My daughter recently moved to Singapore after almost a decade living in the upper Midwest. She and I rendezvoused this past weekend in her old haunt (not Chicago). Aside from the sheer pleasure of enjoying her company, what struck me most was her comment when we spent a few hours downtown: “For the first time since I left America, I’ve had that tight feeling of low-level fear in my chest.”
Every person who has spent time in a Democrat-run American city knows that feeling. It’s the feeling you get when you walk past homeless people slouched unconscious in doorways or panhandling on street corners. It’s the tension you feel when you walk past a group of hoodie-wearing young men—and, as Jesse Jackson would have acknowledged, it’s worse when those young men are minorities. It’s the almost existential despair of sidewalks littered with filth, not just paper litter and cigarette butts, but needles, feces, condoms, and other gross disease vectors.
Every American city has become New York circa 1975, while cities such as New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Memphis are on their way to becoming Port-au-Prince, Haiti.
Image created using AI.
But it doesn’t have to be this way. In fact, for much of the 20th century, it wasn’t that way. While cities always had their Tenderloins, and a wise woman hung on to her purse to prevent snatching, the cities weren’t post-apocalyptic landscapes of crime and despair. Societal norms weighed against crime and, importantly, urban governments enforced the laws on the books.
Nor is what I’m saying an older person’s yearning for a mistily remembered, golden past. The data bear me out. Just look at the chart ChatGPT created showing Minneapolis’s 21st-century murder rate, from its normal low to a George Floyd peak from which it’s never fully recovered:
D.C.’s pattern is somewhat different, but what you can see is that, after the crack epidemic and exceptionally poor governance led to the horrific homicide rate in the 1990s, crime leveled out, only to begin climbing again with the George-Floydification of the criminal justice system:
Singapore is a country that still believes in enforcing the law as written. The tiny city-state, a former British colony, sits on the southernmost tip of Malaya, just east of Indonesia. On a per capita basis, Singapore is the richest country in the world per the IMF and the third richest per the CIA.
In addition to being rich, Singapore is famous for its strictly enforced laws, all of which are intended to create a harmonious environment free of crime and civil strife. If you do the crime, you do the time. There is no wiggle room. Just look at what happened to Michael Peter Fay, an American in Singapore in 1993, or Oliver Fricker, a Swiss national in 2010, if you want to know how that works.
The combination of social and police pressure to conform to the rule of law means that Singapore has achieved the oxymoronic status of being a truly benevolent dictatorship where following the rules practically guarantees a high-quality, safe lifestyle. Singapore is ranked as the world’s second safest city, second only to Tokyo, which has the advantage of a monoculture, unlike Singapore’s heterogeneous makeup.
My daughter adores living in a city that takes its laws seriously. If she is out at night, she feels safe. She can rely on public transportation even at the midnight hour and, when she and her friends part ways, no one says, “Get home safely, and text me when you get there.” Instead, “See you later” is the proper parting. In a way, she is free, as she never was in her previous Midwestern home.
This is the gift that President Trump is bringing, even if only briefly, to the residents of D.C. He is showing them that the difference between a safe city and a dystopian hellscape is the rule of law, strictly applied. That’s all he’s doing, including enforcing laws against vagrancy, public drug abuse, littering, etc. And, of course, sane D.C. residents, the ones who aren’t infected with TDS, are loving it:
"Think about how many lives could have been saved."
— Fox News (@FoxNews) August 14, 2025
A woman living in Washington, D.C. — whose husband was killed and whose son is now a paraplegic after gruesome attacks — says she advocated for the National Guard years ago but was dismissed. pic.twitter.com/IfypZ8QYje
Woman explains the profound cleanup at Union Station in DC, particularly “the underpass bridge where people would throw their waste” and there was always trash.
— Paul A. Szypula ???????? (@Bubblebathgirl) August 25, 2025
People talked about cleaning this up for a decade. President Trump did it in weeks.
(thinkingnotsosimple2.0 on TT) pic.twitter.com/c0C4De6kXG
Even Mayor Bowser sees which way the wind is blowing among DC residents:DC woman raves about how much safer and cleaner Union Station has become after President Trump deployed the National Guard.????????????
— I Meme Therefore I Am ???????? (@ImMeme0) August 20, 2025
“Thumbs up, Trump!” pic.twitter.com/Vpmoe7fcMO
Credit to DC mayor Muriel Bowser for thanking Trump’s surge in cops and national guard, which she said has led to an 87%! reduction in carjacking compared to last year’s numbers. pic.twitter.com/IVUqWQ8Ojx
— Clay Travis (@ClayTravis) August 27, 2025
Donald Trump has shown that, if we elect politicians who are willing to apply the laws already on the books, we too can abandon the low-level, gut-clenching panic of urban life in America and live like Singapore.