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A little over a year ago, I made the decision to become a Republican.
As the mayor of Dallas, Texas, I knew this defection would put a target on my back for Democrat leaders, who tried to mock, ridicule and minimize my rationale. But I knew I was making the right choice because Democrats’ priorities were all wrong.
Looking back, Democrats should have taken my shift as a wake-up call. After all, I left the Democrat Party for the same reasons many people of color have left and will continue to leave: the chaos, financial hardship and cultural rot Democrat policies have spread across our nation.
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President-elect Donald J. Trump understands these concerns, which is why Democrats lost and why he won. So, it didn’t surprise me when Trump was re-elected president with unprecedented support from young, Hispanic and Black voters.
Eric L. Johnson is the 60th mayor of Dallas, Texas, and he has a message for his former political party.
You see, my former colleagues in the Democrat Party just don’t get it. Trump speaks to our hopes and aspirations, not just our fears of liberal mismanagement. Like most Americans, we aspire to wealth, homeownership, quality education and the freedom to live our lives. We want law and order, lower taxes, peace through strength and leaders with resolve. And we’re not anti-immigrant but oppose open borders and illegal immigration that strains our social services and allows a criminal element into our communities.
This is because, more than anything, the citizens of our cities desire to live in safe neighborhoods.
That was what we cared about in the working-class Black – and yes, Democratic – community that raised me. But as a mayor, I began truly questioning my political alignment when Democrats embraced the “defund the police” movement. Dallas Democrat leaders stood silent when liberal protesters came to my home, while my children were inside, and demanded I stop supporting our police department. I stood firm and called for even more investment in public safety with a goal of becoming the safest major city in America. As a result, Dallas is now in its fourth-straight year of violent crime reduction.
This is part of why the election was not an anomaly. Trump made history by breaking the Democrats’ real blue wall: their grip on racial identity politics, which they’d used to maintain power for decades.
But we all saw clearly what the Democrat Party has become these last four years. Under President Joe Biden, borders opened, inflation surged and disorder flourished in Democrat-led cities. Democrat leaders indulged wealthy liberal activists’ excesses at the expense of hard-working families wanting an efficient government that protects but does not burden them.
Americans expressed their frustration with the status quo, not just in rural communities but urban centers, too. Trump made efforts to engage voters in places Republicans of past decades had written off, like the Bronx, the metro-Detroit area and Milwaukee. Unlike Democrats, who took these communities for granted and merely paid lip service to inclusivity, Trump assured these communities they were integral to a stronger America.
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The consequences were clear: a noticeable shift from Democrats towards Trump in traditionally blue areas. Trump improved his performance in places like Chicago and Philadelphia and was the first GOP presidential candidate to win Miami-Dade County since 1988. His support also grew in New York, even in the Democratic stronghold of New York City.
The Trump movement’s impact extended to other contests as well. In California, voters supported propositions to increase penalties for theft and drug crimes. Even in liberal San Francisco, voters rejected chaos and chose a new path.
Like most Americans, we aspire to wealth, home ownership, quality education and the freedom to live our lives. We want law and order, lower taxes, peace through strength and leaders with resolve. And we’re not anti-immigrant but oppose open borders and illegal immigration that strains our social services and allows a criminal element into our communities.
To put it plainly, voters are sick of a Democrat Party that prioritizes pandering over policy, political correctness over political action, and concern with personal identity over individuals’ real needs.
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President Trump’s mission is easy to understand: he wants to Make America Great Again. And he’s a leader who understands that to achieve this goal, we must have great cities. He has shown that he cares about solving problems in urban America, and as president his policies will help lead a revival of our country’s great cities, making them safe and prosperous again.
And through the new administration, working-class individuals will again feel at home in America’s cities – and in the Republican Party. I know I do.