Honestly, most things the left does these days are head scratchers. But there’s a pattern underneath the madness — social justice points are the currency, and the more absurd the position, the bigger the payout. Basic human instincts like, say, not wanting to be robbed? Those are just obstacles to the performance.
Ann Arbor, Mich., which is home to the University of Michigan, just delivered a masterclass in this kind of ideological theater. They took something literally designed to protect people and spent taxpayer money to get rid of it, and then patted themselves on the back because they got to prove how “inclusive” they are. And of course, they posted a congratulatory video about it online.
The question isn’t whether this is ideological. It clearly is. The question is whether anyone in that city hall actually believes a word of it.
Most people across all demographics share a fairly basic desire: they don’t want to be victims of crime. It's not political. It's not complicated. But the left has spent years signaling that public safety measures are really just tools of oppression in disguise.
The city council voted 10-0 in December 2025 to remove all neighborhood watch signs in the city. It took several months to actually execute, but last week the job was finally done — more than 600 blue-and-white metal signs were pulled down across Ann Arbor — at a total cost to taxpayers of $18,000. Not to fight crime. Not to hire a single officer. Not to fund a single community program. To remove signs warning would-be criminals that someone is paying attention.
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Mayor Christopher Taylor, a Democrat, went full moron defending the move in a video the city posted on Facebook. "Frankly, neighborhood watch signs are expressions of exclusion, and they're inconsistent with our values," Taylor said. He added that Ann Arbor doesn't want to push people away — that the city wants to "welcome folks in."
Including criminals, I guess?
Just let that land for a moment. Wanting to keep your neighborhood safe is now an act of exclusion. Putting up a sign that says "we're watching out for each other" is, apparently, a form of hostility. The left has managed to turn civic responsibility into hate speech… or a hate crime… or something.
Why? Because “racism.”
The city council's resolution claimed neighborhood watch programs "were often rooted in assumptions about who did and did not 'belong' in a neighborhood, reinforcing race-based hyper-vigilance and suspicion."
Seriously?
Here's what nobody in that council chamber apparently felt compelled to say: Neighborhood watch programs began in the late 1960s and early 1970s because crime was surging and ordinary people wanted to do something about it. They weren't a government program. They were neighbors looking out for neighbors. The idea that a sign encouraging community vigilance is inherently racist requires a level of motivated reasoning that takes years of college indoctrination to perfect.
This is why I can’t stand the woke left. It’s not just that their policies are bad — it’s that they’ve convinced themselves that dismantling every normal, functional thing decent people do is somehow an act of moral courage. Six hundred signs. $18,000. A unanimous vote. And not one person in that room stood up and said, “Wait — are we seriously doing this?” In Ann Arbor, the social cost of being called a racist is apparently higher than the practical cost of making your city less safe — and that tells you everything you need to know about who these people are actually governing for.
