The party that used to claim to speak for the working class has focused its attention elsewhere.
As cultural concerns have taken center stage, many say that the Democrat party has abandoned them.
Now the Dallas Mayor who jumped off the Democrat ship issued a warning for his former party.
Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson was a long-time Democrat.
That was true until just last month when he decided to switch political parties and become a Republican.
In an op-ed that appeared in the Wall Street Journal, Johnson blamed the soft-on-crime pervasiveness among Democrats for his decision to leave his former party behind.
Johnson: Too many Democrats don’t take law and order seriously
Johnson wrote in his September op-ed, “The future of America’s great urban centers depends on the willingness of the nation’s Mayors to champion law and order and practice fiscal conservatism. Our cities desperately need the genuine commitment to these principles (as opposed to the inconsistent, poll-driven commitment of many Democrats) that has long been a defining characteristic of the GOP.”
Now, in an interview on Fox News Sunday with host Shannon Bream, the Mayor has doubled down.
WATCH: Mayor @Johnson4Dallas on his decision to switch political parties and his city's crackdown on crime. pic.twitter.com/NwL4kraTZo
— Fox News Sunday (@FoxNewsSunday) October 29, 2023
Johnson said, “What I’ve seen across the country, too often I think that Democrats primarily is what I’m talking about because that’s who controls most of the major cities in this country – 75 of the top 100 cities in the country are run by Democrats – the problem has become that Democrats were not willing, I think, to say that violent crime is a problem in their city and that it’s a problem that they could actually do something about.”
The Mayor rejected criticism from a Democrat city council member who said that their city was one of the safest in the country because of the Democrat-controlled city council.
Johnson said that the council proposed amendments to defund its police department that had no legitimate policy reason for being enacted.
He added that the council “eventually” came to agree with him on crime-reduction policies and that the council’s proposals would have redirected money for things like solar panels and environmental issues that “have nothing to do” with the safety of a city during a “crime spike.”
Johnson now believes that his former party “doesn’t represent” his values on “law and order” and that they favor policies that “embolden the criminal element” in cities.
He further says that calls to “defund the police” and not prosecuting certain crimes “demoralize the police department.”
It appears that the Mayor’s constituents largely support his leadership.
In Johnson’s most recent election in May, he defeated his only opponent, a write-in candidate named Kendal Richardson, with 98.7% of the vote.
That broke a record for the highest vote percentage garnered by a Mayoral candidate facing any opposition in Dallas history.
Blue State Blues will keep you up-to-date on any developments to this ongoing story.
