Municipal Politics - Kickbacks, Walkin' Around Money, And No-Show Jobs, American Democracy At Work

Washington, DC is the Nation's Capital, seat of federal government, its bureaucracy, and the Supreme Court, but it's also a city with a municipal government. It once was simply a federal district run by Congress until Home Rule came into effect. 

Home Rule in principle gave voice to the people of Washington, and with their vote a Mayor and City Council were elected. Funding would be through taxpayer financing with a small portion of the budget from federal resources to help keep up the federal buildings, landscaping, and national parks. 

As soon as this devolution of authority returned a certain degree of political and fiscal autonomy to the District of Columbia, the fire sale started.  Typical of all urban municipalities, DC turned populist, and in majority black DC, the populism was distinctly racial.  The white wards of the city were to be the cash cows, contributing the lion's share of tax revenue, and the all black wards across the Anacostia River, dysfunctional, crime-ridden, drug addled, and socially delinquent were to be the beneficiaries of this white largesse. 

City Hall wasted no time in reparations.  Now that a black local government was to finally govern black Washington its constituents were finally to get their due. 

The money 'invested' in the inner city neighborhoods of the city started modestly until the election of Mayor For Life, Marion Barry who raised the ante.  A virtual flood of public monies flowed officially into black neighborhoods, and a steady stream of unofficial 'walkin' around money' followed.  These extra funds were to reward residents for their fidelity to Barry and his cohorts, to assure their support in coming elections, and to give them the satisfaction of taking whitey to task. 

When things got out of hand and when Barry was convicted of all kinds of crimes, his arrest was ignored.  The black population had always known of his fondness for drugs and hookers, but since this was part of their culture, they were nonplussed. 

Barry was one of them, and his off-program escapades with crack, hookers, kickbacks, and no-show jobs simply mirrored their own extra-judicial enterprises. 'One of us, one of us', went the refrain of the movie Freaks and became the meme of the day. 

At this point the federal government stepped in and appointed an overseer, an unelected representative of Congress, a financial hardliner, and an honest politician to right the ship.  He did his job, and the white wards of the city at least, thought that perhaps the days of the drug-running murder capital of the country were over. 

They were wrong, of course, and once Anthony Williams left  his appointed position and a term as Mayor, things went back to the way they were.  Crime returned to its nationally high levels, drug crewes fought it out in street battles, and inner city neighborhoods became no-fly zones for the police. 

Now, a new Democratic Socialist Mayor is about to assume office, and from the other side of Washington - municipal politics - the flagrant expenditure of non-accountable monies on non-performing, historically disproven, venal, and self-interested programs - is soon to begin in earnest.  

Residents of the white wards of the city have up till now taken municipal disregard and disrespect for granted, but now are ready to move out.  The older residents are heading for Florida and Arizona, and the younger generation is moving across the river to Virginia and the high-tech enclaves relatively immune from punitive taxation and municipal corruption. 

If the thought of Zohran Mamdani, Democratic Socialist Mayor of New York causes night sweats, the thought of DC's Janeese Lewis George is nightmarish.  Taxes, already among the highest in the nation will be raised, the inner city neighborhoods across the river will be afforded a financial banquet of unseen proportions, the police will be transformed into social working acolytes of the ghetto, and minority-friendly hack contractors awash in new monies will tear up perfectly good sidewalks, dig and build where they will, and buy Cadillacs with the profits. 

'The black people of Washington have suffered enough', said the Mayor-Elect's spokesperson, 'under the yoke of slavery, Jim Crow, segregation, discrimination, and racism at the hands of their white oppressors.  The time has come for action'. 

The new Mayor's policy papers have been a socialist's dream - free daycare, free healthcare, free transport, free lodging, free food.  Janeese has shown the world that she is no Mamdani clone, but a woman of agency and influence in her own right and will not simply adjust the machinery of government, she will transform DC into a People's Republic. 

Janeese is not alone at the center of municipal anarchy - the mayors of Chicago, Baltimore, Los Angeles, and Portland are no different.  They have run on overtly racially manipulative campaigns, have salivated over the thought of untold millions in taxpayer resources at their disposal, and have acquired a sense of invincibility thanks to the persistent chant of Diversity Equity Inclusion and the black identity politics, an integral part of it. 

The depths of municipal intellectual, financial, social, and economic corruption would not be possible without white liberal complicity.  While demographics have altered the municipal electoral landscape, with significantly large black voter roles enabling the election of demagogues like Janeese and Chicago's Brandon Johnson, white liberals, convinced that the most important item on their political agenda was the fostering of the prominence of the black man, facilitated it. 

From major metropolitan areas, to cities and small towns, municipal politics have been transformed resulting in incompetence, sinkholes of poverty and violence, and the rise of blatant corruption. 

The situation is not unlike what is happening in France.  The country, convinced on the political imperative of open borders, reparations for the sins of colonialism and the systemic racism that resulted, welcomed millions of undocumented, Muslim Africans, and is now suffering the consequences.  France is no longer the proud Eldest Daughter of the Catholic Church, cultural leader and icon of Western civilization. It has become an ungovernable chaos with radical Islam and anti-white and anti-European sentiments at the core. 

The American Left, having lionized so-called oppressed minorities, having given free rein to 'political expression of racial frustration'. supported corrupt organizations like Black Lives Matter, made heroes out of criminals like George Floyd and demonized the police while so doing are seeing exactly what they have done.  Municipal governance is out of control. 

Bob Muzelle, a longtime DC resident and lifelong progressive remarked about the new mayor, 'Let's give her a chance' and in so doing voiced the intellectual vanity of 'democratic socialism'. With the election of Janeese, Bob could finally come right out and say what he had believed all along - socialism was the world's saving grace, a philosophy of generosity, compassion, and social justice.  Yes, it has had its ups and downs but it has never lost its currency, agency, or moral imperative. 

For decades political activists like Bob could never actually say they were socialists - communists in the lexicon of Joseph McCarthy, terms that branded the believer as a traitor - but now the philosophy was finally out in the open in America and its hope for a Utopian future soon to be realized.  

This heady cabal - white liberals and black demagogues - spells doom for the future of municipal government, but it seems unstoppable.  The idea of finally casting off the chains of capitalism and creating a fair, just, and equal society not only excited the likes of Bob Muzelle, but energized the credulous idealism of youth. 

Bob was delighted when Janeese won the DC Democrat primary, a virtual guarantee of election in the November election, and he hosted a dinner for his colleagues, friends, and supporters. While always careful to never betray the poor and the marginalized, he kept his dinners simple; but at this celebratory dinner, he allowed himself a show of the icon of victory, a bottle of Moet-Chandon Reserve. 

Soon enough his property taxes will go through the roof, his income taxes will become even more punitive, and a variety of 'luxury' taxes will penalize him at every turn; and then, maybe then the old adage, 'Given enough time a liberal will always become conservative' will apply to him.