Detroit was the nation’s fourth largest city in the 1950s—The Motor City: rich, prosperous, and growing.
Now, after five decades of failed liberal policies, can the once great shining city upon a hill rise from the ashes anew?
At the 2009 Conservative Political Action Conference, Newt Gingrich began his speech by responding to Eric Holder’s recent statement that “America is a nation of cowards”:
“Let me say to Atty. Gen. Holder, I welcome an opportunity to have a dialogue with you about ‘cowardice’ anywhere anytime. Why don’t we have the dialogue in Detroit and see if Atty. Gen. Holder has the courage to talk about the failure of the Detroit school system, the failure of the Detroit teachers’ union, the betrayal of the future of thousands of young people. Let’s discuss the total failure of the Detroit political system which has taken a city of 1,800,000 with the highest per capita income in the United States and has driven it into the ground so there are now fewer than 900,000 people there with a per-capita income that is 62nd in the United States. And it’s the function of bad government, bad politicians, bad bureaucracy, and bad ideas.”
The city of Detroit provided the ideal illustration for Gingrich: five decades of failed leftist policies manifested in one troubled city. Gingrich saw the ascendency of Obamunism and subtly asserted that Detroit was a microcosm of Barack Obama’s America: big labor, a strong teacher’s union, high taxes, public utilities, strong gun control, big welfare roles, etc. Many of these policies were implemented by former Mayor Colemon Young, who reigned over the city for 20 years. One has to wonder, could the city that allowed Colemon Young to stand at the helm for two decades actually embrace Newt Gingrich and his ideas?
Turning once great cities into ghost towns?
Now that's "Progressive"!
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