Let me paint you a picture. Apple — the company that sells you a phone charger for $49 and a computer stand for $999 — just announced they’re closing their store at the Fashion Valley Mall in San Diego because conditions at the mall are “declining.” The richest company on Planet Earth looked at a Democrat-run city and said, “Yeah, we’re good. Keep the lease.”

You know your city has hit rock bottom when even the people who charge $1,200 for a rectangle of glass decide your mall is too sketchy for business. Apple has armed security guards, genius bars, and enough lawyers to sue God — and they STILL said nope. That’s not a business decision. That’s a restraining order.

Here’s what makes this beautiful in the most tragic way possible. Apple didn’t say they were “restructuring” or “consolidating their retail footprint” or whatever corporate word salad companies usually toss out when they bail. They literally cited “declining conditions.” That’s corporate-speak for “our employees keep getting robbed and the parking lot smells like a combination of things we’d rather not identify in a press release.”

And look — we’ve all seen the videos. You know the ones. Groups of people casually strolling into stores, filling bags like they’re at a church potluck buffet, and walking out while security guards stand there with their hands in their pockets because California told them that stopping a thief is basically a hate crime. Apple stores have been getting hit for years now. Turns out when you make a product that fits in a pocket and costs a thousand bucks, and the local DA has a “no prosecution under $950” policy, you’ve basically set up a free vending machine.

But here’s what the media won’t connect for you. Fashion Valley Mall is in San Diego. San Diego is run by Democrats. The San Diego County DA’s office has been playing catch-and-release with criminals for years. The city council is more concerned with plastic straw bans and bike lanes than the fact that their retail corridors are turning into open-air flea markets for stolen merchandise.

This isn’t isolated. This is a pattern. Nordstrom left San Francisco. Whole Foods closed in San Francisco. Walgreens has shuttered over a dozen stores in California. Target reduced hours at multiple locations. And now Apple — the company that could literally afford to hire a private army — has decided it’s not worth the trouble.

Think about that math for a second. Apple makes roughly $95 billion in profit per year. A single retail store is a rounding error on their spreadsheet. They’re not closing because they can’t afford the losses. They’re closing because the environment is so bad that no amount of money fixes it. When the richest company in human history throws up its hands, that’s not a financial problem. That’s a civilization problem.

And what are San Diego’s leaders doing about it? The same thing every Democrat-run city does. They’re “investing in community programs” and “addressing root causes” and having “stakeholder meetings” about “equity in retail access.” You know what would actually help? Arresting people who steal things. Wild concept, I know. Really cutting-edge stuff. Someone should write a paper about it.

The best part — and I mean this sincerely because you have to laugh to keep from screaming — is that the same politicians who let this happen will now complain about “retail deserts” and “lack of access” when all the stores leave. They’ll blame capitalism. They’ll blame corporations for being greedy. They’ll probably find a way to blame Trump. What they will never, ever, in a million years do is look in the mirror and say, “Maybe we shouldn’t have made it legal to rob stores.”

We’re watching a real-time experiment play out across America. On one side, you’ve got cities that enforce laws, prosecute criminals, and support businesses. Those cities have thriving retail, growing tax bases, and Apple stores that stay open. On the other side, you’ve got San Francisco, Portland, Seattle, and now San Diego — where the social experiment of “what if we just let everyone do whatever they want” has produced exactly the result that every person with common sense predicted.

Apple will be fine. They’ll redirect those customers to their website and their other stores in areas where society still functions. The people who won’t be fine are the workers who just lost their jobs, the small businesses near that anchor store that relied on foot traffic, and the San Diego residents who now have one less reason to visit a mall that’s circling the drain.

But hey — at least San Diego banned plastic bags. Priorities.