There is anarchy in the US.
More and more Americans live every day in a dystopia that would have been completely unimaginable just a few years ago.
From major cities to the border, and even in some suburbs, the rule of law is now all but meaningless, with hard-working families paying the price in blood and money.
The America we grew up in—with bright malls that weren’t attacked by thieves, gas stations where carjacking wasn’t commonplace, and public transportation that didn’t double as homeless shelters—is disappearing.
Last week came the sobering figure that our country now has $100 billion a year in shoplifting.
Hundred billion dollars. The annual budget for the entire state of Maryland is only $65 billion.
And this is money that stores never get back, according to the National Retail Federation. While brazen thugs cram backpacks full of stuff without arguing, the police – cripplingly overworked – probably won’t even show up.
Last week came the sobering figure that our country now has $100 billion a year in shoplifting. (Pictured: A thief stuffs a bag of stolen goods into a Ross Dress for Less store in Colorado).
And this is money that stores never get back, according to the National Retail Federation. While brutal crooks cram backpacks full of goods, the police probably won’t even show up. (Pictured: A thief with stolen goods at a Ross Dress for Less store in Colorado).
Both small and large businesses are crushed, while the huge sums of lost revenue are passed on to consumers in price increases, just as inflation and rising interest rates punish earners.
On Tuesday, a Chicago-based Walgreens store debuted a new “anti-theft” design in which only aisles contain genuine products for consumers to place freely in their baskets. Everything else must be ordered at a counter.
This is just the latest escalation in what has been unfolding across the country for months, with stores from Target to CVS locking items of negligible value behind infantilizing glass shutters.
Like children in kindergarten, we now have to ask our supervisors for permission to look at the toothpastes and deodorants.
While elsewhere stores are shutting down completely – unable to fend off thieves with even the most extreme measures.
On the rare occasions when criminals are apprehended, the George Soros-backed prosecutors simply ignore them, preferring to prosecute trumped-up charges and bogus charges to promote social justice.
Indeed, business is particularly bad in Democratic-led cities.
Chicago, New York, San Francisco. Once great bastions of American prosperity, reduced to fentanyl-addicted, rat-infested hellholes, as their ultraliberal leaders squander money on awakened policies, decriminalize hard drugs, and use their podiums to lecture us about transgender injustice.
On Tuesday, a Chicago-based Walgreens store debuted a new “anti-theft” design in which only aisles contain genuine products for consumers to place freely in their baskets. Everything else must be ordered at a counter.
This is just the latest escalation in what has been unfolding across the country for months, with stores from Target to CVS locking items of negligible value behind infantilizing glass shutters. (Pictured: A Target employee closes items in a New York store).
The $6 million drag queen ad campaign launched this week by San Francisco in a desperate attempt to lure tourists back to the suffering city said it all.
Meanwhile, the pandemic-era “Title 42” deportation policy was mothballed less than a month ago by President Joe Biden, but already more than half the hotel rooms in New York City, a former tourist mecca, are full of migrants who shipped from the United States. border. They cross by the thousands every day.
But at the same time, Biden and his acolytes are celebrating passing a debt ceiling suspension deal that will see the national debt rise to an eye-watering $35 trillion.
Our homes and our financial security are no longer ours. And this government cannot be trusted to lead.
Because at every turn, at every moment, once normal, traditional, pleasant aspects of American life are now being crushed like cigarettes under the Birkenstocks of progressive government.
But are we just meant to shut up and shut up?
Should normal, honest men and women just accept that they are now taking the bill for all this incompetence?
Business magnate James Crown — worth an estimated $10.2 billion — pledged last week to make Chicago “the safest major city in America,” using his own money and that of other generous philanthropists.
Chicago, New York, San Francisco. Once great bastions of American prosperity, reduced to fentanyl-addicted, rat-infested hellholes. (Pictured: Woman injects her arm with a syringe in Union Square, New York).
Our homes and our financial security are no longer ours. And this government cannot be trusted to lead. (Pictured: A homeless person sleeps on a New York subway).
In the year to March 2023, Chicago suffered a 47 percent increase in crime, with assaults and robberies accounting for most of the increase.
But a functional society cannot rely on charity.
People cry out for good governance. And as Republicans gear up for 2024, no matter who the nominee is, this big depressing American decline must being central.
Otherwise we risk losing everything.