And lest anyone think I believe only one side has this tendency:

Many liberals love to create false narratives about Christians and then use those narratives to justify villainizing religious people and pushing them to the fringes of society. But that’s another thread for another day.

No this is really about narrative, and about sticking to a (racist, dishonest, dangerous) plot line that best serves one political faction’s ongoing quest for insurmountable power. It’s as old as the Republic. As long as the lie persists, so will its implications.

It’s really not about the money or what makes the most financial sense. If it was, we’d take money from car infrastructure and move it to transit, which data shows gets a higher return on investment anyway.

Here’s an example of the hypocrisy: they say SEPTA should prove its seriousness by cracking down on fare evasion. But SEPTA already has implemented proven methods to do this. Now the funding to expand those methods is being cut by the very people demanding them.

Locally, we see this in how Pennsylvania Republicans have used perceived waste and mismanagement as an excuse to decimate public transportation in Philadelphia and state-wide, even in the face of clear evidence that SEPTA is an industry leader for financial efficiency.

Conservatives routinely use poor governance as an argument against their political opponents from urban areas, even when all data contradicts their narrative of “things getting worse and worse”

Today, the ideological heritage of that myth is being played out in real time. Our president is insisting on using military force to address imagined emergencies in Black-lead communities.

This false narrative is older than the modern Republican Party and has its roots in evil pro-slavery ideology. Back then, people saw enslavement as the natural position of Black people, who they deemed intellectually and morally inferior.

Republicans have a long and abiding habit of wanting to depict “the other” - Black people, urban people, Democrats - as lacking the fundamental competencies required for self governance.

[as you know] You just provided a big reason why. It’s not at all about actual crime or safety. It’s about (1) pushing a narrative that Democrats (as a proxy for Black people) lack the competence to govern and (2) the ongoing pursuit of authoritarian power.

It’s White Nationalism.

In other words, pulling the rug from under the CBD of the second largest city on the East Coast.

We are nothing if not wholly unserious.

Philadelphia has the potential to be one of the world’s urban gems. Yet we’ve spent generations forfeiting that potential. And this week has proved just how unserious we are and how willing we are to let years of stigma and ignorance condition us to sabotage ourselves. Just sad.

SEPTA has been putting in work to cut costs and increase revenue. But now that work is going to be stopped and reversed.

SEPTA isn’t a business. It doesn’t exist to make a profit, it exists to provide a service. That’s why its expenses exceed its revenue (just like car infrastructure, which can’t pay for itself either, but has a lower economic ROI than public transportation).

Here’s the truth: there’s simply not enough room for Philadelphia to be a thriving, growing city AND be more car dependent. We have >1.5M people, <700K registered vehicles, and already OVER 2M parking spaces! To accommodate more cars, we’ll need to start knocking down houses!

4. But people are ok with that because people have this misguided desire to treat Philadelphia like a sunbelt “city” that’s more like a giant suburb than a dense urban core. Y’all love the Eagles and Cheesesteaks but you hate the actual CITY of Philadelphia.

3. Too many people don’t even care. For a lot many, it’s a “that’s why I don’t take SEPTA” situation. Which is disgustingly self-centered. But also, these cuts are going to do harm to our local economy & drastically increase traffic (& likely parking demand) w/ potentially 200K more cars on the road

2. A lot of people locally think SEPTA is just doing this a a greedy ploy for more money. They don’t know about the structural defect, the COVID money that ran out, the lack of dedicated funding, or that SEPTA is crazy efficient, doing more with less than agencies in other big cities.

1. Cruel Apathy. Republicans control the PA Senate & they claim SEPTA needs to be more “responsible“ & “accountable“ - it’s an excuse for sabotaging the entire state’s economy out of anti-urban spite. Ironically, the only funding they passed is the most irresponsible, unaccountable scheme imaginable