Democrats exacerbated these problems not by embracing the policies of the left. Rather, they dug the hole deeper by yawing to the right. Aggressive policing, tougher drug sentencing, slashing the budgets of school and public housing and parks—throughout Baltimore’s history, lawmakers at the local, state, and federal level adopted policies that entrenched poverty and segregation in the city.

As the Washington Post notes, research from the Virginia Commonwealth University’s Center on Society and Health shows that the segregated black neighborhoods of the 1930s “still have lower rates of homeownership and college attainment and higher rates of poverty and segregation today—as well as worse health outcomes.” Another fact from the Post: “From 1951 to 1971, 80 to 90 percent of the 25,000 families displaced in Baltimore to build new highways, schools and housing projects were black.” Only a decade ago, banks marketed subprime mortgages to poor black homebuyers, leading to a wave of foreclosures. 

The tough-on-crime approach WSJ suggests only made things worse. During Martin O’Malley’s mayorship, arrests spiked as police swept up people for offenses as minor as loitering by targeting low-income neighborhoods with O’Malley’s database, CitiState. Today, neighborhoods like Sandtown-Winchester in West Baltimore, which is 97 percent black and where half the households earn less than $25,000 a year, are still reeling from these policies.