The Strange Death of America

In December 1990, I visited New York City for the first time. We were greeted by severe cold, icy wind and masses of homeless people hiding in every corner of the city. The city was dirty, the crime rate was very high, and a sense of personal insecurity and lawlessness accompanied the visit.

One of the images I remember from that visit is that of a group of boys running out of a large clothing store and stripping themselves of the layers of clothing they had stolen from the store a few minutes earlier on a nearby street, not far from three policemen who stood by indifferently.

Four years later, in early January 1994, Rudy Giuliani took over as mayor of New York, a position he had held for eight years. Under Giuliani's leadership, the city underwent a transformation. Overall crime dropped by 57%, the number of homicides fell by 65%, and the city was recognized by the FBI as the safest major city in the United States.

I have visited the city many times since 1996, mainly on business trips. The city has changed since my first visit. The atmosphere of lawlessness and personal insecurity has been replaced by one of order, cleanliness and a sense of personal security. The number of homeless people decreased drastically, most of the illegal peddlers disappeared, and those who remained acted in secret in constant fear of the police, who became confident and full of mission.

This week I returned to New York after several years of not visiting the city and discovered a grim sight had returned to the city streets. Many homeless people lie on the main streets, some of them under the influence of drugs. The city's main streets are flooded with peddlers, most of them probably illegal immigrants, fearlessly offering their wares under the eyes of the police, who are once again indifferent and impassive in the face of lawlessness.

The streets in the center of Manhattan are surrounded by the stench of cannabis smoke, which can be traded legally. At night, thugs on motorcycles with cut-off exhausts race through the streets, making a deafening noise, and cyclists and electric scooters run red lights in full view of indifferent policemen.

The people of New York are not at all pleased with the changes taking place in their city, similar to what has happened in other major cities in the USA in recent years. The illegal vendors flooding the city streets are hurting the old merchants. For example, a souvenir hat from the city of New York, which costs around 10 dollars in the old souvenir stores, is being sold by the vendors for half the price.

The hardest hit are the weaker sections of the population and the workers whose jobs are taken by illegal immigrants at low wages and without any accompanying circumstances.

When I arrived in Manhattan, I bought a red hat in a souvenir store with the inscription:

Trump 2024 - Take America Back

Wearing this hat, I walked through the streets of the city, and the reactions, all benevolent, were not long in coming:

• It was the security guard at the memorial for the victims of the September 11 terrorist attack who came up to me, shook my hand and was pleased that I was from Israel.
• It was the policeman who winked and said almost in a whisper: I like your hat.
• It was the black man who was waiting for the subway with me and came up to me and said that he likes my hat.
• It was the engineer I met in the sauna. His parents came to the city from Mexico over 60 years ago, and he was born and raised in the city and now worries about the wave of illegal immigrants washing over the city.
• And there were many others who gave a thumbs up or came up to me and showed their support with their fist.

On the other hand, I have not seen any Americans walking around Manhattan wearing a red hat in support of Donald Trump. Apparently, in New York, as in Tel Aviv, it is not customary to publicly express support for someone who is unpopular with progressives.

There is no doubt that America is undergoing a destructive and worrying process reminiscent of the destructive processes that Europe has undergone in recent years and which are described in detail in Douglas Murray's book - The Strange Death of Europe. It is to be hoped that Donald Trump will be elected president in the upcoming elections and that he can do across America what Rudy Giuliani succeeded in doing in New York City 30 years ago.