There’s no political option for saving New York City. The possible outcomes of the New York City mayoral election ranged from the absolutely horrifying (Maya Willey, putting AOC in Gracie Mansion and tripling down on every De Blasio policy) to the bearable (Andrew Yang bringing back the Bloomberg era with more personality) to something in between.
That’s what New Yorkers are likely to get.
Eric Adams, a former militant racial activist and police officer, who embraced realpolitik won’t be worse than Bill de Blasio. It’s a low bar.
Despite a lot of the enthusiasm about what Adams’ win means, he’s far from the first black mayor to run against police defunding. It’s actually been the most common position among black mayors especially in 2021 (2020 was a very different story.) Apart from calling for fighting crime, Adams’ policies tend to be a mixture of assorted leftist garbage with assorted dabs of common sense. That’s mostly inevitable.
Bloomberg spent quite a few terms in office by combining Giuliani’s policing and economic development with leftist craziness. It’s a safe bet that Adams will try something very similar, with fewer policy skills, but more campaign skills.
But what people are mostly paying attention to is crime.
Don’t assume that Adams will be much better at dealing with the situation in New York than Mayor Lightfoot is in Chicago.
Adams will likely be New York City’s next mayor, but the socialists have racked up plenty of other victories. And when the City Council is pro-crime and Soros’ “progressive” prosecutors are actually in control of who gets charged, all Adams can do is push more police patrols.
And then blame the prosecutors for not charging criminals.
Here’s Alvin Bragg, Manhattan’s next DA, in his own words.
As District Attorney, Alvin will make incarceration the last resort and will work to reverse the effects of mass incarceration by making it the default to decline to prosecute low-level crimes for which there is no or little public safety benefit, prioritizing treatment for mental illness and substance use disorders, and ending cash bail.
There is still much work to be done to tackle our broken pretrial system. Even though New York’s bail reforms made significant improvements to reducing the number of people incarcerated because they do not have cash bail, Black and Brown people are still disproportionately impacted—and in fact, the reforms may have exacerbated racial disparities
The people of Manhattan are best-served when the core drivers of violence are effectively addressed, those willing to work on taking accountability are offered the tools to do so, and all who have suffered harm are offered the resources they need to heal and strengthen their communities. One of the most important ways in which I will accomplish these goals is through the use of restorative justice.
Homelessness and mental health issues are both public health crises, and I will not criminalize these individuals because of their status.
That’s a sample.
Eric Adams insists that he has the same views as Bragg. So either he thinks Bragg is lying or he’s been lying to voters. That’s one of those technical details because we’ll find out soon enough.
Manhattan has its own Gascon and Chesa Boudin. Little headway will be made against crime under pro-crime council members and prosecutors. Crime will get worse and I suspect Adams will burn out on his own or through some combination of real and manufactured scandals. He can’t and won’t save New York City. Minority voters did stop a complete collapse of law enforcement in the mayoral race, but they were just as likely to have enabled it in other areas. Yang and Adams helped open up a dialogue about crime, but as long as New York City’s Democrat electorate is dominated by leftists who support criminals, things will only get worse.
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