New York Times columnist Ezra Klein says he was not surprised one bit by the rightward shift in major cities and blasted people blaming Fox News for Donald Trump’s historic landslide win.
Speaking on the “Pod Save America” podcast, Klein argued all one had to do was talk to Americans to see what direction the country was heading.
“The thing that surprised me least about the election was the sharp red shift in these big cities,” he said, Mediaite reports. “Because if you just talk to anybody who lives in them, they’re furious. And this idea that like, ‘Oh no, the economy is actually good or crime is actually down.’ This is all just Fox News. Like, shut the f*** up with that! Like, talk to some people who live near you.”
Klein, who’s from Los Angeles, lived in San Francisco until 18 months ago, and now resides in New York City, said he hears “rage” from people in the Big Apple.
“[T]his is partially [Texas Governor] Greg Abbott busing huge amounts of migrants here,” he continued. “But that does mean, by the way, there are enough migrants that Greg Abbott could bus actual human bodies to New York City. And it was a big enough problem that New York City was not able to effectively deal with it. Right? It does show that what was going on on the border was much worse. I think the Democrats were letting themselves accept for all the cruelty of what Abbott did there. That was not like an ad campaign. Those were like actual people who would come into the country who were overwhelming border states. The sense of disorder rising, right? Not just crime, but homeless encampments, trash on the streets, people jumping turnstiles in subways, crazy people on the streets. You just talk to people and they’re mad about it. They feel it’s different than it used to be. I mean, in San Francisco, like, the fury is overwhelming.”
Klein pointed to how voters channeled their anger at all electoral levels.
“London Breed, the SF mayor, just lost reelection. In Oakland, they recalled the mayor. A bunch of the progressive DAs across the country were recalled or beaten in reelection,” he said, adding that NYC Mayor Eric Adams would have likely lost if he were on the ballot.
The progressive commentator said people vote by their experiences, not by what experts are saying.
“People don’t follow politics, but they live in the place they live,” he said. “They see if prices have gone way up. And a bunch of economists telling them ‘No, no, no, don’t worry about the price of everything, at least for some people, and maybe net-net a slight majority of people, real wages have modestly outpaced inflation’ is like not going to do it because people feel when they get a raise, that’s them. And when prices are going up, that’s you, the government."
This is a remarkable clip. Ezra Klein effectively admits what we’ve been saying for years: Democrats have utterly failed to govern major cities well, and it should be no surprise that the country moved right. pic.twitter.com/CqX10infRv
— Will Chamberlain (@willchamberlain) November 14, 2024