represented Baltimore in the U.S. House for 23 years, while it disintegrated into violence and poverty. Prior to that, the office was held by another Democrat, Kweisi Mfume. President Trump recently singled out Cummings as a “brutal bully”, who failed to halt Baltimore’s “extreme poverty, high crime, and severe public health issues”. Trump stated, “Cumming(‘s) District is a disgusting, rat and rodent-infested mess… a very dangerous and filthy place.” This is in spite of the fact that Cummings’ Congressional District received $16 billion in Trump’s federal assistance money in 2018 alone!

Cummings is loudly howling about Trump’s comments not because they are true. He is squawking because Trump publicly called his hand, challenging Cummings after he slammed the DHS and Border Patrol about the Southern Border. Cummings lacks the facts to defend himself, so he yells “racist”.

But as horrific as the Baltimore story is (even Bernie Sanders compared Baltimore to a “Third World country” in 2016), the larger story is worse: Baltimore is not an anomaly. The truth is that most U.S. cities that have dipped into decay and violence have been run by Democrats for decades. The Dems blow their horn about how compassionate and caring they are, and yet most big-city governments have failed to improve the lives and economic circumstances of their citizens.

Democrats run nine of the 10 largest U.S. cities; they control 16 of the 20 largest cities. USA Today, in 2019, reports “the top 10 most dangerous cities in America” are governed by Democrats. Looking at cities in similar decay as Baltimore, Democrats run them all.

In the San Francisco home district of Speaker Pelosi, you can use a cellphone app to navigate diseased city streets to avoid human fecal waste. Seattle and Los Angeles are just as bad. Chicago has unimaginable inner-city violence, and is broke. Better not drink the water in Flint, Michigan. Detroit is the archetype of urban failure, the poorest large city in America. Democratic mayors have run St. Louis for 70 years, and Forbes says it’s the second most dangerous city in the nation. Newark has had Democrat mayors for more than a century, and in 2015 became the 5th–worst city to live in.

The reasons for these devastating near-criminal disasters are Democrat policies. Investor’s Business Daily explains: “When Democrats are in control, cities tend to go soft on crime, reward cronies with public funds, establish hostile business environments, heavily tax the most productive citizens, impose smothering regulations and set up fat pensions for their union friends. Simply put, theirs is a Blue State blueprint for disaster.”

Op-ed views and opinions expressed are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of BizPac Review.