NYC progressives going to lose the Dem primary to crime
Category: News & Politics
Via: vic-eldred • 3 years ago • 21 commentsBy: Nicole Gelinas (New York Post)
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Gotham's self-styled progressives are going to lose Tuesday's Democratic mayoral primary, and they should be glad.
The relentless chaos of the past few months shows that nobody cares about "progressive" issues, like bike lanes or a higher minimum wage, when crime is rising — all they care about is order. Multiple polls show: Voters' main issue in this race is public safety.
Last week's Post poll of potential Democratic voters shows that 29.4 percent rank crime as their most important issue, nearly triple the second big issue, housing, with 10.6 percent. The results mirror a Manhattan Institute poll showing that 52 percent of New Yorkers are worried about crime.
Poorer people and minorities are the most fearful, because crime hits them hardest: In the Post survey, 35 percent of Bronxites were voting mostly on crime, compared to 26.3 percent of Manhattanites; 38.7 percent of people making less than $20,000 picked crime as top of mind.
These voters will ensure that a moderate will serve as the Big Apple's next mayor. Of the eight men and women still standing, four are moderates, and three — Post pick Eric Adams, Kathryn Garcia and Andrew Yang — have a credible shot at winning City Hall.
Of the four progressive candidates, only one, Maya Wiley, polls well, and even if she consolidates the ranked-choice votes of all four, it won't be enough to win.
Police at the scene where a man was stabbed at the Times Square subway station on June 18, 2021. Christopher Sadowski
The progressives, of course, are despondent. All over lefty urban Twitter — mostly affluent, young and white — the cries are the same: Why weren't there questions about bike lanes at the debates? Why doesn't anyone care about climate change?
They don't quite blame the voters. Rather, the implication is that the voters are dumb: People are afraid to ride the subway not because entirely random slashings, stabbings and pushings drove the number of violent felonies on the subways from 64 in April to 116 in May, more than three times higher than in 2019, when adjusted for ridership. Rather, progs think, they're afraid because the media, by reporting on the news, have tricked them.
Early voting in New York City's mayoral primary election has started as of Saturday.Tayfun Coskun/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images
But progressives' best hope is a tough-on-crime mayor who wrests today's numbers — a murder rate that's 53 percent higher than in 2019 — down. When crime is high, New Yorkers only care about crime, and they don't care about much else.
Worried about pedestrian deaths? You should be: They're up 21 percent this year, compared to 2019, with 57 dead, so far, this year. But you don't hear much about it, do you? When people are worried about being shot, they're uninterested in street design: 1990, with 701 traffic deaths, compared to 2019's 220, was also the year of a record-high 2,262 murders.
Want more investment in public parks? The good liberals who live around Washington Square aren't going to support more funding for the city's parks when their park has been turned into an all-night, drug-fueled slash-fest.
Want enlightened policing, better homeless services, "social justice," reduced racial tension, better environmental policies? They're so low on potential voters' list of priorities — all in the single digits — that you can barely see them.
More bike lanes? In the late 1980s and early '90s, the city's pro-cycling 'zines were filled with tips about how to avoid violent robbers on the Brooklyn Bridge and how to prevent your bike from being stolen.
The scene where a woman was bleeding and a man was arrested near the arch in Washington Square Park.Christopher Sadowski
Better subway service? With ridership still below half of pre-COVID levels, in part because of fear over crime, the constituency for on-time service is indefinitely smaller.
The $15 minimum wage, sick leave for all workers, universal pre-K: The city only achieved those things during the early de Blasio years because crime was so low that New Yorkers could relax and broaden their interests to other matters. Righter-than-average Mayors Ed Koch, Rudy Giuliani and Mike Bloomberg paved the way for New York's progressive renaissance (Bloomberg was progressive on many issues himself).
The best thing for the city's left wing is a closer-to-right-wing mayor (within the liberal New York context, of course). Once murders edge down closer to 300 a year, rather than 500, progressives can merrily go back to advancing their causes, some good (more bus and bike lanes) and some bad (legalizing prostitution).
Then they can complain to their friends over brunch in the city's safest neighborhoods about the bad old days of yet another moderate mayor who had to save them from themselves.
Nicole Gelinas is a contributing editor to the Manhattan Institute's City Journal.
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It's the same old story: Progressives win - terrible things happen - in the next election, voters come out to vote against them with fury!
Why do we have to go through it in the first place?
Isn't de Blasio restoring some police funding now as he's afraid of the next election? I seem to remember hearing something from him where he was pushing to restore a lot of the funding that he pulled back at the peak of the 'Defund the Police" movement.
And how many stories are there from areas that raised the minimum wage to $15 an hour that show how many jobs were lost due to automation or businesses just not able to handle the increased expenses. Weren't there also stories after either Portland or Seattle raised their minimum wage that employees started to ask to reduce their hours as the wage increase raised their income too high and they no longer qualified for some programs like childcare, etc...
It always seems to follow the same process mostly because too many politicians are more interested in their next election rather than doing what is right. So they propose a half-baked plan without proper thought behind what the consequences may be, the plan has issues that piss off the population and they vote the other side next election.
I don't think someone like de Blasio proposed a half-baked plan. He is an ideologue and to him it was all "social justice."
Yeah, several cities have gotten pushback.
Eric Adams has the endorsement of the police union. He is a Democrat and very favored by both blacks and whites because of his position on crime.
What do you consider Eric Adams, Kathryn Garcia and Andrew Yang.
RATIONAL and acceptable! Get out there New Yorkers - take back your city!
Vote for Maya Wiley and we can forget about New Yorkers. They will deserve every bit of what they get!
City governments are not really "progressive" or "conservative", they are based more on competency (or not) than ideology. Every city will cater to powerful business interests, and to a lesser extent to "do gooders" who are always the most activist within a city. Cities always have large or relatively large police departments that do not allow widespread lawlessness. People see what is essentially sporadic crime and they convince themselves , with the help of sensationalist local news, that it is consuming the city.
If you have a murder rate of say 10 per 100,000 residents (per year) and you DOUBLE that rate, (which sounds shockingly horrifying and scary,) you are still talking about only 20 per 100,000 people. Even though you have DOUBLED the murder rate it is still a minute percentage of the 100,000 people.
Same of course for all the other crimes.
Here is my little list of the nation's worst mayors:
1) Democrat Lori Lightfoot of Chicago
2) Democrat Bill de Blasio of New York City
3) Democrat Ted Wheeler of Portland
4) Democrat Jenny Anne Durkan of Seattle
5) Democrat Muriel Bowser of DC
All of them are ideologues. All voted in by the worst elements of American society.
Every block voter
whoop de doo
And # 1 is a white hating racist!
Yup, whoop de doo!
Why dont you ever worry about white racists? If one actually listened to you they would end up believing the only or main racists are black. It is beyond absurd.
Lori Lightfoot is not a racist by the way. Her same sex partner is white
So what? You think that means anything?
She is a white hating racist who turned a once great city into an open sewer.
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