Whenever I get frustrated about the politics in the city, it helps me to remember that for a large number of people, city leaders do not exist for the purpose of providing services. They exist for the purpose of providing jobs and siphoning tax money to their friends.
In this model of thinking, your objective as a resident is not to provide constructive feedback and hold leaders accountable. Your objective is to make sure your friends are the ones in charge so that you can benefit from it.
Of course, I emphatically and totally reject this way of thinking in its entirety. I believe that the city government's sole purpose is to provide services. And I am loyal not to any one person or group of people...only to the set of people who will provide the best services.
But understand that for a subset of the population, they've never personally experienced ever having a municipal government [[and possibly even an authority figure, such as a teacher or a principal) who provided or tended to their needs.
In this model of thinking, their loyalty to Kwame [[or anyone else, for that matter) is totally rational. Given the presumption that all city leaders are incompetent, corrupt, and destined to fail at providing services to me and my people, of course I will remain loyal to whichever incompetent and corrupt leader will make sure that me and my friends get ours first.
In other words if choice "a" is to get screwed on services but get an easy paycheck vs. choice "b", getting screwed on services but be without a job...which one do you think I'm gonna choose?
I'd be a fool to choose anything but "a".
Again, I disagree with this thinking, but I've also been fortunate to have lived in different cities, experienced high levels of services, been educated to have some understanding of the many components that drive organizational success, etc. I don't know everything and I can't predict the future. But I'm educated enough to know that I really don't give a rat's ass about which entity controls Belle Isle...all I care about is what systems and agreements are in place to ensure that the largest number of citizens both directly and indirectly benefit from its successful operation.
I have very little sympathy for the Kwame loyalists. But getting caught up in the frustration of trying to change them is not a very effective use of time and emotional energy for me. Rather than prove them wrong through logic and rhetoric, the best way to prove them wrong is simply to execute your ideas and provide better services and better lives for everyone involved -- including them.
This is why the Detroit Zoo, Cobo Hall, the Riverfront and Campus Martius were such foundational wins. Yes, I recognize that for small number of people and business owners, the impact on them was negative. But for a far larger number of people -- many of whom are Detroiters -- we can point to concrete improvements from these decisions.
I sometimes have to laugh when I hear someone from the old neighborhood says, "Why don't the City do with Belle Isle what they did with Campus Martius or the Riverfront?" Detroiters benefited in both cases. In both cases Detroiters are all welcome to enjoy them. The key is we both want the same results. When they find out that the crucial decision in both of those examples was that the City let go of control to an outside party, they become much more open to the idea.
Meh. There will always be a set of people who choose loyalty over logic. It doesn't matter whether you're far right, far left, etc. Yes, they're loud, obnoxious, and they get in the way of progress. But paying attention to them is like feeding online trolls. It just gives them more energy and gets frustrating. Let the Kwame and his people work on his "comeback". If you're frustrated about how an uneducated electorate keeps blindly supporting him, I don't blame you.
Let's go do something about it: go help teach a kid to read, press for educational reforms, or work to make sure we keep the crazies on both sides of the aisle out of office.
My 2 cents.