Good and Hard? Citizens Deserve Better than What they Vote For

George Will recently endorsed Zohran Mamdani to become the next mayor of New York City. 

He didn’t do it because Trump Derangement Syndrome has so rotted his brain that he would vote for a communist to spite him. He did it, instead, because he said Democrats needed to learn the lesson that voting for commies doesn’t end well. 

George Will on Zorhan Mamdani: “I want him to win. I think every 20 years or so, we need a conspicuous, confined experiment with socialism so we can crack it up again.”pic.twitter.com/03R396k4gw

— Thomas Sowell Quotes (@ThomasSowell) August 11, 2025

This is a variation of the “gooder and harder” school of politics: voters should get exactly what they vote for, good and hard. If they are dumb enough to vote for communists or crooks, they deserve what they get. 

I dissent from this view for a lot of reasons. 

First, there is very little evidence that the voters who put these terrible politicians in office ever learn anything, or at least learn the lesson in time to make much of a difference. Look at Detroit, Seattle, Chicago, Portland, San Francisco, and Los Angeles. It is much easier to destroy good things after they are built than to rebuild those that have been destroyed — especially when the areas destroyed have been shown to be uninvestable. 

Detroit still hasn’t recovered from the decades of decline that began in the 1960s, and once Chicago has been pillaged by Mayor Brandon Johnson, the city will be groaning under so much debt that it will demand to be bailed out. 

🔥🚨BREAKING NEWS: Chicago’s Democrat Mayor Brandon Johnson has sent out a warning to Americans that Chicago finances are “at the point of no return” if he doesn’t get a massive tax hikes to replace dwindling revenue. pic.twitter.com/UuyeL4YAXW

— Dom Lucre | Breaker of Narratives (@dom_lucre) August 7, 2025

Second, America’s great cities are not just places where voters live. They are beating hearts of the economy in their region, and centers of American power. New York City is not JUST New York City; it is the financial center of the world and a symbol of American dominance. Washington, D.C., is not just Muriel Bowser’s home, but the nation’s capital. It matters that it is crime-ridden. The mayors of these cities are stewards not just of their constituents’ well-being, but of entire chunks of the American economy and of the perception of the American way of life. 

Third, we overestimate the support that machine politicians have in their cities. While it is true that, if all dissenters came together and voted as a group, it is possible to remove the most egregious politicians, the way city politics typically work ensures that the candidate of the public employees’ unions and the NGO complex will almost always win. 

Big cities are dominated, politically, by public employees’ unions. School boards are run by shills of the teachers’ unions, and city council seats are owned (generally) by unions and left-wing activist groups. Mayors such as Brandon Johnson are hand-picked by voting blocs that come together and overwhelm their opponents. 

The interests of these groups are concentrated, and the motivation for participation in politics is great–it is their livelihoods, after all–while the ordinary citizens have interests that are much more diffuse and often contradictory. This gives an enormous advantage to machine candidates who can count on the united power of their supporters. 

In other words, beating the machine is very, very hard. 

Fourth, opponents of the machine are often the least able to fight back or move away. Wealthy people can insulate themselves from the decline, and upper-middle-class voters can pick up and leave. But the working class? Not so much. They are stuck where they are and helpless to do much to make their concerns heard. 

It’s easy for us to look at a place like Chicago or Portland and say, “They got what they voted for,” but a lot of the people didn’t have a choice. Sure, if everybody banded together, chose a candidate, ran an outstanding and well-funded political campaign against the machine, and lucked out, they MIGHT capture a city council seat or even a mayor’s office. But have you ever tried to do that with no connections, political experience, or way to spread the word?

And feed a family off a working-class income? 

I have a lot more sympathy for the silent victims who labor under the weight of expensive, incompetent, and ultimately destructive bad government in Blue cities than you would guess. 

Do I wish that more people would stand up and fight back? Of course I do. Do I expect them to do so? Not often.

The people I most blame are the business leaders who try to buy off the bad politicians. They make deals with the Devil to save their own skins, and when that doesn’t work, they eventually pack up and leave. It is rational in the short term to do this, but I wish they would fight back when the cities are still viable. 

I think most of these cities can be saved. But the ordinary citizens there need help and hope. I feel for them. 

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