As Just the News reported, “With the nation’s first primary state as a backdrop, former President Donald Trump took aim Saturday at Democrats’ urban strongholds, vowing to both secure and revitalize blue cities weary from years of violence and economic decay.”

As the outlet reported, President Trump told a crowd in Durham, New Hampshire, “We’re going to rebuild our cities into beacons of hope, safety, and beauty. It will be the greatest investment ever made.”

This is encouraging. All too often, Republicans have neglected our great cities – or been openly hostile toward them because of their Democratic leadership.

Perhaps the most famous example of this was an Oct. 29, 1975 speech in which then-President Gerald Ford explained why he would not help New York City with its fiscal crisis.

The following day, the New York Daily News had a huge page-one headline: “Ford to City: Drop Dead.”

President Ford was philosophically right as a fiscal conservative and federalist, but the political message was devastating for Republicans.

I served with Buffalo Congressman Jack Kemp, who was the most innovative pro-city Republican with whom I have ever worked. Kemp developed a program for enterprise zones to help encourage business development in the poorest parts of cities. Working with civil rights activist Bob Woodson, the two developed a program to allow people in public housing to put in sweat equity and eventually gain ownership of their units. Kemp and Woodson followed Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in trying to create an ownership society.

One of the most striking moments in U.S. House debate history was when an outraged Democrat Congressman Barney Frank, who opposed Kemp’s proposal, argued that under the plan, a poor family in New York City might be able to acquire a property worth $1 million in the New York market. It did not seem to occur to Frank that helping poor people become wealthy was a good idea.

President Trump, a product of Queens and Manhattan, understands that we cannot be a great nation if our great cities decay and die. Consider his own words from a speech about saving America’s cities in Reno, Nevada:

“[W]e’re going to indemnify police officers and law enforcement officials throughout the United States from being destroyed by the radical left for taking strong actions on crime. They’re going to be indemnified… Policemen are forced not to do anything when they want to, and under the threat of losing their pension, their house, their family, they lose everything, and they’re afraid to move. … We’re not going to let that happen anymore.

“In addition, we will take over our horribly-run Washington, DC – and clean up, renovate, and rebuild, our Capitol, so that it is no longer a nightmare of murder and crime. You see what’s happening. But rather, will become the most beautiful Capitol anywhere in the world. It’s a mess. It’s a filthy, disgusting, mess. Our parks will be cleaned, the tents and graffiti, all of these tents and graffiti, right in the middle of the most beautiful parks in the world. Those tents and graffiti will be removed. Slum areas will be demolished and rebuilt to the highest level of architectural elegance. Washington, DC will become a symbol of beauty, security, freedom, and strength…

“In addition to our Capitol, we are going to rebuild our cities into beacons of hope, safety, and beauty. Better than they have ever been before. We are going to focus on our cities… It will be the greatest investment ever made in these cities. And we will work closely with Democrat leaders. They are all run by Democrats, if you can believe it. But we’ll work closely with the Democrat leaders of all these failing places to make sure that this rebuilding will be a lasting and compassionate one. It’ll be a great rebuilding. Safety will again be restored, so that our children can go out with their parents, mother, and father, and play in the park without being beat up, molested, or shot. Students will be able to walk to school in peace, criminal rates will plummet, and people will long just long to move back to the city again.”

The fact that President Trump explicitly included working closely with Democrat leaders is a good step toward making the second Trump administration more bipartisan – but still deeply committed to reform.

This was an encouraging speech for our future and a real commitment to save America’s citizens. It is a good step toward bringing Americans together and healing some of the partisan divisions.

Those who are committed to union incompetence, leftwing extremism, and keeping power will fight against a program to save America’s cities. Most Americans, however, will be excited by the vision of a safe, prosperous, and forward-looking urban future.

I expect the American people will win.

In this sort of an environment, it should be no surprise that violent crime is absolutely exploding all over the nation.  If you choose to wander the streets of America’s hellish inner cities, you are literally taking your life into your hands, because a violent predator could literally be around the next corner.  Unfortunately, we are still only in the very early stages of this crisis.  It will inevitably get even worse in the months ahead as economic conditions deteriorate even more.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 80 percent of the U.S. population lives in an “urban area”…

Despite the increase in the urban population, urban areas, defined as densely developed residential, commercial, and other nonresidential areas, now account for 80.0% of the U.S. population, down from 80.7% in 2010.

So what is happening to our inner cities directly affects most of us.

Even if you don’t live in a very densely populated area, there is a good chance that you work in one.

Many years ago, I actually worked right in the heart of Washington D.C., and even though I had a few close calls I generally felt safe.

But now everything has changed.

Crime is rising so fast in our capital city that even members of Congress are giving people advice on how to “minimize the risk of being victimized”…

House Administration Committee Chairman Bryan Steil, (R-Wis.) on Monday warned would-be visitors to Washington, D.C. of rising crime in the nation’s capital and advised people how to respond to criminal acts and to minimize the risk of being victimized by violence like carjackings.

The District of Columbia is currently struggling to contend with increased criminal activity that has many questioning the safety of living in the city at all. Compared to this point in 2022, data from the D.C. Metropolitan Police shows that homicides are up 28% and on pace to reach their highest levels in more than 20 years. Robberies, meanwhile, are up 67%. Residents have testified to increasingly driving for short distances due to fear of going outside.

This is how bad things have gotten.

We can’t even maintain law and order around our most important government institutions.

At this point the violence has escalated to such levels that even the Mexican consulate is warning about “a significant increase in crime in areas previously considered safe”…

Amid the crime wave, the Mexican consulate in Washington, D.C., has warned its citizens that “The city of Washington, D.C. is experiencing a significant increase in crime in areas previously considered safe. Take precautions. In an emergency, call 911.”

When one of the most crime-ridden nations in modern history feels compelled to issue a warning about violence in your city, you know that you have a problem.

On the west cost, homeless encampments are sprouting like mushrooms. Earlier today, I learned that one has even popped up right in the middle of Beverly Hills…

The homeless population has been growing out of control in California, and it was only a matter of time until the epidemic began spilling into the wealthier areas of the state.

Well, it appears that day has finally arrived, as a homeless encampment has emerged in swanky Beverly Hills. Adding to the irony, the homeless tents are located right in front of The Altman Brothers’ office, which is featured on the popular show “Million Dollar Listing” on Bravo.

Needless to say, the wealthy people that live in the area are not pleased about this one bit…

How would you feel if a bunch of homeless people decided to camp out on your front lawn? I am sure that you would not be thrilled either. But many of these people desperately need help.  Housing is now more unaffordable in the U.S. than it has ever been before, and this is creating a tremendous amount of hardship.

A lot of those that are homeless would love to have homes of their own if they could afford them. Of course it is true that there are a lot of addicts among the homeless too. And when it is time to go to the bathroom, many of them will go wherever they decide it is convenient.

In Denver, one businessman has had enough. He took some human feces that had been deposited in front of his business and he dumped it on the steps of the Denver City and County Building…

While Mayor Mike Johnston says addressing homelessness is his number one priority, a Denver businessman says he’s had it with the homeless going number two wherever they want. In what he calls an act of civil disobedience, Jon Caldara dumped human poop that he found outside his business on the steps of the Denver City and County Building on Monday.

Video of Caldara’s “protest” has now been seen by thousands of users on Twitter.

This is genius!!

A Denver businessman, Jon Caldera says he's had it with the homeless going number two around his business. In what he calls an act of civil disobedience he dumped human poop that he found outside his business on the steps of the Denver City and County Building… pic.twitter.com/tn1kSCQeVj

— I Meme Therefore I Am (@ImMeme0) September 26, 2023

In addiction to human feces, Caldara says that he also has to clean up “vomit and urine and syringes and used condoms” on a regular basis…

He says at least twice a week security cameras catch a homeless person defecating outside his business or worse.

“We have to clean up vomit and urine and syringes and used condoms and feces. We didn’t cause the homeless problem in Denver but we have clean up after it,” Caldara said.

I can definitely understand why he is so upset.

I am sure that you wouldn’t want to deal with such nonsense either.

But this is our country now.

It has become a very filthy place, and it has also become a very violent place.

Over the last 24 hours, video of a particularly violent assault in the Bucktown section of Chicago has made headlines all over the globe…

A horrifying video has emerged showing the moment that an innocent man is jumped by two opportunistic muggers on a Chicago street in broad daylight in the latest disturbing crime to occur in the Democratic-led Windy City.

The incident occurred on Monday in the Bucktown section of the city.

The man that was brutally assaulted was just minding his own business.

That was his first mistake.

If you are going to live in a core urban area in America today, you have got to constantly be mindful of your surroundings.

He should have never been walking down those streets by himself, and when he heard someone rapidly running up behind him he should have known that trouble was coming.

https://twitter.com/stillgray/status/1706516524666884512

According to the Chicago Police Department, robberies in that particular area of the city are up almost 100 percent since 2019…

‘Disturbing as hell. Could be me. Violent crime is out of control in Chicago. Lawless, these people. Heartless and lawless. No consequences. This poor man was just minding his own business, and his life will never be the same after this kind of attack,’ another commenter said.

Chicago Police Department statistics show that robberies are up nearly 100 percent from 2019 in the Bucktown neighborhood and up 53 percent from 2022.

Not too far from Chicago you can find the ruins of the once great city of Gary, Indiana.

YouTuber Peter Santenello recently dared to visit Gary, and he encountered residents that are “terrified to walk down the streets at night”…

He spoke to residents who described being terrified to walk down the streets at night out of fear of being robbed – or even shot – and showcased an array of decaying buildings and abandoned homes, raising the question of how the once-bustling city that was the home to over 200,000 people turned into a vessel of drugs, violence, and murder, which now has a population of a mere 69,000.

I admire his courage. It takes guts to go into the heart of Gary all by yourself.

One local resident that he spoke to says that she has been robbed more times than she can count…

‘In Gary, you gotta watch your back,’ another resident warned. ‘When you go into a store, you gotta watch your purse.

‘They’ll follow you around the store to see what you got. Pick pocketers, stuff like that. They stole from me I don’t know how many times.’

But even in the midst of all the misery, you can still find remnants of Gary’s glory days…

Sadly, countless other cities are going down the exact same path as Gary.

In 2023, stores and other businesses are being shut down in droves in crime-ridden communities all over the nation.

For example, Target just announced that they are shutting down nine more stores “because theft and organized retail crime are threatening the safety of our team and guests”…

Target said Tuesday that it will close nine stores in major cities across the country, citing violence, theft and organized retail crime.

The company will close one store in New York City’s Harlem neighborhood, two locations in Seattle, three stores in the San Francisco-Oakland area and three more in Portland, Oregon. The discounter said it will shutter the stores for good on Oct. 21.

“We cannot continue operating these stores because theft and organized retail crime are threatening the safety of our team and guests, and contributing to unsustainable business performance,” Target said in a news release.

Just a few years ago, it would have been unthinkable for a major retailer to come out and make a statement like that.

But now everybody can see that our country is coming apart at the seams all around us. And thanks to Joe Biden and his minions, conditions are getting worse with each passing day.

They are allowing vast numbers of migrants to pour across our wide open borders, and many of them end up in our core urban areas.

In New York City, officials are planning to spend more than a billion dollars “on hotel rooms for immigrants for three more years”…

New York City is planning on spending a staggering extra $1billion on hotel rooms for immigrants for three more years.

The city’s contract with the more than 100 hotels-turned-shelters, which was supposed to end this year, will now end in August 2026 and cost a total $1.365 billion – almost five times the original price tag of $237 million.

The new cost does not include other facilities turned into shelters such as the tent shelters set up in the McCarren Recreation Center in Queens or the Island Shores Assisted Living in Staten Island.

A billion dollars is a lot of money. But it won’t be nearly enough.

The Big Apple has already run out of room to put people, and more migrants are constantly showing up. I would say that we are setting the stage for a societal meltdown of unprecedented size and scope, but the truth is that such a meltdown has already begun.

Decades of very foolish decisions are catching up with us in a major way, and the chaos that we are going to witness in our inner cities during the months and years ahead will shock the entire world.

Michael’s new book entitled “End Times” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can check out his new Substack newsletter right here.

So now many of our biggest metropolitan areas find themselves caught in a “death spiral”, and there appears to be little hope of turning things around any time soon.  The politicians in these left-wing cities clearly understand that their once-thriving communities have been transformed into crime-ridden, drug infested hellholes, but it would go against everything that they believe to do what is necessary to fix things.

When I say that there has been a “mass exodus”, I am not exaggerating one bit.  The population losses that we have seen over the past several years have been absolutely unprecedented…

According to the most recent US Census figures, we are in the middle of a mass exodus from America’s largest and most leftwing cities. The data reveals that New York City alone lost over half a million residents, which is more than the entire population of Miami. Additionally, Chicago, often referred to as “Chiraq” by some individuals, experienced a decline of nearly 100,000 residents. Another notable city, San Francisco, has seen a larger share of population loss than any other major city in the United States.

I love to pick on San Francisco, because it is a perfect example of this phenomenon.  It is one of the wealthiest cities on the entire planet, and a few years ago it was bustling with activity.

But now everything has changed.  One man recently went downtown to capture footage of what the city looks like now, and he discovered that store after store is permanently closed…

In the Union Square area, 203 retailers were open in 2019.

Today, there are only 107 still operating, and another one just announced that it will also be closing…

Century-old Goorin Bros. haberdashery has joined a host of stores shutting in San Francisco’s Union Square, amid widespread crime and plummeting footfall.

The hat boutique has become the latest casualty of the so-called ‘retail apocalypse’ gripping downtown San Francisco.

‘It’s never an easy decision but it was time,’ a company representative wrote in a statement.

What a tragedy.

The retailers that insist on remaining open in downtown San Francisco find themselves resorting to extreme measures in a desperate attempt to survive…

Theft has become so bad in San Francisco that some stores are now padlocking shut their freezers and tying metal chains to ensure the doors remain closed overnight.

Video shot by one potential shopper at a local Walgreens in the city sees aisle after aisle of products locked away behind Perspex and glass, out of the reach of thieves.

Even lower value items such as toothpaste and tissues are kept under lock and key, such is the rampant theft that has been occurring in many of the city’s pharmacies and supermarkets.

Over in Oakland, overall crime is up 42 percent since the first half of 2021.

The Bay Area should be one of the nicest places to live in the entire country, but instead it is one of the worst.

Of course the truth is that crime is on the rise everywhere.  Vehicle theft is absolutely exploding, and that is particularly true for Kia and Hyundai models that you can apparently steal “with just a USB cable”…

The US is battling a surge in motor vehicle thefts this year, with cases more than doubling in Rochester, Cincinnati, and other cities, as thieves hotwire vulnerable Kia and Hyundai models with just a USB cable.

A study by the Council on Criminal Justice (CCJ) on Thursday shows how car thefts jumped 33.5 percent across major cities, as thieves brazenly share how-to videos of hotwiring vehicles on TikTok.

That adds up to 23,974 more stolen motors across the 32 cities studied.

If crime rates continue to soar, it won’t be too long before many cities are completely unlivable.

But instead of trying to fix this crisis, many of our politicians seem intent on making it even worse.

In Illinois, they have actually eliminated cash bail, and many are warning that this is going to cause all sorts of new problems…

Illinois has become the first state in the nation to eliminate cash bail, clearing the way for potentially dangerous criminals to be set free on the streets.

Democratic Gov. J.B Pritzker celebrated the step Tuesday, but critics reacted with incredulity.

Illinois Republican Party Chair Don Tracy said the law will ‘significantly undermine public safety by releasing from custody dangerous, violent criminals at a time when police are under attack and Illinois families and crime victims already fear for their personal safety.’

Our politicians love to be soft on violent criminals, but if you cross the IRS you could soon have dozens of armed agents in tactical gear show up at your door…

On Wednesday, at least 25 to 30 IRS agents in tactical gear raided a business along Southeast Slater Street in Stuart, Florida, Fox 29 reported.

The raid, which began around 9:30 a.m. on July 12th, saw agents entering and leaving the premises of Tee Off Temps and Elite Payroll Solutions, each time laden with boxes and large backpacks.

The agents with their clothing branded with “Police, IRS, Criminal Investigation,” shocked local witnesses.

“There’s at least 25, 30 cops out here,” said one witness.

What in the world has happened to us?

Our priorities have gotten way out of whack.

If you are considering moving away from a major city, I can’t blame you one bit.

Vast numbers of Americans have already moved to red states and rural communities, and many more will choose to relocate in the months ahead.  For much more on this, please see my previous article entitled “Millions Of Americans Are Relocating Just Prior To The Great Chaos That Is Coming”.

And some people are moving out of the country entirely.  In fact, it is being reported that the number of Americans that are relocating to Spain has been spiking…

More Americans are flocking to Spain for longer, whether as so-called digital nomads working abroad or to enjoy a new life in retirement.

The number of Americans living in Spain grew by 13% from 2019 to 2021, and home sales to Americans jumped 88% from the first half of 2019 to the first half of 2022, according to a report by the General Council of Notaries in Spain.

This is where we are at.

Our cities are descending into madness, and violence is increasing everywhere that we look.

If things are this bad now, what will our country look like once a full-blown economic meltdown happens?

If you live in or near a major metropolitan area, you might want to think about that.

What we are already witnessing is truly frightening, but once economic conditions become extremely harsh all hell is likely to start breaking loose…

Michael’s new book entitled “End Times” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can check out his new Substack newsletter right here.

Article cross-posted from The Economic Collapse Blog.

That is to say, they want to condition people to believe that once guns are gone, crime and murder will be gone also. But, firearms have been an integral part of American society for hundreds of years, and gun ownership has been present through times of relative peace as well as times of increased violence.

In the case of countries like the UK with incredibly strict gun laws, muggings, rape and homicides have been rising with knife attacks in particular increasing by 80%. While it is technically more difficult to murder a person with a knife, it’s also a lot easier for larger, stronger assailants and gangs to succeed in harming people when those people have no equalizer. Disarmament makes life EASIER for criminals, not harder.

So, if guns are not the catalyst for rising violence, then what is?  In reality, the very people who want guns taken from the hands of law abiding Americans are the same people largely responsible for the spike in homicide rates. Imagine that…

In the US, violent crimes and murders are exponentially higher in Democrat run cities, many of them with increased gun control measures. In fact, of the top 30 most violent cities in the US, 27 of them are Democrat controlled. Wherever leftists dominate politically, violence, theft, rape and murder are sure to follow. Anti-gun proponents often try to cite high homicide numbers in certain conservative states like Texas, but the majority of those crimes are actually committed in cities run by leftists.

The truth is, blue cities are dragging red states and the rest of the country down. According to the statistics, in theory, if the public was to replace all Democrat city politicians with conservative leadership murder rates would immediately plunge across the US by virtue of policy.

But what is it specifically about Democrat leadership that leads to far higher crime? There are other trends to consider, such as incarceration rates in any given state or county, severity of punishment for violent crimes and repeat offenders, and let’s not forget a subject a lot of people don’t want to talk about – The separation of the mentally ill from the rest of society. Leftists often support revolving door policies for criminals, reduced sentences for violent crime (if the perpetrator is a minority) and they are adamantly opposed to incarceration for those with dangerous mental illness.

They’re happy to take away the 2^nd Amendment rights of innocent Americans, but they have no interest in keeping criminals in prison or keeping mentally unstable people away from normal society. Perhaps because their goal is NOT to reduce violence, but to use exponential violence in society as a reason to erode the constitution.

Incarceration does in fact work, far better that gun control does. But in order to understand the incarceration rate and its effectiveness in stopping violence, we have to look at two systems simultaneously – Prison incarceration and mental asylum incarceration. The following data shows US incarceration per capita in various prison systems for the past century:

The next graph shows homicide rates per capita for between 1900 to around 2010

And this graph shows homicide rates from the 1960’s up to the 2020s.

One issue that is immediately noticeable is that prison numbers spiked massively starting in the mid-1980s, after which homicide rates began to plunge. Also note that less incarceration in the early 1900s coincides with much higher murder rates across the nation. But what about that dip in murders from the 1930s to the 1960s? What caused that?

Well, it’s not necessarily an economic problem as many progressives might suggest. The country was hitting peak prosperity in the 1920s and murder rates were still sky high. On the opposite end, the system was still in depression turmoil in the 1930s to 1940s, but homicide rates plunged. So, what caused violent crime to fall in that era?

The only factor that seems to coincide with this period of relative peace is the sudden increase in psychiatric incarceration from around the 1930s onward.

While prison rates remained low and mostly static between the mid-1930s to the mid-1960s, the number of mental asylums holding dangerous patients was growing. And, like magic, violence in the US dropped off a cliff.

By extension, as asylums began to shut down in the 1970s, murders jumped back once again to record highs. Without asylums and with low prison incarceration, homicides spread like wildfire and it did not stop until the mid-1980s when prison rates spiked. In other words, the prison system and the legal system had to finally pick up the slack left behind as the mental asylums disappeared.

Finally, take note of the recent jump in homicides and violence in the past few years in graph #3 – It matches almost exactly with falling incarceration trends in Graph #1.  This has been mostly encouraged by Democrat policies in blue cities and blue states. Also keep in mind that the Democrats of today are part of a new woke cultism – They are not necessarily the same Democrats from 30 years ago. Woke Democrats want all barriers to criminal activity removed, including incarceration.

Furthermore, mental illness in the US is on the rise. Over 42% of Gen Z has been diagnosed with at least one mental health condition and psychiatric drugs are doing little to help. We have minimal mental illness facilities in place to deal with the influx of unstable people permeating society. We are about to REPEAT the pattern of the early 1900s, with a lower prison population and no asylums, violence will likely continue to spiral out of control.

To be sure, in the past there were some terrible practices involving mental health establishments and it doesn’t do anyone any good to repeat those mistakes. In the early days of psychiatry they caste a wide net that caught a lot of dangerous people, but they also locked up anyone with marginal mental problems as well. This led to abuses.

That said, it’s foolish to dismiss the numbers; asylums worked. They helped to reduce murders dramatically. At least 1% of the human population has psychopathic traits (including lack of empathy) and these people cause at least 30% of all crime in the US. At least 3% of the human population exhibits psychotic tendencies, which means they are prone to abrupt violence without treatment.  Something has to be done to address the mentally unstable in our nation. Their odds of recidivism are extremely high, and they will keep on committing the same crimes over and over again until they are stopped.

This is the elephant in the room that the political left doesn’t want to talk about. They try to hide it with social justice platitudes and feel-good welfare programs, but these things are clearly useless. Separating dangerous and insane people from the rest of the population is the only sure method for saving lives in the long run and keeping civilization intact.

The solution is simple and two-fold: Get rid of leftist leaders in major cities that set violent repeat offenders free, and bring back mental health facilities to lock up the crazies if necessary. This is the ONLY WAY to stop the avalanche of violent crime that awaits Americans as the next few years unfold.

Article cross-posted from Alt-Market.

As noted by ReallyGraceful in the video above, Chicago, Illinois, ought to be “a haven of the United States.” The third largest city in the U.S., it’s filled with world-class architecture and technological advancements. It’s a center for manufacturing and transportation industries and has become a tech sector mecca.¹

But rather than being the apple of America’s eye, Chicago has become known as “a center for murder, crime and corruption.” A person is shot every three hours and 41 minutes in “The Windy City.” This despite having some of the toughest gun control laws in the country.

Someone is murdered every 15 hours and 54 minutes in Chicago. According to statistics cited in the video, you’re more likely to be murdered in Chicago than die as a civilian in the Ukraine-Russia war. The violence in Chicago is primarily Black on Black, and most victims are Black men under the age of 25. How did this happen? How did Chicago become a center for crime rather than advancement?

Chicago’s Failed Policies

Lori Lightfoot, a Black gay Democrat, became mayor of Chicago in 2019. In the summer of 2020, she went along with the nationwide movement to defund the police. In August she pledged to cut the city’s police budget by $80 million, but a month later she changed her mind and in the end “only” cut the budget by $59 million.²

To her credit, she rejected the community’s call for eliminating police altogether and replacing them with social workers and medical professionals, saying she does “not support defunding the police” and could not “responsibly enact any policies that make communities less safe.”³

Clearly, Lightfoot understood the value of police presence, seeing how she made sure she had a squad of 71 police officers protecting her personal home.

That said, Lightfoot also implemented some of the most draconian lockdown policies in the country and pressured Chicagoans to get the experimental COVID jab. She also launched a universal basic income pilot program, which is yet another way to get people hooked on government assistance.

All the while, crime surged. In December 2021, Lightfoot begged the federal government for additional law enforcement resources to address out-of-control crime rates.⁴

In April 2023, Lightfoot became the first Chicago mayor to lose reelection, ostensibly due to her failure to rein in crime. Remarkably, the new mayor is anything but hard on crime and is even more permissive than she was.

Contrary to Lightfoot, who at least pushed back against the irrational if not suicidal “defund the police” movement, the new mayor, Democrat Brandon Johnson, a former union organizer and Cook County commissioner, was a staunch supporter of police defunding, and to this day defends looting as “an outbreak of incredible frustration and anguish” caused by “a failed racist system.”

Meanwhile, Walmart, a major donor to the Democrat Party, is now closing four of its eight Chicago stores due to rampant theft and looting. Walmart simply can’t afford to stay there. Protesters gathered outside Walmart, criticizing its decision, but in the end, economics rule — even in Democrat-controlled areas.

Decriminalization of Crime Leads to Lawlessness

Remarkably, the Democrat trend to decriminalize theft, looting and even violent crime and murder — because “racism and inequality” — is resulting in more crime. Who could’ve guessed that lack of law abiding would lead to lawlessness?

As noted by Cook County prosecutor Jason Poje, who in early May 2023 resigned from his post that he’s held for 20 years, “This State and County have set themselves on a course to disaster.” He continues:⁵

“… the worst part is that the agency for whom I work has backed literally every policy change that had the predictable, and predicted, outcome of more crime and more people getting hurt.

Bond reform designed to make sure no one stays in jail while their cases are pending with no safety net to handle more criminals on the streets, shorter parole periods, lower sentences for repeat offenders, the malicious and unnecessary prosecution of law enforcement officers, overuse of diversion programs, intentionally not pursuing prosecutions for crimes lawfully on the books after being passed by our legislature and signed by a governor, all of these so-called reforms have had a direct negative impact, with consequences that will last for a generation …

The current people in charge of this state, including the [State’s Attorney’s Office] suffer from a fundamental misunderstanding … we live in a society with adversarial court and criminal justice processes.

Defense attorneys, legal aid clinics, Public Defenders, defendant advocate groups … they fight like hell to protect the rights of criminal defendants. And they should. Their work is as noble as ours. But we have an obligation to fight like hell on behalf of the People. It should go without saying that this must be done ethically and evenhandedly.

When both sides vigorously defend their positions, a balance is reached between protecting rights while preserving some sort of order and safety. Once we start doing too much of the defense’s job, once we pull our punches, once we decide that it’s worth risking citizens’ lives to have a little social experiment, that balance is lost.

The unavoidable consequences are what we are witnessing in real time, an increase in crime of all kinds, businesses and families pulling up stakes, and the bodies piling up …”

Why are political leaders implementing policies that, obviously, will result in more rather than less crime? They’re intentionally implemented because the end result is a desired one. Chicago is not alone in this folly. Seattle, Los Angeles and many other Democrat-run cities have implemented similar policies, and the end result is the same everywhere.

ReallyGraceful has a theory. She believes these insane policies are intentionally implemented because the end justifies the means since it is a desired outcome.

She suspects large brick and mortar stores and small shops alike are intentionally being pushed out of the big cities so that “only those with the money and infrastructure to support online shopping can survive.” In other words, it’s a consolidation program. The end goal is to transition to a traceable central bank digital currency and online shopping.

Beyond that, we have the World Economic Forum’s (WEF) well-laid plans for the cities of the future.^6,7 They want tiny self-contained vertical cities where your every move is surveilled and countryside excursions are forbidden. To get there, they must destroy the old infrastructure and rebuild according to new specifications.

According to the WEF, cities worldwide will gain 5 billion new inhabitants by 2050.⁸ In all, they predict 80% of the global population will be pressed into cities. Never mind the fact that city living has long been linked to stress, depression and increased aggression.⁹

So-called “isobenefit urbanism” plans include building cities where essentials are all within a 1-mile walking distance.

This makes sense, considering the green goal to have all electric cars by 2050 is a fantasy that cannot be achieved. There aren’t enough minerals on this planet to replace existing gas-powered cars with EVs. The plan is simply for average people to not have a car.

Coordinated Effort to Unleash Lawlessness Across America

The key takeaway here is that the promotion of lawlessness is not restricted to Chicago. Chicago is just one example of the moral degradation that is happening in virtually every major U.S. city.

Violent criminals are released from prisons in many major cities and state prosecutors are either handing out slaps on the wrist or refusing to prosecute violent offenders altogether. That’s intentional. You don’t have to have some special Ph.D. to realize that if there’s no punishment for looting and murder, more people will loot and kill.

According to FBI data, on average, murder and manslaughter in U.S. cities with a population over 10,000 increased 26% between 2010 and 2020; rape increased by 38%, aggravated assault by 29% and car theft by 48%.

Those are averages. Some cities are far worse than others.¹⁰ To dig deeper, see CBS News’ “Murder Map,”¹¹ the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s “Homicide Mortality by State” map,¹² and/or World Population Review’s “Cities with the Most Murders 2023” map.¹³ It’s worth noting that 18 of the 20 cities with the highest murder rates have Democrat mayors.

Save Yourself — Move Out of the Cities

My advice? If you live in a big city — any major metropolitan area — consider moving to a smaller one, preferably in a less “woke” state where lawlessness is not openly embraced and accepted as some form of “equity” arrangement.

Your and your family’s safety, security and long-term welfare may depend on it, because it’s only going to get worse from here. We can easily predict this because the degradation we’re currently seeing is clearly intentional.

10 Cities and States Homeowners Are Fleeing

Since the pandemic began, we’ve seen an unprecedented exodus from Blue cities across the U.S. The top 10 cities homeowners have been fleeing are:¹⁴

1. San Francisco
2. Los Angeles
3. New York City
4. Washington, D.C.
5. Boston
6. Chicago
7. Detroit
8. Denver
9. Seattle
10. Philadelphia

People are also fleeing certain states more than others. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the 10 states with the highest population loss in 2021 due to relocations were:¹⁵

1. New Jersey
2. Illinois
3. New York
4. Connecticut
5. California
6. Michigan
7. Massachusetts
8. Louisiana
9. Ohio
10. Nebraska

Safest Cities in America

As for where to relocate, taking a peek at crime statistics can be helpful. As of 2022, the following 10 towns and townships were rated the safest.¹⁶ Additional lists of low-crime areas can be found here¹⁷ and here.¹⁸

1. Lewisboro Town, New York
2. Wayland, Massachusetts
3. Rye, New York
4. Broadview Heights, Ohio
5. Franklin, Massachusetts
6. Norfolk, Massachusetts
7. Sparta Township, New Jersey
8. Hasbrouck Heights, New Jersey
9. Berkeley Heights Township, New Jersey
10. Holden, Massachusetts

As for the states people are flocking to, the top 10 states that have seen the greatest influx are:^19,20

1. Florida
2. Texas
3. North Carolina
4. South Carolina
5. Tennessee
6. Georgia
7. Arizona
8. Idaho
9. Alabama
10. Oklahoma

To Rebuild, We Must Address the Real Problems

This article hit home for me as I was born and raised in Chicago and about as native as they come as I went to kindergarten, grade school, high school, college, medical school and residency all within the city limit of Chicago. Thankfully, I left over 12 years ago and escaped to sunny Florida.

I agree with ReallyGraceful who states that what we’re seeing is the Hegelian Reaction in real-time: Problem, Reaction, Solution. They’re intentionally creating a problem that they know will result in a certain reaction, so that they can then introduce a preplanned “solution” — a solution that centralizes and cements power at the top of government.

And, while there is a political divide, there are rotten apples and Great Reset promoters on both sides. For example, some Republican leaders are now calling for the U.S. military to intervene and restore order, but that’s just part of the same agenda. The result is more government control and power. Military intervention is the last thing we should hope for.

What we really need to do, as a society, is to take a cold, hard look at the problems that government is ignoring or trying to sweep under the rug, because that’s where the solutions lie. The real problems that need to be addressed can be summed up as:

• Lack of family unit, which has eliminated the security and confidence that family used to provide.
• Lack of traditional values that benefit the individual and the collective equally.
• Lack of pride and purpose in the workplace as workers are viewed as disposable.
• Lack of community and meaningful connection with others.
• Lack of personal responsibility and sense of self.
• Failure to keep government power in check.

The only ones who can fix these problems are We the People. We have to change how we live and interact in our local communities and stop looking to the government for solutions. Government is in the business of creating problems to introduce fake solutions that centralize power. We need to identify and address the real problems, and only we can do that.

• ¹ Dom and Tom Expansion of Chicago’s Tech Sector
• ^2, 3 Block Club Chicago October 21, 2023
• ⁴ Fox 17 December 22, 2021
• ⁵ ZeroHedge May 11, 2023
• ⁶ Weforum Cities and Urbanization
• ⁷ Weforum Global Future Council
• ⁸ Weforum March 14, 2023
• ⁹ Open Libraries Problems of Urban Life, Crowding
• ¹⁰ Safehome.org Crime Trends
• ¹¹ CBS News Murder Map February 23, 2022
• ¹² CDC.gov Homicide Mortality by State
• ¹³ World Population Review Cities With the Most Murders 2023 map
• ¹⁴ Yahoo! News January 22, 2023
• ¹⁵ World Population Review States People Are Leaving
• ¹⁶ Safewise Safest Cities in the US March 30, 2022
• ¹⁷ Bob Vila 19 Places with Almost Zero Crime 2021
• ¹⁸ Kiplinger Safest Cities in 2023
• ¹⁹ TheHill.com Feb. 1, 2023
• ²⁰ National Association of Realtors January 30, 2023

Article cross-posted from Dr. Mercola’s site.

Ultimately, there is no solution that is 100 percent perfect for everybody.  But there are some general principles that I do believe apply broadly, and I will share some of those principles with you in this article.

First of all, when things finally start hitting the fan you don’t want to be some place that has a high population density.

In particular, you will want to avoid the big cities, and last year we definitely witnessed a mass “exodus” from the largest cities in the country…

Last year the counties that are home to LA, Chicago and New York City suffered the largest exodus of people in the country – while tens of thousands flocked to Arizona, Texas and Florida.

Crime has become a major problem in urban areas from coast to coast, and the level of violence in this nation just continues to rise.

In fact, the mass shooting that just happened in Louisville was already the 146th that we have seen so far this year…

Kentucky is the latest state in America to be shaken by gun violence, as the mass shooting inside a Louisville bank marked the 146th in 2023.

The US reached the grim milestone on Monday of more Mass Shootings than days on Monday, which has already surpassed previous years – following the fatal shooting that left five dead, including the gunman, and eight injured at the Old National Bank.

And theft is completely and utterly out of control in many of our inner cities.  It is costing retailers billions upon billions of dollars, and that is one of the biggest reasons why Walmart just decided to shut down four “underperforming” stores in Chicago…

Walmart announced Tuesday it will abruptly close four underperforming Chicago stores, citing millions in annual losses.

The company said its eight Chicago stores collectively have not been profitable since the first opened 17 years ago. This has amounted to a loss of “tens of millions of dollars a year,” according to a press release, losses that have nearly doubled over the last five years.

According to a statement that was put out by Walmart, the losses that those stores have been experiencing have “nearly doubled in just the last five years”…

“The simplest explanation is that collectively our Chicago stores have not been profitable since we opened the first one nearly 17 years ago — these stores lose tens of millions of dollars a year, and their annual losses nearly doubled in just the last five years,” Walmart said in a statement.

The problem isn’t that those stores weren’t popular.

The problem is that they were constantly being looted.

In San Francisco, Whole Foods is closing their “flagship store” just a year after it opened…

The Whole Foods Market location in downtown San Francisco is set to close at the end of business Monday, just a year or so after opening in March of 2022, KRON4 has confirmed. Employees at the store will be transferred to other locations nearby.

“To ensure the safety of our Team Members, we have made the difficult decision to close the Trinity store for the time being,” said a Whole Foods Market spokesperson. “All team members will be transferred to one of our nearby locations.”

San Francisco is an ideal location for a Whole Foods store, but “deteriorating street conditions” have forced company officials to make this move…

“Deteriorating street conditions” involving drug use and crime forced the store to close, according to one City Hall official quoted in the report.

The news didn’t shock some journalists and Bay Area residents, who blamed city and state leadership for the city’s growing problems with crime and homelessness.

Sadly, the entire state is rapidly falling to pieces, and that has resulted in California losing approximately half a million people over the past few years…

California’s population fell by 500,000 people between April 2020 and July 2022, Fox News previously reported.

“Sure San Francisco continues to decline rapidly, with Whole Foods closing just a year after opening due to rampant crime & drug dealing after SF lost ~8% of its population from 2020-2022, but hey, at least Gavin Newsom is lecturing Ron DeSantis on how to be a successful governor,” he tweeted sarcastically.

Of course most of my readers are not located in core urban areas.

But those that are living in the suburbs are not safe either.

When economic conditions get bad enough, many of the criminals in the big cities will be coming out to the suburbs to look for easy prey.

With that in mind, I am encouraging people to consider moving away from large metropolitan areas entirely.

If you are considering such a move, I would also avoid anywhere that is experiencing persistent drought.  That would include much of the Interior West, although some areas have been blessed with quite a bit of precipitation lately.

I would also keep potential natural disasters in mind when selecting a new destination.

Personally, I would not move anywhere close to the New Madrid fault zone.  If you do not understand why, there is an entire chapter in my latest book that explains this. I would also avoid both coasts.

The west coast is way overdue for a major seismic event.  Scientists assure us that it is just a matter of time before “the Big One” strikes, and you don’t want to be anywhere around when that happens.

On the east coast, there is the potential for a giant tsunami to completely wipe out our major cities.  In particular, the terrain of Florida is extremely flat and so there would be very little resistance if a giant tsunami were to start ripping across the state.

And unless you want to die a very quick death once a nuclear war starts, I would highly recommend not living near a military base or a nuclear missile silo.

Once you account for all of the factors that I have mentioned in this article, that doesn’t leave a whole lot of areas to choose from.

And the real estate in such highly desirable areas has become quite expensive. But the longer you wait, the more difficult it is going to become to relocate.

Global events are starting to spiral out of control, and I fully expect that they will accelerate even more during the months ahead.

Michael’s new book entitled “End Times” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can check out his new Substack newsletter right here.

About the Author: My name is Michael and my brand new book entitled “End Times” is now available on Amazon.com.  In addition to my new book I have written six other books that are available on Amazon.com including “7 Year Apocalypse”, “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America”, “The Beginning Of The End”, and “Living A Life That Really Matters”. (#CommissionsEarned)  When you purchase any of these books you help to support the work that I am doing, and one way that you can really help is by sending copies as gifts to family and friends.  Time is short, and I need help getting these warnings into the hands of as many people as possible.  I have also started a brand new Substack newsletter, and I encourage you to subscribe so that you won’t miss any of the latest updates.

I have published thousands of articles on The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News, and the articles that I publish on those sites are republished on dozens of other prominent websites all over the globe.  I always freely and happily allow others to republish my articles on their own websites, but I also ask that they include this “About the Author” section with each article.  The material contained in this article is for general information purposes only, and readers should consult licensed professionals before making any legal, business, financial or health decisions.

I encourage you to follow me on social media on Facebook and Twitter, and any way that you can share these articles with others is definitely a great help.  These are such troubled times, and people need hope.  John 3:16 tells us about the hope that God has given us through Jesus Christ: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”  If you have not already done so, I strongly urge you to invite Jesus Christ to be your Lord and Savior today.

Article cross-posted from The Economic Collapse Blog.