Flint, Michigan is the poster child of one-party, generational Democratic rule.

Flint, Michigan’s City Council is all Democratic.  A generation of Flint’s mayors have been Democratic.  Rick Snyder’s immediate predecessor as governor was Obama darling Jennifer Granholm – a Democrat.  The federal bureaucratic agencies – including the EPA – are all Democratic.

As others have documented (here and here), Flint’s water problems were baked into that state’s cake long before Rick Snyder (R) was elected governor.

But what lessons can be learned from the Flint debacle?

To paraphrase Winston Churchill – never, never, never cooperate with Democrats or any others who benefit politically from your demise.

It seems that Rick Snyder’s most grievous error was acting in a bipartisan effort to clean up a long-building series of Democratic blunders.  In Snyder’s “reach across the aisle” effort, he assigned the emergency manager position to, wait for it, a Democrat.  Big mistake.

Statism serves the statist.  “Never let a crisis go to waste.”  If in the midst of a crisis, find some stooge to take over, and assign blame.  If a Republican, better yet.  A twofer.

We see leftists around the globe exacerbating crises, whether Flint and their water crisis or Chicago and the “gun” crisis or Europe and its “refugee” crisis.  No matter.  Leftist policies are the root and branch.

What we need to understand – and Flint, Chicago, and Europe expose the game – is that leftists benefit electorally and economically from destruction.  Today, Democrats in Congress are “using the [Republican] crisis” to demand $600 million to fix Flint’s “water problem.”

While I enthusiastically await a Republican victory in 2016 (fingers crossed), I also very clearly see the assignment of blame for continued/accelerated crisis.  As with the transition from Clinton to Bush II, reporting of the unemployment rate overnight will go from 5% to a more accurate 20%.  Obamacare will implode sometime in 2017/2018.  The Fed will determine that their near-zero interest rate exercise has run its course, with undetermined outcome.  Terrorist attacks will increase and be blamed on a tightening immigration policy.  The increased crime rate being seen in predominantly liberal cities (NYC, Detroit, Baltimore, Chicago) will be cast as a national (read: Republican) crisis.  Race relations in America will have a new (white) face to blame.

There will be calls for bipartisan solutions.  Paul Ryan, et al. will ring in a new era of “working across the aisle.”  As with Flint, this will result in opportunities for leftists.  Don’t think that they won’t let “every/any new crisis go to waste.”  In an environment where one party benefits from the expanding benevolence of the state, look for Democrats to seize (and manufacture) more crises.   

Will we (Republicans) learn Flint’s lesson?  Sadly, it’s doubtful.