We shouldn’t be in a situation where suburban, exurban, and rural conservatives laugh with schadenfreude over the pain and tragedy that blue cities are inflicting on their own people.

We shouldn’t be in that situation, but we are. And while the people in charge of those festering sewers that used to be centers of culture, commerce, religion, and industry are busily scapegoating the citizens vacating their jurisdictions, they’re not fooling anyone.

Urban America is dying. The consolidation of population into our cities that lasted for the entirety of the 20th century is largely over, and a reverse movement has begun.

It began for all the reasons our Founding Fathers, or at least some of them, understood when the Constitution was being debated. As Thomas Jefferson wrote to James Madison in 1787, “When we get piled upon one another in large cities, as in Europe, we shall become as corrupt as in Europe.”

Jefferson saw cities as “pestilential to the morals, the health, and the liberties of man.” And he said something else as well:

The mobs of great cities add just so much to the support of pure government, as sores do to the strength of the human body. It is the manners and spirit of a people which preserve a republic in vigor. A degeneracy in these is a canker which soon eats to the heart of its laws and constitution.

Jefferson also warned about moral rot among city-dwellers. “Dependance begets subservience and venality, suffocates the germ of virtue, and prepares fit tools for the designs of ambition,” he wrote.

For a long time, particularly as great American cities grew exponentially in wealth and population as a function of technological advance leading to better sanitation, transportation, and other societal goods, Jefferson’s critique of urban life lacked substance. Not anymore. You can look at Chicago or St. Louis or Portland, and you’ll see exactly what he was talking about.

The mob rules the cities. Corruption and lawlessness are endemic. They chase away legitimate commerce. And urban Americans have never been more immoral — to such an extent as to place the very future of America in doubt.

But the leaders of the crowded cesspools leading Jefferson to shout “I told you so!” down from heaven aren’t decrying the crime, corruption, and filth in their midst. To do that would be to insult their own constituents.

So, for example, Brandon Johnson doesn’t talk about criminals in Southside Chicago when he’s asked about the runaway crime in his city. Instead, he talks about Donald Trump and Greg Abbott. Nobody is fooled.

1. Behold, the Flood

Of course, Johnson’s Chicago is inundated with illegals, and that he will talk about. It’s amusing to see, of course, since Chicago is a sanctuary city and it’s getting precisely what it asked for. But apparently there is such a thing as too much of a good thing, and it sounds like Johnson has it:

Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson warns that every city service is on the verge of collapse thanks to the illegals pic.twitter.com/pLwYS6Kak2

— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) December 27, 2023

New York’s Eric Adams is similarly screeching, and he similarly comes off as hollow:

Mayor Eric Adams says that quality of life in NYC will continue to decline because of the illegals:

"For many months we were able to keep visualization of this crisis from hitting our streets… But we have reached a breaking point. We are no longer able to do that." pic.twitter.com/53u6JogwKO

— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) December 27, 2023

New York isn’t running 16,000 people a month out of the city, at least not anymore (at one point during the height of the COVID lockdowns, that number would have been within the bounds of possibility), so the new arrivals aren’t offset by the loss of New Yorkers to less poorly run locales.

So the illegals are now filling up the city’s hotels, its schools are being repurposed as dormitories for migrants, and New York is becoming a Third World city.

And yes, the Democrat constituents of Mayors Johnson and Adams are up in arms. There is only so much insult to one’s quality of life that will be tolerated before H. L. Mencken’s famous quote about every normal man hoisting the black flag will kick in.

Here’s the thing, though: Adams, Johnson, and the rest of these urban Democrat politicians were fully on board with the strategy of pouring in the illegals when it was about slowly changing the demographics of America over the long haul to produce the permanent Democrat majority that James Carville and Ruy Texiera pleasured themselves with thoughts of. None of them ever really gave much thought to the fact that the people who would suffer most from a flood of unskilled, homeless and dead-broke illegal migrants into their communities were … the residents of those communities.

Or if they did, they didn’t consider that those residents — their own constituents — might get fed up and reconsider their political affiliations.

That’s begun to happen with alacrity among Asian and Hispanic voters, in whose neighborhoods the bulk of the illegals are landing. Those homeless throngs are a direct threat to the quality of life for immigrant neighborhoods.

But what’s worse is that the migrants are negatively impacting black neighborhoods. Southside Chicago, which is already a disaster area in the best of times, is now a dog-eat-dog Thunderdome in which black citizens and Third World migrants are struggling for survival, economic and otherwise.

Again, it’s tempting to let schadenfreude take over. But the fact is that these outrages have no chance of changing the calculus for Team Biden for a number of reasons, some obvious and some not quite so. They’re clearly committed to keeping the flood coming, no matter what it does to the cities.

And, apparently, what it does to the Democrat Party in the short run. Illegal immigration and its effects — inflation, crime, housing shortages, and more — are going to be major, major issues in next fall’s elections, and they don’t cut well for the Democrats.

That’s assuming Johnson, Adams, and the rest can even keep their jurisdictions afloat without wholesale lawlessness and rioting kicking in well before Election Day. Maybe that’s an assumption we shouldn’t harbor.

2. DEI Meets Illegal Immigration at the Intersection of Hatred and Violence

After all, Tucker Carlson has a point:

The Biden administration is importing millions of third world immigrants to live here illegally, and at same time telling them that white people are the source of their problems. How’s that going to work out in the end? pic.twitter.com/mSbXjyML7C

— Tucker Carlson (@TuckerCarlson) December 28, 2023

Carlson’s interview with Steven Miller on the subject of what effect bombing the country with illegals while also bombing the country with anti-white racist messaging at the same time will have is a must-see.

But there’s more. Because there’s a lot of talk out there. For example, there are 10 times more Chinese migrants coming here now than there were last year, and the vast majority of them are military-age men.

Yes, China’s economy is in the trash at present, which shows you what you can expect eventually from neofascist economics such as what the CCP offers, but how many enemy agents are salted in with the economic migrants? And how many migrants are we letting in from other places where anti-Americanism is even stronger than it is in Berkeley?

This isn’t just about riots in southside Chicago. It could be about bridges or stadiums or police stations or water systems getting attacked.

And you can’t dismiss the threat. We have no proper vetting for it. The people in charge of the country are deliberately ignoring that duty. We’re wide open, and it’ll be a miracle if something awful doesn’t happen.

Not to mention that, as we saw during COVID, we have a ruling class that actively enjoys crisis situations and the power they confer.

None of it is good. Maybe if the Adamses and Johnsons scream loudly enough at their own people, rather than Greg Abbott, something will change. But that isn’t likely.

3. Mike Flynn Unloads on Barack Obama

Remember Mike Flynn? He was all set to be President Trump’s national security adviser until the Barack Obama–weaponized FBI cheap-shotted him and ruined him professionally and financially. It was one of the worst abuses of a corrupt government in American history.

Flynn at least got some measure of retribution this week.

Flynn responded to a post on X that contained video of Barack Obama decrying dissent from the ruling class media narratives as “raw sewage” by unloading on the former president whose functionaries destroyed his career and financial security in terms that ought to make you stand up and cheer:

Sir, you are the “raw sewage,” you are the greatest of all disinformation mouthpieces, you are the one that started America on this road toward socialism.

It is you @BarackObama that created the incredible levels of divisiveness within our country. Instead of speaking for strong… https://t.co/m5mRwOQdgY

— General Mike Flynn (@GenFlynn) December 24, 2023

Spot on.

As the author of perhaps the definitive book (Racism, Revenge and Ruin: It’s All Obama, available wherever books are sold) on the damage Obama did, it’s heartwarming to see people stepping forward to denounce Obama for the horrors he’s set loose on this country.

Well done, General. Keep fighting.

4. What If Israel Slow-Plays the War?

At American Thinker, Ted Belman has an interesting piece departing from the conventional wisdom that Israel must soon wrap up its offensive in Gaza and pull the troops back out. Belman says the opposite is beginning to look like Israel’s best course:

Let us assume that Israel switches to the tactics demanded by Biden but takes her time in finishing off Hamas.  In the meantime, Israel should agree to nothing. She should refuse to discuss the day after and she shouldn’t agree to a ceasefire.

If so, it is Biden who is left with few choices.  Since Israel is abiding by Biden’s demands but slow walking the war, Biden has no option but to wait for the destruction of Hamas however long it takes. The destruction of Hamas is central to Biden’s plans to advance the Two-State Solution.  Since Israel would be following Biden’s demands, Biden will have to continue to veto any calls for a ceasefire. To my mind, Biden would be stymied. His dreams of advancing the Two-State Solution (TSS) on the back of the Gaza War or reforming the Palestinian Authority would be put on hold until Hamas is destroyed which could take a year particularly if Israel takes it real slow in the name of protecting her soldiers.

Thus, all Biden’s plans would be for naught. He would find himself in six months in the election season which will cause him to restrain himself, not Israel. Also, Israel could look forward to discussing the day after with a Trump.

This comes in the aftermath of a New York Times report that has the Biden administration demanding that the Israelis conduct small-footprint elite raids into Gaza headhunting against Hamas leaders rather than using bombs and artillery to prepare for offensive actions.

What we know is Team Biden (which is Team Obama, as Gen. Flynn noted) wants the Israelis to essentially surrender and pull their troops out of Gaza completely, which would leave Hamas in place. The Israelis can’t do that, and won’t do that, and to the extent Team Biden pressures them for it, they’re going to become more and more motivated to drag this thing along for maximum political damage to Biden.

Knowing that a Trump successor administration would offer full diplomatic support for Israel winning the war.

Belman also notes that the Israelis are looking toward a ramped-up domestic defense industry with an eye toward complete independence when it comes to munitions, which would make them able to serve their own interests without the say-so of the White House. That would make them immune to efforts at ceasefires by Team Biden and potentially drag out the war — along the lines of a slow-motion, Afghanistan-style military commitment.

Of course, there is much downside to this for Israel. The war is rough on its economy, and it’s bad for Israel’s foreign relations. On the other hand, if they’re lobbing bombs into buildings a few at a time and rolling tanks in on a somewhat lazy schedule, much of their military call-up can perhaps be drawn down and the real misery would be felt by the Palestinians.

And the Democrats in America who will increasingly be tied to the pro-Hamas Left. We’ve already seen how helpful that is to them. The Gaza conflict is becoming as politically septic as Ukraine is.

5. Speaking of Politically-Septic Foreign Conflicts…

You haven’t begun seeing little Guyanan flags showing up on people’s social media profiles. Not yet. But don’t be shocked when it happens eventually.

Because things keep developing in South America that make it look like Venezuela is going to invade the mineral-rich Guyanan region of Essequibo, which is two-thirds of that country and which the Venezuelan voters (or at least the minority who bothered to show up) voted to annex in a national referendum. The 100,000 or so residents of Essequibo haven’t been offered a chance to opine.

Nicolas Maduro, the communist dictator of Venezuela, is now demanding that foreign oil companies and others pull out of Essequibo:

On December 5, President Nicolás Maduro announced that he would propose a special law that prohibits the hiring of “ companies that operate or collaborate in the unilateral concessions given by Guyana at sea for delimiting ” between the two countries.

“ I propose three months to all those companies to withdraw from those operations ”, Maduro said about the rule that seeks to make it difficult for Guyana to continue with the oil projects it is developing in the face of the Essequibo, a territory that Georgetown controls but that Caracas claims as its own.

The governor’s announcement came two days after a referendum was held to consult citizens, among other things, about the creation of a Venezuelan state in that disputed territory, as well as on the rejection of the Paris arbitration award that in 1899 established the borders between both countries, but which Venezuela considers null.