You’ve heard of Fareed Zakaria, CNN’s globe-trotting, mild-mannered intellectual. But Nicholas Bagley, a former legal counsel to Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, or Robert Gordon, a former Biden administration official? Not so much. That’s probably because they’re busy sounding alarms that most Democrats would rather ignore: the so-called blue-city, blue-state model isn’t working. Not even close. Promises of better schools, safer streets, and affordable housing? Broken. Budgets ballooning while residents flee? Check. Taxes so high you wonder if you’re paying rent to the city before your landlord? Absolutely.
When CNN Turns on Its Own
Something strange happened recently: Fareed Zakaria openly criticized the fiscal chaos of America’s bluest cities. That’s right—on CNN. He pointed to New York City’s $127 billion budget, roughly the size of a small country, and reminded viewers that the city’s population is down since 2020. More money, fewer taxpayers. You do the math: per-person spending is obscene, and results are… mediocre at best.
New York schools are emblematic. Nearly $35,000 spent per student, and test scores lag behind the national average. Graduation numbers are unimpressive. Students in red states are outperforming their New York counterparts on a fraction of the budget. But hey, the city’s leaders can proudly announce every new entitlement and bureaucratic expansion while kids struggle to read at grade level.
And taxes? Let’s just say a wealthy New Yorker is already giving the government more than half their marginal investment income. So much for “progressive prosperity.”
But it’s not just Gotham. Los Angeles is spending almost a billion dollars on homelessness while the number of unhoused residents climbs by 70-80% over the last decade. An audit of $2.4 billion in spending couldn’t even track where the money went—because apparently, oversight is too radical a concept. Chicago? Pension promises so gigantic they could bankrupt the city without anyone batting an eye.
Zakaria’s subtle conclusion? Blue cities spend more, promise more, deliver less, and leave taxpayers holding the bag.
Unions: Democrats’ Golden Handcuffs
Bagley and Gordon add another layer: unions. Teachers, police, transit workers—they have a powerful say in city budgets. And that say usually means higher costs and fewer results. Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker, a billionaire opponent of Donald Trump, recently signed legislation undoing pension reforms for police and firefighters. The bill adds $60 million in new spending next year, climbing to $11 billion over three decades. Even a billionaire can’t outspend a union when politics comes first.
For Democrats, unions are the golden handcuffs: vote with us, or your career ends. And the cities and states? They implode quietly behind the curtain.
Progressive Leaders, Generational Decline
Democrats have changed. Once, calling a major-party candidate “socialist” was political suicide. Now, inexperienced mayors in New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago run cities worth billions with radical policy agendas, and their predecessors look like fiscal geniuses in comparison. Mike Bloomberg, for all his flaws, maintained a functioning city. Today’s crop? Safe streets are optional, schools are experiments, and middle-class housing is apparently a mythical concept.
These mayors and governors inherited functional cities and are trading competence for ideology. Streets are less safe, schools underperform, and taxpayers pay for it all. Meanwhile, small businesses—the lifeblood of urban revenue—flee high-tax cities, eroding the very budgets these progressive leaders claim they’re expanding.
Data Doesn’t Lie
WalletHub’s 2025 city rankings are brutal. Chicago: 136th out of 148. Los Angeles: 139th. Philadelphia: 144th. New York City: 145th. Detroit: 147th. San Francisco? Dead last. Meanwhile, Provo, Utah—run by sensible governance, not woke experiments—tops the list.
This is the undeniable proof: blue cities spend the most, perform the worst. Red states spend less, deliver more. But progressive politicians keep blaming the rich, the corporations, or the weather for their failures, never themselves.
Spending vs. Results
California’s the poster child. High taxes, endless spending, and unaffordability unmatched in America. Yet black children in Mississippi outperform California peers in reading proficiency. Low-income students in Louisiana or Mississippi are often more successful than counterparts in New York, Massachusetts, or California. Meanwhile, red states quietly provide better services at lower costs. The data doesn’t lie—Democrats just don’t like what it says about them.
Centrist Democrats Are Fed Up
Zakaria, Bagley, and Gordon are the centrist Democrats who still care about government functioning. They want safe streets, functional schools, and accountable spending. They are tired of progressive mayors and governors prioritizing ideology over results. Hard-left politicians like Karen Bass in Los Angeles and Brandon Johnson in Chicago are running cities into the ground, banking on opposition to Trump to shield them from voter scrutiny.
But voters notice. And when cities consistently rank at the bottom for service quality, even loyal Democratic constituencies start to rethink.
The Real-World Fallout
This isn’t an academic argument. Rising crime, failing schools, and surging homelessness are everyday realities for residents. Businesses leave, tax bases shrink, and the cycle of overspending and underperformance accelerates. Progressive governance promised utopia. It delivered dysfunction.
The previous generation of Democratic leaders understood the balance between ambition and practicality. More cops, fewer criminals, thriving businesses, and functioning schools were the rule. Progressive successors? Welcome to chaos, courtesy of ideology and union politics.
Conclusion: The Fantasy Ends
Zakaria, Bagley, and Gordon are essentially saying what many Republicans have for years: the blue-city, blue-state model is unsustainable. Sky-high budgets, union dominance, and progressive experiments have created fiscal crises, population declines, and a quality-of-life collapse in some of America’s largest cities.
For Democrats, the choice is simple: govern responsibly and deliver results, or double down on spending and ideology while voters quietly migrate to red states. Meanwhile, Republican-led areas quietly outperform blue cities, proving once again that more government, more taxes, and more promises don’t automatically equal better outcomes.
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