New York Times columnist Ezra Klein slammed Democrats over their stubborn denials that US cities are plagued with rising crime, out-of-control migration and skyrocketing prices, saying they need to “shut the f–k up.”
In Donald Trump’s blowout election victory last week, the president-elect notched a 6.5% gain in the most populous urban counties across the country, which outpaced the 3.3% swing toward Trump in suburban counties, the Washington Post reported.
A voting district in Manhattan even went red for the first time in at least a decade, The Post reported exclusively this week.
Klein, 40, cited anger that has built up among residents of major blue cities like New York and San Francisco, saying Dems who try to explain away the worsening conditions in these cities need to “talk to some people who live near you.”
“The thing that surprised me least about the election was the sharp red shift in these big cities,” Klein said on “Pod Save America” Wednesday. “If you just talk to anybody who lives in them, they are furious.”
“The rage I just hear from people in New York … the sense of disorder rising, not just crime, but homeless encampments, trash on the streets, people jumping turnstiles in subways, crazy people on the streets. You just talk to people and they’re mad about it,” Klein said.
“In San Francisco, the fury is overwhelming.”
“And this idea that ‘The economy is actually good,’ or ‘Crime is actually down, this is all just Fox News,’ shut the f–k up with that,” the Vox co-founder continued.
“People don’t follow politics, but they live in the place they live. They see if prices have gone way up and a bunch of economists telling them ‘No, no, no, no, don’t worry about the price of everything’ … is not gonna do it,” Klein said.
The “Why We’re Polarized” author said part of New York City residents’ ire was due to Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s busing of migrants to blue cities, but he went on to warn that Dems have their heads in the sand about the full extent of the migrant crisis.
“There were enough migrants that Greg Abbott could bus actual human bodies to New York City and it was a big enough problem that New York City could not effectively deal with it,” Klein said.
“It does show that what was going on at the border was much worse than what the Democrats were letting themselves accept.”
San Francisco Mayor London Breed lost her re-election bid to centrist Democrat and Levi Strauss heir Daniel Lurie. A record-breaking 656 people died of fentanyl overdoses in the sanctuary city in the last year.
Murder is up in New York City by 45% over a 28-day period from this time last year, while rape is up 29.9% over the same period, according to NYPD data. Murder is down 4.7% year over year, but rapes are up 17.5%, robberies are up 0.7% and felony assaults are up 5.2% compared to 2023, the police stats reveal.
“It used to be a safe city, and it’s not a safe city anymore, and it’s like this all over the country, there is no law anymore. Donald Trump is tough. He will bring the law back,” NYC resident Susan Dye, 60, told The Post.
Dye lives in the only Manhattan voting district that went for Trump.
Inflation rose across the country 2.6% last month, up from 2.4% in September. Consumer prices have risen 21.8% since Biden took office in 2020, according to Pew Research Center.
Margarine costs 56% more than in January 2020, car insurance is 47.5% higher and eggs cost 40.1% more.
New York City Mayor Eric Adams announced Friday he is ending his administration’s program of giving migrants prepaid debit cards for groceries, after spending $2.4 million on the initiative.