Dallas folks, what do you make of this?

Dallas mayor leaves Democratic Party, switches to GOP: 'American cities need Republicans'
Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson was elected in 2019 and has been a vocal supporter of law enforcement

By Andrew Mark Miller Fox News
Published September 22, 2023 12:29pm EDT

The mayor of one of the largest cities in the U.S. announced in a Friday op-ed that he is leaving the Democratic Party and becoming a Republican.

In a Wall Street Journal op-ed with the headline "America’s Cities Need Republicans, and I’m Becoming One," Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson explains that he is leaving the Democratic Party because "the future of America’s great urban centers depends on the willingness of the nation’s mayors to champion law and order and practice fiscal conservatism."

"Our cities desperately need the genuine commitment to these principles (as opposed to the inconsistent, poll-driven commitment of many Democrats) that has long been a defining characteristic of the GOP," Johnson wrote.

"In other words, American cities need Republicans — and Republicans need American cities," he continued. "When my political hero Theodore Roosevelt was born, only 20% of Americans lived in urban areas. By the time he was elected president, that share had doubled to 40%. Today, it stands at 80%. As America’s cities go, so goes America."

Johnson has been a vocal supporter of police as other cities, including the Texas capitol of Austin, have moved to defund police departments in the wake of the George Floyd riots.

In February, Johnson posted a Fox News Digital article on social media outlining how Austin police officers are retiring in droves due to low morale resulting from defunding and encouraged those officers to move to Dallas and work there.

"When you have a mayor who supports the police not only in his words but his actions, you see what happens to crime in your city," Austin Police Retired Officers Association Dennis Farris told Fox News Digital on Friday.

"Mayor Johnson has led from the front and it showed when he was re-elected without one single challenger — that’s unheard of in a major U.S. city."

Dallas saw a significant decrease in crime after Johnson took office in 2019. Johnson told Fox News Digital in 2021 he attributed that success to three things — a strong police chief, having "a budget that reflects public safety being your city's top priority" and ensuring there’s "community buy-in" for crime reduction.

Its a good thing if he actually governs based on conservative values and ideology otherwise he's just switching from being a liberal Democrat to a Rino republican.

Color me skeptical. Any adult in elected office who believed in the ideals of the Dem party to begin with is someone who cannot be trusted. He could have remained a Dem and just governed as a conservative. I don't know why they don't have DINOs, but we get plenty of RINOs.

I think it may mean he won't get reelected, since the big cities in Texas reliably vote Dem. Maybe that will change, as the Hispanic population grows and the lock on Hispanic voters the Dems used to have has slipped some. But for now, race politics seem to be giving the big city elections to the Dems.

We have to elect a new mayor in Houston this year, and the race that matters is the Dem primary. I don't think a Republican has a chance. Shelia "She JacK" Jacskon Lee is running for mayor (god help us, although if she wins, at least she is out of Congress), and seems to be the front runner. Her main opponent in that primary is State Senator John Whitmire, a white guy, so it may be that the election turns on racial politics, even though everyone dances around that.

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Originally posted by Rick Lee:
Color me skeptical. Any adult in elected office who believed in the ideals of the Dem party to begin with is someone who cannot be trusted. He could have remained a Dem and just governed as a conservative. I don't know why they don't have DINOs, but we get plenty of RINOs.

Would you have voted for Reagan if he had stayed a Democrat who voted conservative? Trump? Sometimes the party leaves a person, not the other way around. It sounds like he has already been governing from conservative principles.

Love how we can't view this as a positive.

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Originally posted by sigcrazy7:

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Originally posted by Rick Lee:
Color me skeptical. Any adult in elected office who believed in the ideals of the Dem party to begin with is someone who cannot be trusted. He could have remained a Dem and just governed as a conservative. I don't know why they don't have DINOs, but we get plenty of RINOs.

Would you have voted for Reagan if he had stayed a Democrat who voted conservative? Trump? Sometimes the party leaves a person, not the other way around. It sounds like he has already been governing from conservative principles.

Dems in those days were to the right of the current GOP. Reagan's ideals didn't change. Current party switchers just have their finger in the wind.

On a serious note, he has campaigned on a pro-police platform, and his Number 1 priority was and still is public safety. His resume looks way more impressive than a Bill De Blasio. I read he has been at odds with the City Council on various issues, including defunding the police (he wanted a Defund the Bureaucracy measure instead), and lowering property taxes. At best, he may be a RINO, but better than a full-on goddamn commie like Lightfoot.

^^^ Thanks for that, instead of seeing folks just outright dismissing him. For those who like to do so, does the name Jeff Van Drew sound familiar?

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Originally posted by jhe888:
I think it may mean he won't get reelected, since the big cities in Texas reliably vote Dem. Maybe that will change, as the Hispanic population grows and the lock on Hispanic voters the Dems used to have has slipped some. But for now, race politics seem to be giving the big city elections to the Dems.

Yep. But not necessarily. The only hope of some of these cities is to change direction.
I'm glad to see this.

Houston hasn't had a GOP mayor for over 40 years. And, with Harris County turning completely blue in the 2018 election, and has since remained that way, the chance of a GOP Houston mayor will be less than slim to none for the foreseable future. But, one can always dream.

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Houston hasn't had a GOP mayor for over 40 years.

St. Louis hasn't had a GOP mayor for 75 years.

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Originally posted by 6guns:
Love how we can't view this as a positive.

Damn, ain't that the truth!

There are varying degrees of measure with anything, and certainly we (definitely I) have NO idea why he was a Democrat in the first place. He could be a 'Reagan Democrat', a Democrat in the mold of Kennedy, or he could come from a long list of Democrats in his family lineage, such that he never considered anything else. One thing for certain, is that anyone who's a liberal today, w/ classic liberal values has seen the Democrat Party veer Far FAR to the left, so much so that they're now considered conservative by comparison. This newly minted Republican may never be considered a Right-wing Conservative, but it's better that he's on our side than not, that's for sure! Give what 'oddball' posted about him above, I think he deserves not skepticism, but rather, a chance to prove his meddle before we judge him.

One thing that the impeachment of Ken Paxton exposed is that Texas politics has a lot of Democrats who ran and won as Republicans. Some parts of Texas, you can only win as a Republican so they slither into the Republican platform but don't act or vote much like one.

Is that the case here? Maybe.

Traditional thinking is that the big cities of Dallas, Houston, San Antonio, and Austin you have to be a Demonrat to win.

If we know two things about politicians is they have the self-preservation instincts of cockroach and the morals of a sewer rat. He may be reading the polls and seeing two areas that concern his future as a Demonrat politician. The lock on Hispanic votes has slipped and Mayra Flores winning South Texas' 34th congresssional seat for the US House is an example of this. There is growing voter disillusionment in historic Demonrat voters due to their realization the Demonrat party platform has been hijacked by the extreme left (e.g. defund the police, transgender politics, etc).

It could be genuine and what he is saying is truly what he believes. Like nhracecraft posted, he could genuinely be on a Reagan-like journey from Demonrat to Republican.

I say we both welcome him with open arms and combine that with an extensive verification of compliance with the Republican platform. In other words, a little Reagan style trust, but verify.

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Ego is the anesthesia that deadens the pain of stupidity

DISCLAIMER: These are the author's own personal views and do not represent the views of the author's employer.

Until age 51 Ronald Regan was a Democrat and look what he did. Let's welcome the mayor and give him a chance. We need more mayors, governors and legislators to follow the path of conversion if the country is to get back on a sane track.

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Originally posted by tatortodd:

I say we both welcome him with open arms and combine that with an extensive verification of compliance with the Republican platform. In other words, a little Reagan style trust, but verify.

His voting record and statements on policy, principles and his associations should validate or, at the very least provide insight into where this guy stands.
The reality is today's Democrats can't stand the middle-America, Blue Dog-type of generations past. Some candidates have realized this and figured, the hell with this, why am I sticking with a party where I have zero affinity with any position that the larger body is pushing.

Just saw a photo and some background on teh Dallas mayor who switched. He's Black educated at Education: University of Pennsylvania (2003) [same as President Trump], Harvard University, Princeton University, Greenhill School, Penn Carey Law. He's smart! As a Black man he can speak to other Blacks who have been screwed over for years by big city mayors. He's a big thorn in the side of the Democrats. I'm hoping for the best, the idea of "verify" is sound.

I’m here in the north Texas area and there has been nothing but a dribble locally about his switch. I’m sure the Uncle Tom groups will be out in force soon.

I’ll trade you one Eric Johnson for a Mitt Romney anyday.

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Originally posted by chellim1:

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Houston hasn't had a GOP mayor for over 40 years.

St. Louis hasn't had a GOP mayor for 75 years.

And look where that's got us.