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MY THOTS - Los Angeles stands today as a galactic-sized monument to the apocalyptic failure of progressive governance. A once-great American City transformed into a dystopian nightmare where law-abiding citizens have become prisoners in their homes, afraid to go out. Under the disastrous leadership of Mayor Karen Bass, her predecessor Eric Garcetti, the City Council, and the radical Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, the City has prioritized illegal immigrants, the mentally ill, and drug addicts over hard working Angelenos, squandered billions in taxpayer dollars, and created conditions so deplorable that middle-class families are fleeing in unprecedented numbers.
This is not merely a story of policy disagreements or partisan politics. This is the systematic destruction of an American City by ideologues who have abandoned their fundamental duty to serve the people who elected them. Instead, they have created a two-tier system where the people who didn't earn it, like illegal border crossers and shelterless addicts, receive red-carpet (in some cases, apartments worth $800,000) treatment and are seemingly above the law. Meanwhile, hardworking Angelenos struggle with skyrocketing taxes, crumbling infrastructure, unaffordable slums, rampant crime, and a complete breakdown of basic municipal services.
The most indicting aspect of Los Angeles leadership is their clear focus on illegal immigrants over American citizens. Mayor Bass has made it obvious where her loyalties lie—not with the voters who elected her, but with foreign nationals who broke American law to enter the country. When federal immigration enforcement carried out workplace raids this summer, Bass criticized these legal efforts as "destabilizing" to the economy, arguing that removing illegal workers would hurt businesses that rely on their cheap labor.
Think about the breathtaking audacity of that statement. The mayor of an American City publicly declared that law enforcement efforts to remove illegal immigrants would "destabilize" the economy—essentially admitting that her City's economic model depends on the exploitation of illegal labor while American workers are priced out of jobs or forced to accept below-market wages.
The riots over Immigration and Customs Enforcement actions against illegal immigrants could have been easily prevented, saving tens of millions of dollars in property damage and allowing Customs and Border Patrol to focus on the illegals that were already in custody, who were booked for criminal offenses. These individuals, who have already been booked for robbery, drug trafficking, sexual assaults, and other crimes, are clearly people who negatively impact our community’s safety. Why would a mayor or City Councilmember want these people back on our streets? This question defies common sense, and the only answer is a deliberate desire to undermine law and order and traditional American values and replace them with a social system that elevates criminals while punishing honest, hardworking taxpayers.
This sanctuary City policy isn't just morally bankrupt—it's economically devastating for American citizens. Studies estimate that sanctuary policies cost taxpayers approximately $150 billion nationally, resources that could address the very problems plaguing law-abiding residents. The Migration Policy Institute (2019): Estimated 951,000 undocumented immigrants in LA County consume City services, occupy affordable housing, and strain public resources while American citizens wait in line for assistance or go without.
A report by FAIR estimates that illegal immigration costs California taxpayers nearly $31 billion annually. This includes expenses related to education, healthcare, and social services. Other estimates from FAIR suggest the total cost of illegal immigration in California is around $25.3 billion. On average, individual households in California pay about $2,370 each year due to the costs linked to illegal immigration.
The Board of Supervisors has doubled down on this betrayal, directing county resources toward legal defense funds for illegal immigrants while American citizens struggle with homelessness, unemployment, and lack of access to basic services. They've created a parallel social services system that explicitly favors non-citizens, turning American citizenship into a liability rather than a privilege in the City of Los Angeles.
Los Angeles County's 75,000-plus (these numbers cannot be trusted, as there is a strong incentive by NGO and politicians to pretend things are better than they are.) homeless population represents more than a policy failure—it's evidence of a deliberate scam designed to enrich a massive bureaucratic apparatus. In contrast, conditions for both homeless individuals and housed residents deteriorate. The so-called "Homeless Industrial Complex" has become a money-laundering operation that funnels taxpayer dollars to politically connected nonprofits, consultants, and administrators while solving nothing.
Mayor Bass's "Inside Safe" program epitomizes this fraud. Spending $433,000 per person to house just over 1,000 individuals permanently is not incompetence—it's theft. A middle-class family could purchase a decent home for less than the City spends per homeless individual. Yet, encampments continue to metastasize across neighborhoods, destroying property values and making entire areas uninhabitable for working families.
The $513 million in unspent homelessness funds sitting in City accounts while people sleep on sidewalks reveals the true purpose of these programs. They exist not to solve homelessness but to create permanent employment for college graduates with worthless degrees, progressive activists, and social service bureaucrats who have built careers on perpetuating the crisis they claim to address.
Meanwhile, law-abiding citizens who built equity in their homes watch their property values plummet as encampments establish themselves in nearby parks, under freeway overpasses, and even in residential neighborhoods. Parents can't take their children to playgrounds contaminated with human waste and drug paraphernalia. Senior citizens become prisoners in their own homes, afraid to walk to the grocery store past aggressive panhandlers and mentally ill individuals whom the City refuses to institutionalize.
Los Angeles has effectively decriminalized theft, assault, and drug dealing, hard drug use, creating a lawless environment where criminals operate with impunity while victims are ignored. The combination of progressive prosecutor George Gascón's catch-and-release policies, the LAPD's 2,000-officer shortage, and City leadership's hostility toward law enforcement has transformed entire neighborhoods into no-go zones for decent people.
The underreporting crisis makes the situation far worse than official statistics suggest. When 54% of violent crimes and 66% of property crimes go unreported nationwide—and likely higher percentages in Los Angeles due to immigration fears and police non-response—the accurate crime picture is apocalyptic. Store owners stop reporting thefts because they know nothing will happen. Assault victims don't bother calling police, who might take hours to arrive, if they come at all.
The LAPD's staffing crisis isn't accidental—it's the predictable result of years of political attacks on law enforcement, budget cuts disguised as "reforms," and policies that make it impossible for officers to do their jobs effectively. Why would qualified candidates want to work for a department that's been demonized by the very politicians who are supposed to support them?
Meanwhile, response times of 8-10 minutes for priority calls mean that armed robberies, assaults, and break-ins are essentially consequence-free for criminals who know police won't arrive in time to stop them. The City has created a perfect environment of criminal opportunity: minimal police presence, progressive prosecutors who won't file charges, and a political establishment that treats criminals as victims of social injustice rather than threats to public safety.
This isn't accidental—it's the logical outcome of an ideological framework that views property crime and theft not as violations of law and order, but as understandable responses to systemic inequality.
The progressive establishment has adopted a worldview where traditional notions of personal responsibility and property rights are subordinated to collectivist ideals of redistributive justice. When District Attorney George Gascón refuses to prosecute retail theft under $950, he's not just implementing criminal justice reform—he's endorsing a system where private property becomes communal property, redistributed by force from business owners to whoever decides to take it.
When businesses that install security measures or prosecute shoplifters are criticized as racist or classist, while criminals who destroy livelihoods and terrorize communities are treated with sympathy and understanding. The system has been deliberately inverted: law-abiding citizens become the villains for wanting to protect what they've earned, while lawbreakers become heroes fighting against an unjust system.
Los Angeles operates like a third-world kleptocracy, extracting maximum revenue from residents while offering minimal services in return. The City imposes some of the highest sales taxes in the country—approaching 10% in many areas—while property taxes burden homeowners with obligations that increase each year regardless of their ability to pay or the quality of services received.
The City's official debt of over $1 billion represents only the tip of the fiscal iceberg. Pension obligations present a $15 billion unfunded liability that will eventually bankrupt the City, forcing either massive tax increases or devastating service cuts. Current workers and retirees have been promised benefits that simply cannot be funded by the existing tax base, creating a mathematical impossibility that politicians refuse to acknowledge.
This fiscal irresponsibility amounts to generational theft. Today's politicians are spending money the City doesn't have to fund programs that don't work, leaving future residents to pay the bill through higher taxes, reduced services, or municipal bankruptcy. Meanwhile, middle-class families who built their lives in Los Angeles cannot afford the taxes and fees imposed by leaders who seem determined to drive productive citizens away.
Drive through Los Angeles today and witness the physical manifestation of progressive governance: pothole-riddled streets that destroy vehicle suspensions, broken sidewalks that create hazards for pedestrians, failing water systems that left firefighters without adequate pressure during the 2025 wildfires, and public transportation that serves primarily as mobile homeless shelters rather than functional transit.
The 2025 wildfire response catastrophe perfectly encapsulates the infrastructure crisis. Empty reservoirs that should have provided emergency water supplies, stolen fire hydrants that weren't secured or replaced, and a fire department budget cut by $20 million just months before fire season aren't accidents or unforeseeable circumstances. They're the predictable consequences of leaders prioritizing virtue signaling over basic municipal responsibilities.
The Los Angeles government has been taken over by radical progressive activists who see municipal power as a way to push their political goals instead of serving residents' needs. The influence of groups like the Democratic Socialists of America in City elections has moved policy discussions so far to the left that basic government functions—public safety, infrastructure upkeep, fiscal responsibility—are seen as optional or even as enemies of the people.
This ideological dominance shows in policy choices that aim to punish success and encourage failure. Successful businesses face more regulations and higher taxes, while illegal street vendors operate without permits or oversight and without costly regulation. Homeowners see their property values decline because of homeless encampments, and squatters receive legal protections that make removing them nearly impossible. Landlords cannot collect rent and cannot evict people from their apartments, even when they can afford to pay and are months behind on the rent.
The City's approach to every problem follows the same progressive playbook: blame systemic racism or inequality, demand more taxpayer funding for social programs, expand bureaucracy, and ignore actual results. When programs fail—as they inevitably do—the solution is always more of the same: more money, more programs, more bureaucrats, and more excuses for why previous efforts didn't work.
The ultimate verdict on Los Angeles’ leadership comes from residents themselves, who are leaving the city in record numbers. Middle-class families, young professionals, and retirees who built their lives in Los Angeles are abandoning the city rather than continuing to subsidize their own oppression through ever-increasing taxes for ever-declining services.
Los Angeles voters have a choice. They can continue enabling the destruction of their city by reelecting the same failed leadership, or they can demand something better. The future of America's second-largest city—and perhaps the country itself—hangs in the balance.
(Eliot Cohen has been on the Neighborhood Council, served on the Van Nuys Airport Citizens Advisory Council, is on the Board of Homeowners of Encino, and was the president of HOME for over seven years. Eliot retired after a 35-year career on Wall Street. Eliot is a critic of the stinking thinking of the bureaucrats and politicians that run the County, the State, and the City. Eliot and his wife divide their time between L.A. and Baja Norte, Mexico.)
