Donald Trump’s reviled takeover of the DC police and his earlier deployment of the National Guard to Los Angeles serve as a direct challenge to the power of America’s big cities. To the Democrats who run these cities, this all seems part of an authoritarian plot. But it also may be one of Trump’s traps.

Although clearly violating America’s long-standing federalist principles, Trump’s incursions are being justified by the incompetence of most blue-city leaders. There is evident disorder in major cities, particularly those controlled by the Democrats’ progressive wing: quasi-socialist mayors in Chicago and Los Angeles may soon be joined by comrades elsewhere in the country. The explicitly socialist Zohran Mamdani is the Democratic candidate for New York mayor, while Omar Fateh and Katie Wilson could also win in Minneapolis and Seattle. All three elections take place on 4 November.

Big-city mayors see Trump’s antics as a get-out-of-jail-free card for their failures. But this won’t work. Americans know that these cities have severe problems which are driving people out. The demographer Wendell Cox notes that Americans are increasingly moving to suburban areas, despite consistent attempts from planners to encourage urbanisation. Even with a surge of illegal immigration, Chicago’s population has shrunk to its lowest level since 1920. Meanwhile, the California Department of Finance predicts a reduction of more than a million people in LA County by 2060.

Clearly, we are a long way from dense urbanity dominating the future, as the media and academics have repeatedly predicted. “Mayors should rule the world,” suggested political theorist Benjamin Barber in 2013. No one in their right mind would suggest this now. However, cities could make a decent comeback — if governed correctly.

Attempts to distract from DC’s horrendous public safety record reveal how clueless most progressives can be. To deflect Trump, Democrats need to show an ability to address urban problems. There are some promising new approaches in places such as Houston and San Francisco, where voters have embraced moderate, pro-business candidates. With their ties to sectors including energy or tech, these politicians could prove the ideal model for Democrats as they look to return to power.

Sadly, most of America’s big cities seem determined to prove Trump correct. Chicago’s Brandon Johnson epitomises progressive failure, having managed to turn “the city that works” into a dystopian failure with high crime rates, a severe budget deficit, exiting companies, and failing schools. Johnson’s ally, Illinois Governor JB Pritzker, wants to be president, but he will have to carry Chicago’s decline with him.

California’s Gavin Newsom, himself a former mayor, may be able to point to San Francisco’s incipient recovery with pride, but his association with LA Mayor Karen Bass may prove less than convenient. Los Angeles is evidently on a downward trajectory. Had it grown at the national average since 2020, the city would have 300,000 more jobs, according to a 2024 analysis by the Drucker Institute’s Michael Kelly.

Bass and Johnson are embarrassing foils for Trump. Worse still, the President’s tactics seem to be empowering them. The LA situation breathed new life into Bass, who is now expected to cruise to another term next year. She has even blamed Trump for the city’s poor economy, despite the fact that its decline has been obvious for at least a decade.

But LA’s failures will pale in comparison to those about to occur in New York. Bass, at least, is less ideological and has tried to make peace with LA’s weak business establishment. But Mamdani is something else: younger, more ideological, more assertive. His attempt to socialise the world capital of capitalism seems likely to produce the same results as Bass and Johnson, or worse. The track record of progressive mayors does not paint a pretty picture. But for Trump, they are a perfect — if unintended — advertisement.

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Joel Kotkin is a Presidential Fellow in Urban Futures at Chapman University and a Senior Research Fellow at the Civitas Institute, the University of Texas at Austin.

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