Dissecting the Reality of Propaganda About Dysfunctional Democratic Cities

The New York Times reports on democratic cities and the history of how they got there and why they are there. The NYT writes:

“With this refrain, Mr. Trump has sharpened his party’s long-running antipathy toward urban America into a more specific argument for the final two months of the campaign: Cities have problems, and Democrats run them. Therefore, you don’t want Democrats running the country, either.

But that logic misconstrues the nature of challenges that cities face, and the power of mayors of any party to solve them, political scientists say. And it twists a key fact of political history: If cities have become synonymous with Democratic politics today, that is true in part because Republicans have largely given up on them.

Over the course of decades, Republicans ceased competing seriously for urban voters in presidential elections and representing them in Congress. Republican big-city mayors became rare. And along the way, the Republican Party nationally has grown muted on possible solutions to violence, inequality, poverty and segregation in cities.

Mr. Trump and his surrogates have pushed that history to its seeming conclusion: Rural and suburban problems in America today are national problems — but urban problems are Democratic problems.”

Asymmetric warfare: Advantage - liars 

The NYT goes on to point out that politicians of neither party blame Republican county executives for rural opioid problems. The republican argument also gives Democratic mayors no credit for 25-year decline in urban crime since the early 1990s. The NYT also points out that mayors have limited control over crime rates. Some researchers looked for studies suggesting that a mayor's party affiliation has an effect on crime, but found none. It is true that homicides have spiked this year in big cities, but that is also true by similar amounts in some smaller cities with Republican mayors, including Tulsa, Okla., and San Bernardino, Calif. 

Also, the president harshly criticized Chicago for failing to control gun violence despite the fact that the city tried to deal with gun violence. The city outlawed handguns and gun sales, but federal judges overturned those efforts. That shows how constrained local officials including mayors are. 

The rhetorical warfare on this point is, as often the case, asymmetric. This line of propaganda will be hard for democrats to refute because it requires an explanation. In propaganda wars, whenever a person has to explain something, they usually lose the debate. That is just a potentially lethal aspect of the human condition, specifically how the human mind processes propaganda or dark free speech.