January 27, 2024

Now, on to the news…

Karen Bass in Los Angeles. Brandon Johnson in Chicago. Eric Adams in New York.

They’re all progressive, all first-term mayors—and all failing miserably.

Since taking office in 2023, Johnson has made no progress on Chicago’s crime rate. Instead, he shut down the city’s gunshot-detection system and directed $51 million to migrant services. By November, he earned the lowest Chicago mayoral approval rating on record.

Adams, meantime, faces federal bribery and corruption charges. While New York City homicides have declined under his watch, other crime rates have risen. A Manhattan Institute poll last April found crime remained New Yorkers’ top concern.

And Bass? She slashed L.A.’s fire department budget, leaving workers underprepared for the wildfires ravaging the city. Homelessness has worsened on her watch, too, and residents’ satisfaction with local quality of life hit a record low last year.

Will voters who backed these mayors, sometimes based on their race and gender, recognize that progressive policies fail to improve cities, and indeed often make things much worse?

“It’s one thing for voters to say they disapprove of someone they voted for. It’s another to choose someone with different ideas next time,” writes City Journal Senior Editor Steven Malanga. “Until that day comes, change will remain impossible in New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles.”

Steven Malanga

New York, Chicago, Los Angeles: the Failing-Mayors Trifecta

The dysfunctional politics of America’s three largest cities have produced elected leaders wildly unpopular with their own voters. What went wrong?

After years of contributing to distracted learning and declining academic performance, it’s evident that smartphone use in schools has an incredibly negative impact on American children’s education and well-being. That’s why states should prohibit phone use in public schools during the school day, argue Manhattan Institute Cities Policy Director John Ketcham and Chief of Staff Jesse Arm. Their recent model legislation points the way.

On Day One, President Trump issued an executive order declaring an energy emergency. While the U.S. isn’t facing an energy crisis—yet—the president is right to reject Biden’s misguided energy approach, on both economic and national security grounds.

“The overarching effect of the Biden era’s anti-fossil-fuel policies will be to make the U.S., in due course, more dependent on imports, and encourage the use of energy technologies (windmills, solar panels, and batteries) that require greater dependence on minerals and components largely imported from China,” writes CJ Contributing Editor Mark P. Mills.

Donald Trump’s second inauguration provided plenty of fodder for supporters and critics alike. From tech CEOs showcasing their newfound admiration for the president to the torrent of executive orders—and even a presidential pen-toss—there was no shortage of spectacle. And then, of course, there was the fashion.

First Lady Melania Trump wore a striking Adam Lippes navy double-breasted coat, paired with a dramatic Eric Javits wide-brim hat accented by a white ribbon. Ivanka Trump opted for a Dior forest-green skirt suit with a matching pillbox hat, complemented by a classic Lady Dior handbag.

The scene marked a stark contrast to just eight years earlier, when designers like Marc Jacobs and Tom Ford publicly refused to dress Melania.

“In another era, the honor of dressing the first family was one that designers could never imagine refusing; political party made no difference,” writes Isabella Redjai, Manhattan Institute senior multimedia producer. “Partisanship and cancel culture intimidated the fashion industry during Trump’s first presidency, but now it seems determined to get in on the action—if it’s not already too late.”

“One can never go wrong to revisit the closing passages of Lincoln's two inaugurals. He set the standard for grace and power in American oratory, without shirking simple humor and pragmatism for all his elevated rhetoric. Trump is no Lincoln. Trump can hammer out a tune of sorts, as one might who used actual hammers on a piano's ivory keys, but Lincoln made true music and ‘we shall not look upon his like again.’ That being said ... sometimes you gotta take a hammer to the piano."

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Perfect_Because_Hopeless, responding to Heather Mac Donald on the lack of magnanimity in Trump's second Inaugural Address