America's crime-ridden, impoverished inner cities like Chicago and Detroit have been Democratic monopolies for over a half a century, but Marc Lamont Hill believes Democrats should not be blamed for that.
Appearing on CNN Wednesday to discuss Trump's latest "law and order" speech that accused Democrats of prostituting black communities to gin up votes, former Secret Service agent Dan Bongino butted heads with Hill over why America's inner cities have been crippled by crime and poverty over several decades. Bongino rightly blamed the Democrats while Hill rejected the assertion.
"These communities have been driven into the ground," said Bongino. "Liberalism correlates with poverty and high crime every single place it's been tried...I wish I could change it. I wish the Trump campaign could as well."
Marc Lamont Hill took offense to Bongino's statement, even wincing at it:
They're Democratic machines but they're not far left. Michael Nutter was the mayor of Philadelphia. No one would call him far left. I think that’s a bit extreme. It's not exactly Cuba there. The other piece of, this and you said you're not a scientist and I’m glad you said that. There's a difference between correlation and causality.
I agree, there's a connection between these very poor places and Democratic machines, but being Democrat doesn't cause you to be poor, being liberal doesn’t cause you to be poor. There's a bunch of top-down policies that enable this to happen. In a place like Ferguson, for example, the flight of jobs is far more important, the destruction of public housing is far more influential than who's the city councilman or who's the mayor. Although that’s not a black majority. Same thing in Baltimore.
Again, we need a new way out, but the new way out isn't to just crack down on Democrats and bring Republicans in. We need new policies that bring in jobs, that bring in investment, and that change the relationship between police and community. That's not a partisan issue. That’s a much bigger issue.
Exactly who does Hill think is making those "top-down policies" in those "Democratic machines"?
