Some Democrats have gone against the party and cooperated with President Donald Trump to allow the use of the national troops in cities ravaged by crime, creating a contrast with their colleagues.
Muriel Bowser, Washington, D.C.’s Democratic mayor, confirmed that she will voluntarily comply with federal efforts “to the maximum extent allowable by law within the District,” and offered no expiration date.
“I had two teenagers shot in my community this weekend alone. So when I hear my Democratic colleagues tell me to not worry, crime is down, Trump stays home in Washington, I have a real hard time accepting that,” Chicago Alderman Raymond Flores publicly stated on CBS.
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The colleagues Alderman Flores is referring to include Chicago Mayor Brad Johnson and Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, who are doing everything in their power to block Trump from restoring law and order in America’s most impacted communities.
Recently, on Aug. 31, Johnson signed an executive order, directing city government workers that they will not comply with federal authorities. At the same time, Pritzker wrote on X indicating that the administration’s move is “an authoritarian power grab.”
Pritzker and Johnson, who have both served in the state’s government since 2018, claim that under their administrations, crime in the city has decreased dramatically over the years.
However, statistics show the complete opposite. According to official statistics, the annual murder rate in Chicago from 2018-2024 was higher than the American death toll in Iraq during the American invasion over a decade ago.
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Unfortunately, the buck doesn’t stop there. Ironically enough, democratic mayors of cities who need federal help the most, such as Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott and former New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, have preferred to call the President’s move as “racist” political theatre instead of complying with his offer to help.
“What he’s doing is dog-whistling through this right-wing propaganda and, quite frankly, racist viewpoints that they have about these cities,” Mayor Scott said in an interview with CNN’s Laura Coates.
On Wednesday, Scott held a press conference where he said “we don’t want or need the national guard here.”
To remove emphasis on his weak job of enforcing the law during his tenure, De Blasio hinted in an interview with National Public Radio, that Trump’s emphasis on reducing crime is just another tactic of the Republican Party’s playbook.
“The Republicans have sort of played this like a fiddle for generations,” former New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said.
Despite those remarks, it has been made clear that the only people those officials are hurting by not accepting federal help are their own constituents. The three cities in question here, Baltimore, New York and Chicago, still have violent crime rates exceedingly greater than the national average.
Washington D.C. on the other hand, complied with President Trump’s proposal and went from one of the nation’s most dangerous cities, as stated by the Heritage Foundation, to the great city it deserves to be.
Trump told reporters Tuesday that there is no longer a “crime problem in Washington anymore,” all thanks to the Mayor’s cooperation.
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The American people, including Democratic officials, are starting to notice that cities currently have lost their grip on fighting crime, and need federal reinforcements. It’s time officials across the country, own up to their previous mistakes and inability to manage crime and allow the federal government to extend a hand.
If only Pritzker, De Blasio, Johnson or Scott were as sharp as Flores and Bowser, they would set aside their political pride and begin to put lives over politics too.