Category Archives: pop culture

I had fully intended on following up that last COVID post with a reflection on the ridiculousness and ineffectiveness of masks and social distancing, but like everyone else, I’ve been a bit distracted by the nihilistic anarchists burning our major metropolitan areas to the ground.

Ben Shapiro of the Daily Wire said it best in an op-ed on June 3, 2020:

…virtually all Americans agree with the following two propositions: first, that it is evil for a police officer to place his knee on the neck of a prone suspect struggling to breathe for eight long minutes; second, that breaking store windows, stealing televisions and shoes; beating business owners; and attacking police officers is wrong.

I have asked dozens of friends on social media who have publicly supported chaos the following question: “What is the endgame here?” At worst, the response is “equality”, which is about as vague as Miss Congeniality’s “world peace”. Many of them declined to answer, and the remainder have said change needs to come from the voting booth. I can only assume that they took Hillary Clinton’s words to heart in 2018, “You cannot be civil with a political party that wants to destroy what you stand for, what you care about. That’s why I believe if we are fortunate enough to win back the House and the Senate, that’s when civility will start again.”

Translation? Vote Democrat, or be wrong.

I took a look at the 26 American cities (and unfortunately, I did not save the article that I got this list from) that first  had protests-turned-riots. Together, these cities represent 31,680,073 people, or 10% of the US population¹ See my data tables: Riot Summary

• These 26 cities are located in 21 states.
  • Nine states (43%) voted for Clinton in 2016, 12 (57%) voted Trump.
  • The cities in the nine blue states represent 68% of the population of these cities experiencing riots, and 6% of the overall population, in case you were wondering why the Electoral College is so important.
  • Ten governors are Republican, 11 are Democrats. Racial minorities make up 9.5% of these 21 governors. 14% of the governors are women (all Democrat).
  • These 21 states have 42 Senators representing them in Congress.
    • 45% Republican
    • 55% Democrat
• Of the 26 cities:
  • 73% are led by Democrat² mayors
  • 23% are led by Republican mayors
  • 4% are led by Independent mayors
  • 19% of those mayors represent a racial minority
  • 30% of those mayors are female.
    • 11.5% of those mayors represent a female that is also a racial minority
  • The Chiefs of Police in these cities are:
    • 61% white
    • 38% black
    • 15% female/85% male
  • Representation in Congress
    • Given how large some of these cities are (New York, Los Angeles) and that there is often more than one representative for a city, I went with the first name that popped up when I typed “New York, NY” at GovTrack.
      • 93% of the Representatives in Congress are Democrat; 8% Republican.
      • Representation is split evenly between men and women, white and minority.
        • 31% are female minorities
        • 19% male minorities

1. Population and demographics, as well as the historical breakdown of mayors and governors by political party as represented in the chart, all courtesy of Wikipedia. Yeah, not my favorite source either, but I don’t feel like sifting through the US Census Bureau’s webpage.
2. Most mayoral offices explicitly state that they are nonpartisan, but the candidates for office will make their official political party preference known.
3. According to an article by the National Research Center, women generally make up 15% of police forces but only 3% of top leadership rolls. Ergo, female chiefs are overrepresented in rioting cities.

According to the US Census Bureau, the racial demographics of America are:

White alone: 76.5%
Black or African American alone: 13.4%
American Indian and Alaskan Native alone: 1.3%
Asian alone: 5.9%
Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander alone: 0.2%
Two or More Races: 2.7%
Hispanic or Latino: 18.3%
White alone, not Hispanic or Latino: 60.4%

Female persons: 50.8%

Now, I’m not a mathematician or a statistician in any way, shape, or form, but here’s my takeaway from all this.
Between posting black squares on social media and defacing war memorials dedicated to black soldiers, I’m being told that the voting booth is where lasting change will occur†. In cities that are rioting, minorities have equal or greater representation in public office when compared to the general racial makeup of America. Women in general are under-represented in the mayor’s office but have equal representation in the House of Representatives. (I did not look at the male/female demographics in the Senate, only political affiliation.) Despite voting for Clinton or Trump in 2016, Democrats hold the majority of leadership positions at the local, state, and federal level.

Here’s the fun part. Of the Democrat-controlled cities:
Atlanta, GA has been run by Democrats since 1879.
Boston, MA, Chicago, IL, and Houston, TX, have been run by Democrats since 1930, 1931, and 1933, respectively.
SEVEN other cities experiencing riots have been under Democrat-control for 50 years or more.

If the way to “fix” systemic racism (another topic for another day) is by voting Democrat, and Democrats have already controlled 11 of the 26 cities studied for anywhere between 50 and 150 years- HOW IS VOTING DEMOCRAT GOING TO FIX ANYTHING? By this philosophy, these cities should be utopias. Instead, Houston, TX (since 1933), Chicago, IL (1931), Minneapolis, MN (1978), Nashville, TN (1951††), Oakland, CA (1979), Albuquerque, NM (2017†††), Memphis, TN (1982), Detroit, MI (1962), and St. Louis, MO (1949) all make USA Today’s list of “25 of the Most Dangerous Cities in America”. 

I believe this is the very definition of insanity.

†Assuming the voting booths aren’t burned to the ground. If you can get out to protest, you can get out to vote.
†† Party affiliation of the mayors of Nashville is unavailable prior to 1951.
††† Since 1977, Albuquerque has had only two Republican mayors: 1981-1985 and 2009-2017. The other 30 years featured Democrat leadership.

“It’s not an endlessly expanding list of rights — the ‘right’ to education, the ‘right’ to health care, the ‘right’ to food and housing. That’s not freedom, that’s dependency. Those aren’t rights, those are the rations of slavery — hay and a barn for human cattle.” -Alexis de Tocqueville (1805-1859)