In an article on Detroit's bankruptcy in Friday's New York Times, the author noted that promoters of a bailout are having trouble winning support from Republicans in the Michigan legislature because Detroit is "a Democratic-leaning city"—an understatement if we've ever heard one, equivalent to describing Cuba as a "Communist-leaning" country. Detroit, far from being a "Democratic-leaning" city, is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Democratic Party. The two—the city and the party—are inseparable categories, each being completely intertwined with the other. Detroit has not elected a Republican mayor since 1961. Every member of the state legislature from Detroit is a Democrat, as has been every member of Congress elected from the city since the 1970s. Barack Obama won 98 percent of the presidential vote in Detroit in 2012, and only slightly less in 2008. Since the 1960s, Democratic presidential candidates have routinely chalked up 95 percent of the popular vote in Detroit—overwhelming numbers that would impress the likes of Stalin and Castro. Detroit is a thoroughly one-party jurisdiction and the catastrophe that has unfolded in that city cannot be separated from that fact.

One will never find an honest rendering of the Detroit bankruptcy in publications like The New York Times, in which the facts are obscured by euphemisms and half-truths. Fortunately, Kevin D. Williamson, in his Encounter Broadside titled What Doomed Detroit, has provided a compelling account of how Detroit brought ruin on itself by a combustible mix of racial politics, union corruption, and one party rule. It is an honest account, and for that reason a rueful one that interested readers may access by following the link below:

What Doomed Detroit (Encounter Broadside), by Kevin D. Williamson

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