> Cities with a majority progressive government, when taken as a whole, have significantly more crime than non-progressive.

The article you link to does not argue or support this position, at all. Was this the wrong link?

I'll pull out what I've gotten from it. It's called "The Liberals Who Won’t Acknowledge the Crime Problem", and the author tries to argue that various liberals (which he conflates with progressives) are ignoring a crime problem. The author starts out by framing the piece against various crimes that occurred in various cities. And then says this:

  Anecdata, of course, are not the same as data. And in cities such as Philadelphia and San Francisco, progressive district attorneys have insisted that their critics have gotten the facts wrong. As The New York Times recently reported, the now-recalled San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin routinely “confront[ed] voters with data that shows overall crime has not increased meaningfully while he has been in office.” Larry Krasner, Philadelphia’s cantankerous district attorney, has developed a habit of browbeating critics in town-hall meetings with appeals to “the science.” His in-house criminologist, Krasner has insisted, can give people the real numbers if they really want them. Ordinary residents are being told that what they perceive to be true is not, in fact, true.

  The problem here is that humans understand and interact with the world based on perception and feeling. Politics is about policy, but it is also about human nature—which, however one wishes to characterize it, is a constant to contend with. You can try to transcend human nature by appealing to people’s better angels or through education and enlightenment—but only up to a point.

Okay, so there we have it. What does the word "acknowledge" mean in the title? It means they're not giving into the right wing narrative and instead are sticking by data, facts, and statistics. The author actually writes in so many words "feelings are more important than facts".

Of course the author tries to claim that the stats can be cherry picked, but they just step in it. They cite a NY Times article which tells:

  There is no compelling evidence that Mr. Boudin’s policies have made crime significantly worse in San Francisco. Overall crime in San Francisco has changed little since Mr. Boudin took office in early 2020.

And the author quibbles that a YOY increase of burglaries from 7,217 to 7,575 qualifies as a crime wave. In trying to prove their point, the author got this extra information from the NYT which further serves to diminish their point, but they had to print it anyway as a professional matter:

  “the pandemic and other broad societal factors seem to have influenced the patterns of property crime, rather than any causal link to policies within the purview of a district attorney.”

The author doesn't even attempt to rebut that. Yet, they don't skip a beat before continuing to call out liberals. The author tries to call liberals out for "motivated reasoning", but that seems actually to be what the author is doing: trying to find anything to support their position, facts and statistics be damned.

Crime that used to happen to tourists and commuters (who don't vote) happened to residents' homes instead. That's why Boudin was recalled. When crime victims talked about what was happening in their neighborhoods, he was extremely tone-deaf and tried to shove citywide statistics in their faces. It didn't work.

Have things gotten better since the new DA with a different tone started? Because judging by these comments here, it doesn't seem like the tone matters one way or the other.

They have gotten better in the sense that there is less crime happening to people's homes, yes.

So that's a no then.

I would argue it's an improvement. It's very violating to have your place be broken into. People should be safe at home.

But yes, it does mean businesses and tourists face the brunt of crime again (as they did earlier), and they no longer have enough revenue to be able to eat the losses.

I am a democrat for over 15 years and I think we need to have some self reflection. It's time to look inwards and not throw rocks at people who criticize us. Our party has fallen. Classical liberalism has been abandoned. Our policies have real effects, to the point where people are fleeing to better places.

The first step is to acknowledge the failures. And then rise up with greater understanding.

We can't get past the first step.

It's one thing to acknowledge failures and try to build based on what has failed in the past. But, on the other hand, a lot of people want us to return to policies that definitely didn't work. Stop and frisk, mass incarceration, drug wars, crackdowns, profiling, turning the police into a paramilitary force... these are not policies that have solved anything in the past, but they are all on the table right now.

As soon as the problem is framed in right-wing terms, then the "solutions" above get proposed. Crime problem? Arrest people. Still a crime problem? Arrest more people. Not enough room to hold all the people in prison? Build more prisons. Still a crime problem? Arrest more people. This is the reason USA has the highest per capita prison population in the world (I think it might be #2 now after China because we let some people out).

We don't want those solutions, so we refuse to frame the debate in right-wing terms.

So your proposal is to accept status-quo? Sounds defeated and pessimistic. Perhaps our understanding of those solutions is off because it seems to be working elsewhere. What I've seen is wherever progressive policies land, it tends to ruin cities. It is now undeniable and part of mainstream culture: "Don't bring your politics with you".

I won't be voting for democrats again. It's not the party that I stood for once.

Nope, my proposal is to move forward with new ideas. I heard lots of new ideas from lots of different people. Let's try those.

That's a much better attitude. Check out new hampshire, one of the lowest homicide rates in the states while having the most relaxed gun laws in the states. Essentially, you can buy a gun in 15 mins. No questions asked. Libertarian ideas are gaining steam: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_State_Project

Most progressive ideas are flat out wrong but drummed incessantly through woke Academic madressas we call Universities. It's producing people at an alarming rate, almost 90% progressives right off the bat. Brainwashed.