When Chinese Communist Party’s general secretary, Xi Jinping, recently visited San Francisco, Democrats and the Biden administration orchestrated a great charade. The many homeless people who normally live in the city’s most famous districts were rounded up and hidden.
The garbage, needles, and human feces that usually litter the streets were swept up. The remnants of pervasive vandalism were scrubbed and polished. Police were on patrol, and life in the Golden City seemed normal — even idyllic. The great fraud lasted just long enough for Mr. Xi’s visit.
This farce should be the surrender to reality that finally gets Americans to take seriously the collapse of our big cities. As Governor Newsom and the Biden administration know, their little trick has been played before — in 1787, when a Russian prince, Grigory Potemkin, sought to impress Empress Catherine the Great.
To show how much progress had been made during the Empress’ journey to Crimea, he created entirely false façade villages, and brought in hundreds of peasants to pretend to be busy, prosperous citizens. These so-called Potemkin villages looked good, but they were all fake.
The villages were masking the failure and decay of the southern Russian Empire. In effect Mr. Newsom and the Biden administration created a “Biden village” so the Chinese dictator would not be able to see that San Francisco is a failing city.
The clumsy con in San Francisco should create serious national pressure for Democrats — and put a spotlight on the abject failure of left-wing policies in our great cities. The Golden City is failing so badly it must be hidden — and San Francisco is not alone. On Thanksgiving Day, Washington had its 900th carjacking this year.
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