Glenn Harlan Reynolds

Around the nation, this year, you can see two phenomena at work: One is the collapse of what Walter Russell Mead calls the “Blue Model” of government, one based on unions, racial/ethnic politics, high regulation and high taxes. The other is the steadily more desperate efforts of Blue Model politicians to keep kicking the can down the road.

For starters, look at Rahm Emanuel’s Chicago. Rahm Emanuel, a major inner-circle supporter of both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, is not a stupid man. Nonetheless, he’s finding it harder and harder to hold things together.

Right now, Emanuel is facing problems over the police shooting of Laquan McDonald. Video makes it pretty clear that the shooting wasn’t justified, but the city withheld the video until, conveniently enough, after Emanuel had won a sharply-contested election. McDonald’s family received a $5 million settlement (which some have characterized as hush money) and emails obtained by the Chicago Sun-Times last week show that city officials were more interested in managing the news than in getting to the bottom of what happened. Meanwhile, Chicago faces other problems, including a secret jail where prisoners were kept from their lawyers, numerous other instances of police misconduct and racial discrimination and a sinking school system.

As Mead, a professor of foreign affairs and the humanities at Bard College, notes, this poses problems for Chicago in more than one way. First, the economic recovery that Chicago and other major cities have experienced in the past couple of decades is likely due at least in part to more aggressive policing that brought crime rates way down. But aggressive policing means more confrontations between police and citizens, which means more chances for violence.

Plus, as in most large, Democratic cities, the police and other city workers are unionized and, effectively, almost impossible to fire. As Mead notes, “There is a harsh conflict of interest between the city’s employees and the city’s voters. ... It is in the interests of public sector unions to shelter employees from oversight and threats to their job security, regardless of how well they perform.”

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And, also like most large blue jurisdictions (and some red ones), Chicago is in financial trouble, not least because of the high pensions secured by those unionized workers, pensions that the city can’t really afford to pay. In May, Moody’s downgraded Chicago’s credit rating to “junk,” with a negative outlook, based on this and other problems.

If Emanuel gives the Black Lives Matter protesters what they want, politically powerful police unions will be angry and, if it looks like crime will rise, more businesses and taxpayers will flee the city, making bankruptcy more likely. If he doesn’t give in, then he’ll face more protests and unrest, which will probably lead to more businesses and taxpayers fleeing the city, also making bankruptcy more likely. As Mead notes, “The imperatives of good governance and urban development push in one direction, but the forces that push toward short-termism, ethnic demagoguery, and fiscal irresponsibility are getting stronger.”

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And, of course, there are other cities in worse shape: Detroit, for example, or Baltimore, where the Freddie Gray murder trial has led to months of convulsions. Bill de Blasio’s New York is doing better than Chicago, but faces many of the same problems. And Blue Model Puerto Rico is headed for another default as well.

Many of these jurisdictions will probably be coming, hat in hand, to ask for federal bailouts. But the federal government, though it can — and does — print money, is also on a shaky financial foundation, and there’s no great appetite by taxpayers to bail out failing polities. Mead thinks that feds will demand “reform for relief,” but will voters trust politicians to reform, after so many disappointments? Trust in government isn’t exactly plentiful now. And, looking at Rahm Emanuel’s Chicago, why should it be?

Glenn Harlan Reynolds, a University of Tennessee law professor, is the author of The New School: How the Information Age Will Save American Education from Itself, and a member of USA TODAY's Board of Contributors.

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