I started writing this hours before polls closed in New York on Tuesday.
I had joked leading up to Election Day that no matter what happened, Florida would benefit.
If Mamdani won, we’d have a second real estate boom, and if by some miracle he was defeated, it would be proof that even in a city that had become the poster child for an empire in decline, the American spirit still had a heartbeat. It might be on life support, but it was still breathing.
As I contemplated what New York City might become under his leadership, I started thinking about how he had succeeded in the first place, and how conservatives, in my opinion, had paved the way for his victory.
The people most upset by his triumph had enabled it, and realistically speaking, it could happen in any other high profile American metropolis.
After a while, I suppose all the headlines from major cities start to sound the same. Even if their mayors don’t describe themselves as socialists, their actions tell you all you need to know.
Whether you’re talking about San Francisco, Chicago, or Boston it seems like degeneracy, violence and lawlessness are being institutionally encouraged while the normal, the upright and the reasonable are marginalized by design.
No matter what big blue city you’re referencing, it seems that the police are in retreat, gangs of rabid teenagers are terrorizing civilians, and homeless drug addicts are cluttering the streets with needles and human waste.
If you think I’m being dramatic, I wouldn’t blame you, but I promise I’m not.
Things got so bad that the FBI was caught fudging crime statistics during the Biden-Harris “administration” in a desperate attempt to make it look like they’d accomplished something. But once journalists started digging, they found that the Bureau relied on “estimates” rather than hard data to draft its annual report.
Despite the government’s insistence that felonies and misdemeanors were dwindling, violent crimes jumped 55.4% from 2020 to 2023, rapes increased by 42%, robbery by 63% and aggravated assault by 55%. While the DOJ survey didn’t include murders, an investigation by the Washington Examiner found they were up by 23% across 70 major cities. One particularly damning contradiction revealed that while the FBI reported a 13% drop in robberies in Milwaukee, their own police department cited a 7% increase.
All that to say, I understand why conservatives and moderates don’t want to live in places like this.
There was a time when these cities still had an allure. Even if the taxes were out of control, even if you knew you risked an assault or food tampering leaving your home in a MAGA hat, even if you were paying too much to live in a shoe box, they still had their appeal. They still had a vibrancy that made it feel worth it. The argument could be made that they still do, but everything that made these cities worth living in is rapidly vanishing.
I would never condemn a sane, rational person for wanting to leave a place like this.
I myself fled the greater DC area for Florida shortly after Biden took office because I refused to take that experimental injection and refused to spend any more of my precious and fleeting life playing Simon Says with the government, feeling like a criminal on probation as I waited for God-given rights to be restored.
But for as long as I’ve held my political beliefs, I always resented the narrative that conservatives should abandon major cities without second thought.
For over a decade now, I’ve watched people I respect and admire insist that conservatives should be content to cede every metropolis to the left, constantly on the run to the suburbs and the country.
And I’ve always thought it was the position of defeated losers.
Even in Florida, I’ve been annoyed with my political allies. People live in Tampa instead of St. Pete even though they prefer St. Pete because “St. Pete is too liberal.” And Iike, so what? No offense, but America never would have made the Louisiana Purchase with these cowards in charge. What happened to the pioneer spirit? What happened to Manifest Destiny? You’re going to leave the beach access and the better downtown to the they/thems because they were there first? They call you a colonizer anyway; act like one!
But in all seriousness, why should we surrender to them? Why should they win? Especially when the left had no such reservations about red strongholds.
Colorado used to be a red state. North Carolina used to be a red state. Georgia used to be a red state. But liberals went in with no regard for what had been, and were determined to not only live in these places, but transform them.
And let’s not kid ourselves; they succeeded. States that Republicans didn’t have to think twice about 20 years ago now require millions in ad spends, strategy, and campaigning.
They’ve even made notable progress in formerly blood red Texas.
And more often than not, they’re able to achieve this by targeting urban centers and working outwards from them.
In other words, when conservatives treat cities like lost causes, they’re doing the left’s grunt work for them.
Maybe I’m biased as someone born and raised in Boston, Massachusetts, but I think it’s a mistake to treat cities as though they’re the birthright of the Democratic Party – especially when you consider the role they played in shaping America’s history and identity.
It was in Boston that they dumped the tea into the harbor in protest of oppressive taxes that catalyzed the Revolution. It was in Philadelphia that they signed the Declaration of Independence and drafted the Constitution. And it was in New York City that the first president of the United States was sworn in.
To see these once great cities in such dramatic decay breaks my heart, and it should break every American’s.
Suburbs and small towns are beautiful and enticing in their own right, offering their unique charms and benefits. They’re more affordable, they provide more space, and they allow man to be at one with God’s creation without the distractions of crowded living.
But even if you don’t personally want to live in one, cities are worth fighting for.
All of America belongs to the American people.
And while some believe an American is anyone that crosses a border, that has a piece of paper or permission from the government, to be American in any meaningful sense is much more sacred than that.
And when Americans – not in name, but in heart – shrug their shoulders and surrender the crown jewels of their country to hostile ideologues with no respect for her foundation or history, none of us are better off.
Because what starts among the “coastal elites” is never confined to their enclaves. It spreads like wildfire. To this day, a video of a girl that couldn’t have been older than 15 being arrested for defying some COVID mandate is seared into my memory. But she wasn’t in Washington DC or Washington State; she was in Wyoming.
When I wrote for a conservative fundraising firm and did a lot of work for legal defense groups, I expected the cases in states like California and Massachusetts, and that’s where the majority of them came from. But cases kept popping up in states like Idaho and Kentucky, where everyday people were often underprepared and caught off guard because they assumed an immunity that didn’t exist.
The left is relentless in their pursuit of power, and if there’s anything the right can learn from them, it’s the sense of conquest, determination and audacity that has allowed them to turn red states purple and purple states blue.
I have ideas on how to change things, but I’m not going to pretend I have all the answers. But conservatives wrote off college campuses the same way they write off cities. Charlie Kirk went to them anyway, and he was wildly successful. It didn’t happen overnight, and his tactics changed as he grew, but in his final years, he’d draw crowds of thousands, changing countless hearts and minds along the way.
Towards the end, he was beginning to see the fruits of his labors, and could feel the culture at American universities changing before his eyes. If higher education can be saved, cities can too.
When Giuliani was elected as the first Republican to run New York City in 20 years, a long period of high crime and chaos preceded it. He proposed a necessary correction, and delivered it. He had the vision, willpower and strength to offer New Yorkers prosperity, safety, and quality of life that was slipping from their consciousness.
Right now, cities across the country are desperate for something better, and Republicans can deliver it again.
We don’t have to live like strangers amongst one another, looking over our shoulders and constantly on edge. We don’t have to watch drug deals in broad daylight, or walk past litter on our streets, or pay exorbitant taxes for third world living standards.
America can be great again – but it will require a grit and determination that the political right has never sustained on a large scale.
Again, I’m not telling anyone where to live. If you’re content in your cul-de-sac, no one is forcing you to move. But somehow, some way, conservatives need to become competitive in cities. The longer we treat them like they belong exclusively and inherently to our opposition, the longer they will, and we’ll be stuck playing a game we can never win.
what do you think?