Tough Love for Blue Cities?

What should become of New York, Los Angeles, and Seattle when their socialist experiments blow up?

Frank Ryan | September 20, 2026

Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s calling out a property owner in New York City, Attorney General James of New York attacking President Trump in a decision that was overturned in 2025, Elon Musk’s Delaware pay package ruling subsequently overruled by shareholders — all have something in common: Attack capital, and do not be shocked by the flight of capital from your communities or states.

New York City, Seattle, and Los Angeles are just a few of the cities experimenting with the Democratic Socialists of America agenda, a modified form of communism.  The consequences of their actions have not yet begun to be felt, but the outcomes will be catastrophic. 

These trends will lead our nation to a decision point: bailout or no bailout.  The decision will have to be made, and the timing will be the next major recession.

In the past, our nation has taken a “bailout” approach almost always, preventing the needed lessons from being learned.  Instead, others have been called upon to pay the price.  No lessons learned, and the behavior gets replicated, as we as see playing out today.

Years ago, while serving in the Marine Corps, I spent considerable time in Haiti.  It taught me an economic lesson I have never forgotten.  Following the 1991 military coup, the United States and international community imposed economic sanctions on Haiti.  Those actions may have been justified, but justified decisions still have consequences.

I watched businesses leave.  The economic statistics eventually documented the devastation.  Between 1991 and 1994, Haiti’s real GDP declined by roughly 30 percent.  Investment collapsed from approximately 11 percent of GDP to about 2 percent.  Export-oriented assembly industries, which had been enormously important to the country’s exports, virtually ceased........

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