The Decline and Fall of Manhattan

The incomparable Walter Russell Mead explains the corruption and failure of the Democrats' "Blue" social governing model.

Exhibit A, unionized New York cops razzing prosecutors for trying corrupt police officers in a ticket fixing scandal.

The police rally against law enforcement was one of those rare moments that illuminate the life of a great city in crisis. Between the good government, pro-minority Times reporters, the angry crowd of police rallying to protect their privileges and perks against the background of a city facing financial cutbacks, and the crowd of poor benefit seekers waiting in the street, resentful of the privileged police, we see can see the political and social crisis of New York in a single space.

The good government upper middle class, the entrenched groups with a solid stake in the status quo and the marginalized working or non-working poor with no prospects for advancement apart from the patronage of the state: this is the mass base of the blue electoral coalition — and the groups in the coalition don’t seem to like each other very much.

It's long, but brilliant in explaining what's what, as usual.