Save our Cities

We may not be able to revive the culture that grounded a thriving metropolitan life, but it is possible to recreate the conditions for it to grow again.

Sam Brown is a freshman undergraduate at George Mason University.

What Pat Buchanan would properly describe as another masquerade ball (see his 1992 RNC remarks) took place last week in the city of Chicago. There, in the heart of the second city, the Democratic Party did its best to fool the country into thinking that they are the party of prudent progress and of the working and middle classes. But as any conservative would tell you, that is not the case whatsoever.

Rather, the party made clear their true values. Just a couple blocks away, a van that was operated by Planned Parenthood administered abortions and vasectomies. On the first night of the convention, they gave the podium to Peggy Flanagan, partner in crime to Tim Walz, to advocate for child transgenderism. In addition, they gave a voice to Maxine Waters, who called for harassing Republicans in public. 

Yet, it was not just the speakers who held far-left views. From the beginning, the authors of the party platform inserted a “land acknowledgment” a diatribe about how the convention was held on supposedly stolen land. It advocated for the Equality Act, perhaps one of the most unconstitutional laws in recent memory and for replacing the traditional family with a government-controlled “childcare” system. Moreover, the party continues to support enacting a national “red-flag” law and persistent immigration into out country. This is only the tip of the iceberg. 

But you know what? None of this is really new. Everyone on the right knows about this and we have known about it for years. There is nothing much more to say in this regard. But there is something that those within our movement have not brought up when discussing this convention: this masquerade ball is emblematic of how a great, American city like that of Chicago can be managed into decline until it has abandoned the very rugged and entrepreneurial values that it was built upon.

Our nation’s many other great cities, including Chicago, should not be ignored by the conservative movement. Instead why we should fight to restore them to their former glory for several reasons.

Chicago, historically and presently, is objectively one of the most important cities in America. It sits at the confluence of the Great Lakes and numerous river systems. As such, the windy city has held a tremendous amount of strategic importance. Throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, Chicago was at the center of American manufacturing, providing jobs to the middle and lower classes and supporting the growing nation.

All good things must come to an end, especially in the case of Chicago. As the decades rolled on, Church attendance began to decline, along with many other common associations. Combine that with mass deindustrialization, political corruption, and an increasingly cosmopolitan atmosphere, and you can see the Chicago of today.

This can be easily shown when looking at Illinois’ latest census results. Out of the fifty states in the union, Illinois was one of only three which experienced population loss. One thing is clear: Chicago is no longer the urban powerhouse that it once was. And with the election of Brandon Johnson to the mayor’s office, things have only continued to worsen. 

But you would have to be a fool to think that this catastrophe is limited to the city of Chicago, or even the state of Illinois. These cities lost their spirit that held them together, including the trust and safety they once knew, all while simultaneously experiencing a massive decline in affordability. We cannot afford to ignore this crisis any longer, and if we want to win these political battles against the left, then we will need to provide solutions to the citizens of our nation’s cities.

This begins with establishing law and order in cities from the start, while also focusing on rejuvenation projects for these lost centers of American enterprise. We may not be able to recreate the artistic and 19th century culture that grounded a thriving Chicago, but we may be able to recreate the conditions for it once again.

Some may ask why we should invest any of our efforts into cities like Chicago or New York when there are so many other parts of the country that are more likely to agree with our conservative message. Yet, these cities are at the center of American culture. This is where the media that we consume is written and produced. These cities are the central pillars of our economy. Philadelphia, Detroit, and Milwaukee are crucial in our effort to reindustrialize (and they decide our elections).

In short, we must strive to make it so that something like this year’s DNC will be unthinkable in every major city across the land. We will make America great again, and that will certainly include each and every metropolis contained within our borders.

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