Los Angeles is literally burning down before our eyes, but the metaphorical fire started long ago as politicians and bureaucrats proved that their commitment to their employees and their citizens was dwarfed by their commitment to pillaging the city budget, enacting their social engineering dreams, and spending their days virtue signaling. 

🚨.@shellenberger reports that LA firefighters have been demoralized by their disastrous leadership:

“The firefighters themselves have been demoralized with what’s going on. They know how to do their job, and they haven't been allowed to do it. They should have been mobilized as… pic.twitter.com/aZz2w6Vvz8

— Western Lensman (@WesternLensman) January 15, 2025

Every day, we learn more and more, and it's by now clear that it was not simply incompetence that led to this Biblical-style disaster, but indifference. 

A fire union chief in Los Angeles breaks down in tears on @CNN as the staffing shortfalls, he had been warning about for years, is mentioned.

We all know about the budget cuts by @MayorOfLA Karen bASS & @GavinNewsom. Budget cuts to essential services in order for Newsom and the… pic.twitter.com/pIG3YAMnWO

— C-Reason🇺🇸 (@CreasonJana) January 16, 2025

Democrats, who always seem to want to FUND things, have been consistent about DEfunding basic public services and using the harvested resources for leftist projects such as DEI, pouring money into "nonprofits" staffed by Democratic hacks and political activists, social experiments, reducing mobility for citizenship, and every kind of crazy leftist project you can imagine. 

In 2020, we got "Defund the Police," and the result was predictable: more crime, demoralized first responders, and a fraying social fabric. 

Now we learn that the equivalent has been happening with the Fire Department in Los Angeles. Police and firefighters, being blue-collar workers, are uninteresting in liberal circles. They do dirty jobs that don't advance social causes interesting to social justice warriors except when they interfere with their pet projects. 

Policemen have to deal with the problems caused by homeless people, and activists see that as harassment and reducing their autonomy. Firemen put out the fires lit by homeless people cooking on open flames outdoors, which is embarrassing. Both, as first responders, are very much The Man. 

The result is obvious--the policies of the left disempower and demoralize the defenders of civilization--the people who do the unglamorous work of keeping the lights on, the city safe, and all the basic functions that lefties find uninteresting. The people who make a place livable are seen as resource drains by the left, who have Drag Queen Story Hours and DEI training to fund. 

We've seen the same thing throughout our society. Look at what Obama and Biden did to our military, and for that matter, how repelled the Democrats are by Pete Hegseth talking about warfighting and lethality. 

In their eyes, the military is a social experimentation playground, not a tool to impose America's will when necessary. It is also a great way to spread the money around to favored groups and corporations. What it is NOT about is deterrence, or killing people and breaking things when necessary. 

It's all of a piece: the people who do the necessary and often dirty work are ignored and dismissed by people who think they are above it all. They think that if they take care of the "big" things, the little things like public safety will take care of themselves. 

The opposite is true, which is why progressives destroy everything they touch.