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In Democrat cities leftist politics inevitably corrupts every facet of urban life, from the kinds of flags that fly at city hall to the tenor and theme of the arts and entertainment industry.

Cities like Boston, Houston, Portland, New York, Seattle and Philadelphia flaunt their wokeness when they fly BLM-inspired or LGBTQ+ flags next to the Stars and Stripes, or when they have mayors — such as Boston’s Michelle Wu — who want shoplifting, larceny and disorderly conduct to be decriminalized, while proposing that police funds be reallocated to other city agencies.

The Daily Mail has this to say about Boston’s mayor in May 2024:

Wu’s progressive outlook goes even further with the 39-year-old seemingly comfortable with offenders that commit ‘quality of life’ crimes getting off scot-free.

They include the breaking and entering of property, wanton and malicious destruction of property, minors in possession of alcohol and drug possession including the distribution of marijuana and non-marijuana types.

Philadelphia’s Mayor Cherelle L. Parker, unlike Mayor Wu, never proposed the decriminalization of breaking and entering a property, although during the COVID lockdown the Philadelphia Soros-appointed DA Larry Krasner gave shoplifters a pass that caused havoc among small business owners. One result of Krasner’s action was the closure of a number of Rite Aid stores in the city, as well as a Wawa or two.

Wokeness in the City of Philadelphia has reached the point of no return.

Nearly every museum in the city has bought into the diversity, equity and inclusion agenda. The Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Museum of the American Revolution, the Barnes Foundation on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway, and even the heretofore neutral “science” museum, the Franklin Institute, are all solidly behind the cultural new world order.

The Museum of the American Revolution is one of the city’s more shocking examples. There’s only one real—major—artifact here, Washington’s Tent, aside from endless collections of period swords, muskets, hats and uniforms. Yet the heavy leftist slant is very obvious in the exhibition space: very minor figures during the Revolutionary War — Native Americans and people of color — are given more prominence than major, well-known historical figures that happen to be white.

This odd “role” reversal comes across as a bland, Howard Zinn-like teaching moment where visitors are expected to suspend traditional conceptions of how a museum works. The museum in many ways is comparable to the recreation of Washington’s house on Philadelphia’s Independence Square — a design concept condemned by New York Times architectural critics — which doesn’t concentrate on Washington at all but focuses on the lives of the slaves he owned.

The historically conservative Philadelphia-based Barnes Foundation — founded by Dr. Alfred Barnes in 1922 — has a tribute-exhibition opening this fall honoring cultural critic, writer and Marxist bell hooks (1952-2021) whom Amy Goodman on Democracy Now profiled in a video lauding hooks’ critique of “Imperialist White Supremacist Heteropatriarchy.”  The paintings featured are by a relatively unknown artist, Mickalene Thomas, whose mission seems to be to put radical politics on an equal footing with “art.”

The cultural as a reflection of the political is now common fare in red city environments. The two are wed irrevocably in a kind of pseudomonogamous tyranny making change seem all but impossible. Philadelphia, for instance, will never elect a Republican mayor.

While Republicans dominate in some obscure Philadelphia neighborhoods, their numbers are still too few to make a real difference in city-wide elections. Good Republicans run for office here — superb quality people — but they are snuffed out by status quo mediocre Democrats with half the qualifications.

It is disheartening and tragic in a sense, yet in one blue city a small stride was made to break the Democrat woke stranglehold when Mayor Eric Johnson of Dallas announced in 2023 he was changing his registration from Democrat to Republican because he was tired of Democrat disdain for law enforcement and the party’s penchant for high property taxes and for fostering an unfriendly business environment.

Johnson, currently serving his second term as mayor, has always been a fiscal conservative and had fought fellow Democrats in their attempt to defund the police. Dallas County Democrats were predictably outraged at Johnson’s switch in party affiliation and called for his resignation.

Johnson, ignoring these demands, went on to speak at the 2024 Republican Convention in Milwaukee where he mentioned how in 2020 leftist activists stood on the front lawn of his home and demanded he defund the police.

“I said no,”Johnson told the RNC, explaining how he felt the activists were threatening his family. Dallas Democrats gave him no support after the occupation, but city Republicans did.

Johnson’s switch made Dallas the largest city in the United States with a GOP mayor.

While one courageous politician’s move to the GOP won’t change the Democrat “smog” that hovers over Dallas, it may, over time, inspire others to walk away from a political party that has become dangerous to the nation’s moral health.

In another blue-to-red urban anomaly, Shreveport, Louisiana — a city with an almost 60% majority black population — elected its first Republican mayor in 28 years in 2022. Tom Arceneaux, a white man, won with 56% of the vote in 2022.

Democrat-controlled cities will not evolve until the states they are in change also, but that is already happening.

“…The influx of people from blue states is turning some traditionally Republican states ‘purple,’” a 2023 Newsweek article stated.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the population of Republican states has grown while Democrat states have seen rapid declines. The exodus of residents often cited law and order, the cost of living, high taxes and homelessness as the reason for their move.