Common sense is not partisan, nor political. It’s not racial. It matters not to common sense how much money you have, nor your gender, creed, or family name. It pays no attention to how many diplomas are framed up on your wall, nor which side of the tracks you grew up on. Common sense knows better because it’s been there, and done that.

So when State Representative (and former Shreveport Mayor) Cedric Glover recently wrote an op-ed in The Shreveport Times (May 27, 2018) that Shreveport has no “crime fighting vision or strategy,” but that violent crime today isn’t nearly as bad when Shreveport had Republican mayors back in the 1990’s, he sorely missed an opportunity to unite our community behind common sense solutions that have worked before, and make crime our enemy, and not one another. After all, as a former Mayor, he’s been there, done that.

Instead, he took a political jab, which only divides us further, when we actually have so much more in common.

You see, the truth about the 1990’s is that there were more crimes during this time, across the country, than in any other time in our country’s history, according to the FBI. Any crime wave in Shreveport, back then, was simply a reflection of what the rest of the country was experiencing, and not particular to Shreveport, by any means. And to suggest blaming Republican mayors in Shreveport, during a time of historically high crime rates across our country, is simply disingenuous and misleading.

Yes, it is true that most of our country’s most troubled, dysfunctional cities have been electing Democrat mayors for decades. But does any of that really matter to the victims? I mean, when you don’t feel safe in your neighborhood, no one gives two-whits about the political party of the mayor, or the police chief, just like you don’t care much if the doctor in the O.R. is conservative or liberal, while you are being wheeled into surgery.

What you really care about, in that moment, is whether the doctor is competent, or not. Is he or she qualified? Have they done this before, and if so, how many times? And, most importantly, what were their results? These are the same questions we should be asking of our elected officials.

Is it coincidental that Detroit has not elected a Republican mayor since 1957, and today 40% of its population lives below the poverty line, or that it’s considered by most to be the most dangerous city in America?

Is it worth discussing that, since 1927, Chicago has elected only Democrat mayors, and that today the violence in the inner-city today is unimaginable and the city is insolvent? Or that New Orleans has elected Democrat mayors since 1868 and is annually considered one of the most dangerous and corrupt cities in the country?

Or that New Orleans has a higher murder rate than Chicago, Orlando and Cleveland, and has the highest homicide rate in the South?

But since Representative Glover brought it up, are we supposed to ignore the pattern that has emerged of cities with Democrat leadership? Like in St. Louis (which has been electing Democrat mayors since 1949) or Philadelphia (which hasn’t elected a Republican mayor since 1952) or Baltimore and Oakland (whose mayors have been Democrat since the 1960s)? These cities all share common qualities: They are beaten down, broke, and rife with crime.

Even uber-liberal filmmaker and Michigan-native Michael Moore can’t ignore the destructive cycle of it all, tweeting that “Flint has voted for Dems for 84 straight yrs” and then asked, “What did it get us?”

That’s why, regardless of what side of the “aisle” you are on, we simply need tried-and-true solutions from our elected officials, not more separation along these lines or those lines. We’ve wasted too much time on that, already.

So, Representative Glover, thank you for your service, indeed. But in the end, perhaps partisanship hasn’t failed Shreveport as much as its elected officials have.

Louis R. Avallone is a Shreveport businessman, attorney, and author of Bright Spots, Big Country, What Makes America Great. He is also a former aide to U.S. Representative Jim McCrery and Trump elector. Follow him on Facebook, on Twitter @louisravallone or by e-mail at louisavallone@mac.com, and on American Ground Radio weeknights from 6 – 7 PM, streaming live on keelnews.com, on iTunes, and at americangroundradio.com.