Rivington House. Need I say more?
3
DeBlasio is far weaker on police-related issues than your article indicates. Shortly after he was inaugurated, two police officers were shot and killed by a deranged person in Brooklyn. Patrick Lynch, the PBA president, blamed the shooting on DeBlasio. Police officers turned their backs on DeBlasio at one of the officers' funerals.
DeBlasio's reaction was to make a speech in which he termed attorneys who represent people beaten and falsely arrested by the police "ambulance chasers," and vowed to hire seventy new assistant corporation counsels to fight such lawsuits. He did hire them.
The result is that DeBlasio's Law Department has made strong efforts to lowball settlement offers in such cases, erect procedural hurdles to the bringing and litigation of them and force to trial, with all its costs to the city, cases that could be easily settled.
To justify such tactics, DeBlasio has the city's lawyers boast of how they are fighting unscrupulous attorneys out to rip off the taxpayers. But the ones hurt the most are not the lawyers. They are the city's people of color who remain the primary victims of police abuse. DeBlasio may travel the country claiming he is a champion of these people. But he is really a hypocrite who is responsible for their too often falling short in their continuing efforts to obtain justice.
2
Bill DiBlasio has been an enigma as a Mayor. His sense of strategy and implementation is sadly lacking. Maybe he just doesn’t get how to be Mayor.
2
Al Sharpton said it right: “I don’t think he’s had a problem of commitment. I think he has a problem of having to govern, restraints that sometimes are troubling to those that are nongovernmental activists.” Activists don't recognize, or do not want to recognize, the constraints upon politicians who cannot just snap their fingers and make change happen. Or perhaps they don't publicly recognize these limitations in the hope that by asking for 100% they get 50% of what they want whereas if they ask for 50% they may only get 25%.
2
Same story, different party. Not right enough, not left enough. Democrats and Republicans have the same problem.
What a luxury to be a Democrat in NYC, where there is essentially no Republican opposition and the fight is about who can legalize drugs faster and give away more of the rich people's money. It's like being a Republican in Idaho--there is no Democratic competition so the fight is about who can deport more immigrants, cut more government and make it even easier to put more AK-47 in every gun case.
Activists don't have to govern anybody, let alone ALL the people. De Blasio does. He's not a king, nor should he be. We have one of those in Washington. It's not working out so well.
5
Sometimes I feel that whatever Bill de Blasio does, he is always placed into a lose-lose situation. Also, it seems that whatever he does one group will hate him one way or another. Pretty much, this is how he is always looked at as. If he has no interest in helping, he will be seen as apathetic, otherwise he will be seen as not doing enough even if he does help in something. In other words, he is hated and despised one way or another, which is why I can relate to him at times that way I am viewed for helping people. Seriously, what exactly defines being a progressive and what does de Blasio have to do in order to show that? Honestly, I feel that some always raise the bar so high, that they are impossible to please no matter what is done. Personally, I would love to have someone like de Blasio be mayor of my town. Unlike Rudy Giuliani and Michael Bloomberg, he actually did listen to the lower income groups and even tried to help with their living conditions compared to his predecessors for constantly snubbing them in favor of the rich via gentrification. Overall, you guys can say whatever you want about de Blasio, but he will always have the last laugh especially when it comes to elections in that he was elected mayor both times despite all the criticism against him. Then again, if you are the ones who didn't vote in either of those mayoral, then you shouldn't be blaming anyone but yourselves for sitting out those elections rather instead of on other who did vote.
4
Not progressive enough? Wow - we are really headed towards the pits.
8
Progressive, leftist, Democrat Socialist. Meaningless and obfuscating labels.
6
De Blasio is plenty liberal. His problem is that he’s incompetent.
15
De Blasio is lazy and corrupt. He is a big talker who is too lazy to actually do something about his talk. He spends too much time looking for the politically expedient thing to do. And, oh yes, he is progressive, but is afraid of doing progressive things that will be criticized by the people who have made campaign contributions to him.
4
Congestion pricing indeed would affect mostly the poorer people as the rich could rasily afford a tax and eould be the driving in the city.
A millionaire’s tax is the way to decrease inequity and not congestion pricing!
4
Mayor De Blasio is incompetent and a coward. Why hasn’t he taken action against killer cop Daniel Pantaleo sp? Eric Garner has been dead for four years and the officer responsible for his death has been receiving a six figure salary doing nothing. Is the mayor afraid of the pba? Does he understand that as mayor, he does the hiring and the firing. In the nation’s south land, crooked cops are fired without hesitation. But here in “liberal “ NYC, they are coddled. Perhaps that’s why they’re so rotten.
6
The present is never enough. There is no such thing as enough. A progressive is not a progressive unless they are progressing somewhere. There much always be a new cause, a new victim, a new enemy. Otherwise, how would a progressive find the will to live?
3
The problem with DiBlasio is not whether he is progressive enough. The problem is he is totally ineffective. He has failed to provide leadership, he has failed to effectively implement his policy agenda, and he had the good fortune to avoid indictment when the Supreme Court issued the McDonnell decision, which raised the bar for proving corruption by public officials. He has been a huge disappointment as a mayor.
11
Progressive enough to do something about Riker’s Island?
Even progress will only go so far, it would seem.
If the left ever had the chance to fulfill their Harry Potter obsession to the logical end i.e. wave a wand and get what they want, we would still awake the next day to fresh complaints about leaders not being progressive enough.
Dis any of you really expect DeBlasio, Sanders etc to be able to fulfill their deluded pledges? Did you not think other citizens might have had opinions about their ideas sufficient to arrest their momentum?
7
"He announced the creation of a political action committee, Fairness PAC, in order to fund national Democratic candidates, and also pay for political travel outside of New York City by Mr. de Blasio and his wife, Chirlane McCray."
That is great to hear! I would love to contribute. Unfortunately for the taxpayers of NYC, I fear that he probably would insist on a round trip ticket!
7
My kinda progressive would offer the millionaires tax to fix transit (done) and accept his rivals policy proposal for congestion pricing (undone), and jam both through Albany, campaigning actively against the obstructionists while insuring FARE NY is implemented so our well funded transit system expands to serve all those who are underserved.
1
@Chris How would a NYC mayor jam a tax increase through the state legislature?
3
There is one politically insurmountable challenge to all those professing to unequivocally support all of the most radically left ideas of the democratic party. His or her base will always be profoundly disappointed whenever societal nirvana has not been instantaneously achieved. Those running to the far right of the GOP have the same problem. That said, at least the far left’s radical idealism has the redeeming quality of being humanistic.
7
I'm certainly no fan of De Blasio. He's just not up to the job. But, that said, a lot of these criticisms are from people who don't, can't, won't understand the mayor's limitations by law or the practical exigencies of governing a city as large as this one.
7
@HKGuy
Well, does HE understand them, or does he just promise stuff he knows he can’t deliver?
2
"Mr. Sharpton said that some of the frustration with Mr. de Blasio among his far-left base may stem from unrealistic expectations."
I think that may be an understatement, but sums it up well. The reality is, there's a difference between campaigning and and the realities of governing. Breaking through decades-long barriers to change takes time and energy. People need to understand that there are valid financial concerns regarding some of the programs outlined in this article. Lastly, people need to remember is that de Blasio isn't like Trump. He can't just spend all his time appeasing his base. He is the mayor to all New Yorkers, and there are other side gets a vote on various issues, and often pushes back very hard. That said, I do agree that it is important to hold all politicians accountable for their lack of progress; but to also keep political realities in mind.
4
The key sentence in this article is the creation of Fairness PAC, which will fund political travel outside of NYC for the Mayor & his wife. To me this is the major fault of this mayor. He has an elevated view of himself as a national leader of a Progressive movement, instead of spending his time & focus on doing the best job in managing NYC.
I was an early supporter of the Mayor, but he has been a big disappointment.
20
Although this well-balanced article points to criticism coming from the left, it always seems that DeBlasio gets criticized for taking progressive positions which are unpopular (see the comments in any article about DeBlasio). Perhaps the dissatisfaction is because NYC is not as progressive as we tend to think.
With his Pre-K initiative, he's basically added an entire grade to the school system with few hiccups. He's also implemented NYC ID, expanded paid sick leave, and ended stop and frisk. These are all substantial progressive accomplishments. He even sticks his neck out on progressive policies which are not necessarily political winners. He's pushed back on charter schools and is attempting to rectify inequalities in the high school entrance process. He's called for safe injection sites and the closing of Rikers. He's unsuccessfully battled with the horse carriage and ride sharing industries.
This article does a great job of highlighting areas where he's fallen short. I'm particularly disappointed with his moderate endorsements and his reluctance to back marijuana legalization. Progressives should continue to hold him accountable. Nevertheless, I agree with Al Sharpton's assessment that many of these shortcomings are the result of political realities rather than lack of trying.
4
@Patrick W. It's a myth that this is a blue city. Its domination by Democrats goes back to the days of Tammany; it's machine politics. NYC, unlike a lot of big cities, has retained a large white ethnic base, which tends to be more conservative.
1
DeBlasio is incompetent. He wants to build affordable housing but spends no time or money on fixing the housing that exists.
16
“People being arrested remain black and brown.” What if those are the people who happen to have committed the crime that got them arrested? Is it possible that there is a causal connection between the arrestee and the Police which involves no racial bias?
20
I wonder how much of this is tied to the paradox of being a progressive. Because when you really boil progressivism down, it’s a movement that exists to seek progress and transform away from the status quo.
As a life long, deep blue progressive I’ve lived this paradox myself. At some point, I realized the college town was a bastion of privilege. The same for the gentrified community that I lived in, and then the same for the minority-majority neighborhood that I moved into, when it dawned on me that I was an interloper.
I’ve lived this same journey on communes. From sharing my stuff, to struggling in sessions about others not sharing enough of their stuff. From being ashamed of patriarchy and my race, to repudiating my assigned race and sex and gender.
But when is enough ever enough. When can it be enough if the very credo and organizing principle is simply “progress?” Who defines or sets the end state?
Take mass migration. When conservatives try to bait me into setting a limit on how many migrants we should allow in, or how many “American” jobs they should be allowed to take, I don’t fall for it. I proudly say we should give this land over to them, there should be no limit, and we should pay for centuries of plunder and greed by ceasing to procreate and helping the less fortunate enjoy what we’ve stolen.
But at the back of my mind I know this isn’t good enough, and humanity is a crime against nature. It’s always a struggle! But that’s what makes it fun I guess.
1
@Trans Cat Mom. You've got it backwards. Start small, and then build responsibly, the way one would build a business, with a budget and plans based in reality, both fiscal and behavioral. Not every story we tell ourselves is real, not every idea is manageable. There are sensible decisions that are good for people. Not everything has to be changed, and change that is based in shame is rarely going to last or stick. No one should be ashamed of his/her race or gender or religion. No one. This whole idea of white guilt, privilege as a bad thing, heteronormative, cis, wealthy people being somehow evil - it's RIDICULOUS. Responsibility is a general concept most people can get behind, and you build slowly from there; various forms of responsibility on the scale of the personal, local, state, national, international, universal.
4
Ms. Ocasio-Cortez and Ms. Nixon are Democratic Socialists, belonging to and supported by Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), whose goals won't appeal to most Democrats and all Republicans. Two of many DSA turn-off goals: (https://www.dsausa.org/where_we_stand#global )
1. "Economic democracy means...direct ownership and/or control of much of the economic resources of society by the great majority of wage and income earners." This is basic Marxism/Communism, where workers own/control the means of production; it hasn't worked elsewhere and won't appeal to US voters.
2. "Social redistribution--the shift of wealth and resources from the rich to the rest of society--will require...massive redistribution of income from corporations and the wealthy to wage earners and the poor and the public sector, in order to provide the main source of new funds for social programs, income maintenance and infrastructure rehabilitation...." This goal is not feasible in the US.
Democratic Party leaders are out of touch with reality in hailing Ms. O-C and Ms. Nixon as the future of our party. O-C and other socialists will not likely achieve other than sporadic electoral successes, and may cost us wins in the mid-terms and 2020. (Remember Bernie in 2016)
Abolishing ICE and turning the means of production over to workers are suicidal platform planks for the Democratic Party.
As Margaret Thatcher said, "The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money."
13
I’d give de Blasio an F.
For Feckless. The police hate him, the commuters hate him.
21
Legalize marijuana now.
1
The City is doing extraordinarily well under this Mayor. Crime is at record lows, jobs are at record highs. The creation of universal pre-K will yield dividends here for generations to come. I say all this as someone who was a huge Bloomberg fan and worried that de Blasio's inexperience and seeming lack of interest in actually managing the City would prove disastrous. But he's proven to be a prudent steward of our resources and has consistently hired strong lieutenants--much more so even than his predecessor.
Where he's fallen short, surprisingly given his background and supposed skill set, is on political messaging and communication. Some of it is simply accommodation to established interests (Big Real Estate, the unions, finance). Some of it is Cuomo, who's a far inferior human being but a much more skilled political fighter.
But a lot of it is the Mayor's own vacillation between his desire to be a bold progressive champion and his unwillingness to alienate key constituencies or establishment powers. His resistance to congestion pricing is the most glaring example on the policy side; his backing of Cuomo, Clinton, and Crowley against progressive challengers with whom he's more aligned was the signature political example.
The result is that he seems less principled than I believe he is, and less brave than this moment calls for.
5
The more progressive, the less competent.
13
Any imaginary comparison between deBlasio and the likes of LaGuardia or Eleanor Roosevelt only serve - once again - to illustrate the astounding arrogance and hubris of this dreadful politician. The city is a mess, he's as aloof and arrogant with the media as Trump is, he engages is rank nepotism in the employment of his own wife, the list goes on and on. Yet he pretends he's just great and the solution the entire nation needs.
Well, no, he's not, not by a very long shot. The voters should have sent him packing at the last election, but oh, no, had to reelect for that "D" after his name, so we're saddled with him for a few more years - when he's in town, that is, not hopping around the country pretending he's the answer to someone's question. Spare us all!
20
LOL di blasio isn't "progressive" enough? Even trump supporters aren't as dumb as progressives.
I have an idea. why don't we run Cynthia Nixon against Cuomo because Cuomo isn't "liberal" enough. She's a no-nothing TV actress who's only qualifications I can see are that bshe's a woman and gay. Don't we need a little bit more than that? She's as qualified as trump was.
Di blasio's problems aren't that he isn't "progressive" enough its that he's a political hack, who never made a mark on his own and is ethically challenged.
The issues that concern the far -left have no resonance with moderates and "regular" voters. The dems need to move towards the center and to drop the word "socialism" from their self-descriptions. It just doesn't play with moderates and independents.
The Left "progressives" are just paving the way for more Trump
16
Perry. Let's not forget Andrews only qualifications he was Mario's son and came out of the allegedly corrupt Donald Manes Queens County Democrats. A guy who was born on third base and thinks he hit a triple.
4
@Patrick
Since my point is a totally unexperienced nobody w/o any gov't experience, promoting some far left agenda and thinks coumo isn't "liberal" enough despite his solid record of Liberal achievements, hmm let's peruse cynthia nixon's resume:
woman ,
gay,
several movies
and a TV series
coumo: law degree
successful campaign mgr.for mario
An ADA
Founded Housing Enterprises for the Less Privileged,
Chairman of NYC Homeless Comm. 90-93
asst sec of HUD- 93
97-2001, U.S. sec of HUD.
Gov. Of NYS for 8 years.
Yes "privileged" coming from a political family, no crime there, and obviously did his dues paying throughout the political system to build a solid experience filled- resume.
NO. I'm not a cuomo "guy", just pointing to the fallacies of the progressives. If you aren't 100% with them you are against them.sounds just like trump people doesn't it?
If a Nixon runs a 3rd party, she accomplishes having that nut with the bat from buffalo being governor nothing more.
progressives need to unite behind one candidate(nationally) if they love them 100% or not.
American politics is winner take all. The only goal is to remove Trump not anyone's ideology.
@perry
Not a Trump fan either but how did that work out with Hillary. Neo liberal Dems are done they play on the coasts but that's it. Unfortunately politics has become a career I don't believe our founders planned it that way. With NY being governed by three men in a room and two of them on the way to jail hard to believe in the governor. I don't even want to get into Buffalo Billions and the shuttered Moreland Commission
I am so unbelievably disgusted by this Mayor "DO NOTHING" DeBlasio! WHAT has he achieved that has had lasting impact on the quality of life of ALL New Yorkers? He is continually traveling around the country, forgetting that he is paid to manage this city. He said today that he's "looking outside NYC because our problems cannot be fixed internally alone". Great logic for someone from Tennessee, perhaps, but not for your electorate here at home. I know many issues require state as well as or instead of city approval BUT is he doing anything about the following: traffic going through the roof; subways barely doing their job; roads in constant need of repair; profound zoning changes that are proceeding unchecked; improving transportation to the airports (pushing for trains to the planes!); reforming Riker's Island and discontinuing solitary for ALL JUVENILES - the list goes on and on. This man thinks he did us a favor moving into Gracie Mansion but still goes daily to Park Slope for his gym by escort. He's simply hopeless and has the nerve to file for national office today, it's a shocking disgrace. To my shortsighted friends I say "happy now about voting for the carriage horses and against everything else" because Christine Quinn would have been a much better and more involved leader of this immense metropolis that I love but that's more frustrating on many levels with each passing day. Michael Bloomberg will you PLEASE come and save us?!
19
@ManhattanWilliam Quinn was excoriated by the Left for supposedly caving in, or even being in bed with, big developers, when she was only trying to get the best deal available — in her words, playing her cards with the deck the law gave her. After De Blasio got in, with all his grand promises of mass affordable housing, he found himself with the same deck. Only he's not nearly as good at Poker as she was.
3
Before we get to ideological visions, we need a city that works by providing basic services - services which are going from bad to worse.
The City-run housing authority is in crisis - and yet the Mayor's vision is to build more city housing. The mass transit system is in horrid disrepair - and the Mayor's vision is to cap the number of car service vehicles that offer an alternative. Public Schools are pipelines of failure - less than 50% of NYC's H.S. graduates are "college ready," and the Mayor's response is an ongoing war with Charter Schools. There is, he says, not enough money - and yet he wastes funds on ridiculous lawsuits over climate change and grows city employment at a frightening rate.
The Mayor was elected by 8.5% of the public - and then declared that he was given a "mandate." Perhaps, by 8.5% of the public.
The rest of us want this crowded, busy, challenging city to work better, and the Mayor is failing where it counts. Perhaps this is why he prefers to talk about vision.
18
@W Murray Thank you! Please add to this the enormous increase in City spending and debt, which does not appear to be paying off in better services or quality of life, but will come to haunt us when the next recession comes.
4
“Run up against reality” is what happens to extreme ideas - either left or right. Many progressive and right wing ideas have no basis in reality and are simply implausible. Hope doesn’t change that.
13
De Blasio is just a demagogue who yells progressive slogans but gets nothing done. I’m a progressive too but I easily see through De Blasio’s strategy and saying big things but achieving nothing but appease donors and trying to take advantage of under-served communities by pitting them against one another. See his scapegoating of Asian Americans as a way to get votes from other communities of color while in no way disrupting the white power in nyc’s educational system. See how his numerous attempts to punish Uber drivers (most of whom are recent immigrants) and consumers in an attempt to help the taxi industry (medallions are owned by long-time NY citizens and these are just rentiers, essentially the taxi equivalent of slum lords) oppress the taxi drivers more.
His problem is he doesn’t want to solve problems just make a lot of hay with them so he could use negative partisanship and hatred to win elections. He’s basically a less effective version of Trump.
19
My parents who were from Boston switched to the Republican Party when they moved to the New York area in the early 1960s. This was at the advice from a friend also from Boston who vowed they would do so. This friend had also come from Boston but found the NY Democrat party too liberal and progressive for her taste. She came to the New York area in the 1940s and even then it was progressive.
My parents became staunch Republicans and would be aghast at how leftist the Democrat party has become. I too am Republican and will never vote for a Democrat as long as they continue pushing their liberal progressive agenda. They will continue to lose support as long as they favor these policies. The rest of the country which is much more moderate will never go along with their progressive ways.
15
Congestion pricing is a tool to greater inequity, one of the things DeBlasio sees correctly. The supporters of this, Bloomberg, NYT and recently Uber all have a stake in real estate development, further business and enough money not to care. $400 million is a drop in the city budget bucket and will do nothing to help the subway. It will drive up the costs of living in the city.
The city budget has risen 20% during his administration, that money comes from somewhere, shared cost that is driving economic inequity even higher and pushing poor and middle class residents further down. I like some of his policies but he is a failure as a progressive, because he doesn’t understand the economics of it.
4
Congestion pricing would reduce inequity, as the majority of drivers into the core of the city earn above the median income, and far more than the average bus rider. Congestion pricing is both a way to raise revenue for mass transit and reduce traffic (which will aide bus flow and improve the lives of those that are reliant on buses).
Vehicles are not cheap for individuals or for the city to keep around. Besides insurance and maintenance, we give away tons of free space in the form of wide roads and curbside parking.
5
@JR-PhD
At first look I used to agree with you, I no longer do. Congestion pricing will increase the income level of city drivers. It will harm the people who have one end of their trip take place at an hour when mass transit doesn't service them, these are the working class. A much more productive version of congestion pricing would be to have a large surcharge for entering a parking lot in the zone between 7am and noon and take out the single occupant cars that are traveling in both directions during real world transit service.
1
JR. Before we talk congestion pricing Lets look at the causes of congestion. Thousands of Uber drivers generally double parked and not at all prepared for city driving. Deliveries that constantly are double and triple parked. The endless construction. Take 2nd Ave as an example The road was no sooner put back together after the subway project and it is constantly now being ripped up with land closures and entire areas blocked off for contractors to block. Solve these problems and traffic will move. Let's call congestion pricing what it is a tax. Let's not even get started on pedestrian plazas and barely used bike lanes
1
Let's not under-emphasize the importance of meaningfully addressing the homeless issue which is a proxy for all of the other issues that a progressive should be fully addressing but, in the case of Mayor de Blasio, may not be. These include care for the mentally ill, affordable and available housing as well as the need to make available viable entry-level employment opportunities with a salary that doesn't force the worker to remain homeless, thereby perpetuating the cycle.
You would think the very high visibility of the homeless problem in cities like New York, and the resulting devastating message this sends about the sheer unwillingness of America to deal with this issue, would motivate a progressive like de Blasio to address this issue in a positive and productive way for the homeless individuals primarily, but also for the overall good of New York. Why should de Blasio not want to have New York lead the way in showing this problem can be productively resolved?
A country that refuses to care for the neediest of its brothers and sisters can't very well call itself progressive.
4
In politics, promises are easier to make then to implements. I have written more than one comment on the dangers of over promising without carefully strategizing. Reality has a tendency to shatter dreams. Democrats MUST be careful not to over promise just to appear more progressive. Campaigning is not governing.
Also remember that not every location is the same and what works in one place may be poisonous in another. "Progressive" happens over time, not overnight. Democrats must refrain from promising things that may be in the radar 10-15 years away as if they are around the corner. Promises must be accompanied with implementation strategies.
Most importantly, we must remember that voting should not depend on whether our own ideas made it to the party platform or our desired candidate has won the primary. After all is said and done, we must still stand by our members, our friends, our brothers and sisters and vote for the party. Sitting out the vote at home may be personally satisfying but collectively poisonous.
Vote!
2
NYC is geographically large and diverse, it contains more than Manhattan and Brooklyn progressives. I grew up in a private house in Eastern Queens. Lindsay lost re-election because the streets in Queens weren't plowed during the 1969 blizzard. These are the New Yorkers who elected Giuliani and Bloomberg. Ocasio-Cortez may be hot, but only 13% of registered Democrats cast a ballot in that primary, hardly a referendum of the pulse of ALL New Yorkers.
21
For this Republican, Bill de Blasio is very progressive but for some progressive New Yorkers he is not progressive enough. Because of him, we now have education for children as young as three years old which resulted in higher taxes for all. New York is now the most liberal city in America and only the poor and wealthy are fortunate to reside here.
He promised he would support leftist policies but found out he was not able to keep all his promises. The money had to come from somewhere and many New Yorkers were not willing to support his expensive policies at their expense. He is like so many politicians who promise everything but are not able to deliver. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez will experience this also. People are not pushovers and will not agree to these freebies if it hurts their pocketbooks. These politicians must be realistic but those on the left want to push their liberal agenda at any cost. This is why the Democrats will continue to lose elections even in New York. They must face reality.
13
@WPLMMT: it sometimes seems that the politicians on the far left not only want to push their agenda at any cost, but that they have no idea what the cost is. A balanced budget is a challenge. The recent New Yorker article about Ocasio-Cortez mentioned that she's not really concerned with the idea of how to make her ideas into realistic policies via workable legislation and budgeting. She's simply interested in her very idealized version of the guaranteed jobs, no immigration policy future. I always thought I was a liberal, but see very little reasonable future in the Democratic party right now!
25
@WPLMMT Bravo! I once crunched the cost of Sanders' "free tuition for all" against his projected revenue from a tax on stock transfers and found it off by many tens of billions of dollars. In her book, Clinton talks about how hard it is to tell the electorate what is reasonable to expect vs. pie-in-the-sky promises.
Progress would probably most effectively be commemorated by accomplishment. What has Mayor de Blasio accomplished in his time at the helm of City Hall, except to serve as a reminder that Mike Bloomberg really wasn’t that bad?
22
What is killing New York City?
The Callahan v. Carey consent decree.
Being a ‘sanctuary city’ for nearly one million, that’s 1,000,000, ILLEGAL immigrants. One very strong reason why city apartment rent is so outrageously high, the housing stock so limited, and the subway so crowded.
The grotesqueries of the City paying to hire lawyers to defend ILLEGAL immigrants, who are also criminals, along with their illegal presence within the US, at deportation hearings.
And providing a City ID to make their ILLEGAL status here comfortable and enjoyable; and, of course, enticing for even more illegal immigrants to make the City their US destination target along with the wallet of every US citizen and legal immigrant.
Such actions spit in the face of every US citizen and LEGAL immigrant.
(Some data: They cross the border illegally near their due date then use a fake address in the Bronx, or simply buy a plane ticket to New York City as labor begins and then take a cab from JFK, arrive at a City public hospital in labor (yes, numerous! actual cases) and have their baby on US soil.
Who do you think pays the bill for that $20,000 dollar vaginal delivery inpatient stay. You do, fellow US citizen and legal immigrant. Raise that price tag higher if there are complications.)
What is killing this city? The fanatic ‘progressive’.
Luckily, for those of us who are both moral AND rational, apparently from this article, progressives eat their own.
Hopefully, they will gorge themselves.
21
There is a reason he's known as Di-Blah. He's not fit to shine even Rudi Giuliani's shoes.
10
The Times just can't quit its de Blasio hatefest, can it? He's either too liberal or not liberal enough.
Bring back Perpetually Aggrieved Mayor Mike! We might even get another underused sports stadium, at public expense. And none of this bleeding heart stuff!
6
Calling de Blasio progressive is to not even know the meaning of the word. Comparing him to La Guardia, the most progressive mayor in the city's history, is blasphemous. All I see with de Blasio is rampant, out of control luxury development; the continued loss of middle class; a widening gap between rich and poor; homeless at an all-time high; gentrification destabilizing every neighborhood; population growth with no environmental sustainability (our garbage still goes out on barges and our human waste sits on trains for somewhere else to deal with); decrepit infrastructure; public housing that's toxic to its residents; higher property taxes with no improvement of services; etc. I know he didn't create these problems, but his policies do nothing to curb their momentum. In fact, just the opposite.
A true progressive gets into the guts of the beast, dives down into the gears of the machinery... He's purely superficial. What has he done? UPK? Not bad. But, his answer to school segregation is to meddle with the testing process for a few elite schools? The progressive response would be insisting that all schools in all neighborhoods work for our children. That involves getting into the belly of the beast. All he's doing is giving the beast a new hairstyle. A true progressive also has humility... again, he doesn't even know the word. Major disappointment.
18
@GC: "giving the beast a new hairstyle" unfortunately seems to be the latest tactic of the so-called progressive left when it comes to ameliorating racial discrepancies that they do not like. Instead of fixing the system from the ground up, or acknowledging that a political fix may not be possible, they simply manipulate outcomes to the desired racial mix. We used to call it quotas, I believe.
11
de Blasio got on a lot of people's radar during the first campaign by pledging to end horse rides in Central Park. Anyone else remember that? He got lots of support from animal welfare groups, and he impressed me as someone willing to stand up for a cause.
Then he folded like a cheap suit.
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@Michael Jay It folded because it had no support in the City Council and was opposed by 82% of New Yorkers.
Mayor not nuts enough is a hell of a basis for criticism.
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Let's all admit it - he's a politician and an inept one at that
NYC needs leaders for mayors given the swath of interests and diversity
He takes for granted the tax base which could flip in 10 years if he doesn't watch it.
It is economically irrational to live in NYC for a certain mobile class - and that is everything from young people seeking a career to 50 year olds with kids. It makes no sense - but we do it because of the vibrance, culture and diversity of the city.
There are literally a hundred options OUTSIDE of NYC.
DeBlasio doesn't get it- he's lazy from a decade of Wall Street tax receipts. He takes it for granted that kids move here to start careers or that the tech industry has revitalized lower mid manhattan. He's taking for granted people who pay for private school and yet fund public school- which is dumb, but a great benefit to the city- it's not a well distributed tax base unfortunately.
Affordable housing from the city will never work and it especially won't if the tax base flees for 5 miles.
Options start shrinking big time if the tax base flees and we'll be deciding priorities like clean water vs garbage collection vs the largesse the current bull economy has given to NYC that politicians have squandered to zero effect
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Jeez. Can’t a Progressive warrior catch a break?
So, let me get this straight:
Wholesale housing reform runs Into the mundane reality of providing heat and lead-free living.
Wholesale prison reform runs into the reality that some prisoners are (shockingly) violent to other prisoners.
And last time I checked, de Blasio hadn’t abolished ICE either.
Maybe it’s the Progressive platform that’s a failure and not its corrupt, inept champion currently occupying Gracie Mansion.
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Bill de Blasio is progressive when the cameras are on, not so much when it is time to get the job done. Nor does he have a knack for finding quality people to head his agencies, the kind of people who follow through with the nuts and bolts of enacting initiatives, addressing problems and meeting deadlines. For example, it is three years since he and the schools chancellor promised to investigate the appalling lack of secular instruction in 39 Brooklyn Yeshivas which receive millions of dollars of government support but offer no instruction in Math, Science, Social Studies and English to High School boys. Very little progress on that investigation has been made. NYCHA issues were glaring and apparent for years, but again his administration failed in nearly every way to make progress, including lying to Federal inspectors. Bill's mouth is progressive enough, but he is woefully inept at follow-through.
However, this question is a red herring. The most urgent question does not concern his relative progressive chops, but rather his morality, his corruption, his dereliction of duty and his hypocrisy. He is a major disappointment to progressive New Yorkers.
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In his mind he's progressive. In actuality he's vacuous.
He's lucky that Giuliani and Bloomberg left him a City in decent shape. To his credit he has had the good sense to not mess it up.
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He is so busy trying to make himself into a national figure, he has no time for NYC.
His attitude seems to be "take the money, deny, deny, deny!!!!
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Excuse me, but the streets of NYC are the dirtiest I have seen them in my adult life, it is so so sad to see garbage everywhere and clearly no one cares, no leadership in NYC, so "why should I care either" mentality comes through. Progressive? Hardly.
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Make nice with Cuomo and fix the subways.
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Progressive enough for who? Karl Marx. Put all the extreme positions into full gear and you will have New York City with a crime rate of 1991 and an economic picture of the 70’s. Even the progressive Mayor can see that. Then of course the cry will be, protect us from crime, where did all the jobs go?
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We can do better. Much better.
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People are still being displaced from their homes as developers are still being given 20 year tax abatements..meaning even as they disrupt our neighborhoods, and strain our over burdened mass transit systems, they pay NOTHING into our tax base. I really don't see affordable housing as any priority for his administration.
Speaking of our overburdened mass transit systems... c'mon now!!! How many years more do we have to suffer these conditions before we feel some relief?
Too, deBlasio's habitual lateness in meetings and events feels like disrespect to those awaiting him.
The Pre-K program is good.. so is the aspirations of Vision Zero..although drivers who run down pedestrians or cyclists are almost never charged.
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Since he was first elected, Mayor de Blasio has been more interested in becoming the leader of the Progressive Movement than being the leader of New York City. He apparently has failed in both positions.
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Housing! The rent is too damned high. Mayor Bill needs to do better, much better. For families, in all 5 boroughs.
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Progressive enough for what?
To overcome his incompetence and sleazy financial dealings?
Perhaps rephrase:
He's bad at his job and corrupt, but is he bad and corrupt enough to join Trump administration?
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I would like if he championed the MTA, even though the state runs it.
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Notice how none of deBlasio's initiatives help the middle class New Yorker who is expected to endlessly shell tax dollars for his 'progressive' dreams. Anyone else remember John Lindsay?
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@NYC Taxpayer - other than creating universal pre-K, I'm not sure is initiatives have helped ANYONE. And any educational progress he achieved with the city's 4 year olds, he's now trying to undo with his attempts to ruin the specialized high schools. It always seems to be all about him and his claiming of the progressive and moral high ground, a quality that generally means someone has already forfeited that position, a la Kirsten Gillibrand.
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The Times will never admit that de blasio is not progressive on anything to do with real estate - he is instead in the pocket of Rebny- the same lobby group that buys a special advertising insert section in the Times each quarter. Of course, the same might be said for most New York pols.
His Reaganite trickle-down notion of how to intervene in markets to lower rents cannot work, doesn’t work, and has never been shown to work anywhere in the world. People are sick of the way he lets Rebny destroy neighborhoods in the name of a terrible affordable housing strategy. It is Bloomberg’s luxury city with a fake progressive front.
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Sleepy Boy is going nowhere. His current job (using that word very , very loosely) has always been his stepping stone for another political, non-productive job. Overall, he is very lucky he is not in jail.
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@John sloane "Sleepy Boy is going nowhere."
Really? NY twice voted him mayor, and next will vote him Gov.
"Other promises have also run up against reality." Sorry, they've been dashed by de Blasio's opportunism. de Blaiso was never a progressive or liberal champion, he's a pretender, a guy who defiantly defends his privilege to take luxury SUVs from one borough to another just so he can use his favorite health club while the City becomes impossibly unaffordable, unlivable, and impossible to navigate. De Blasio is a lackey of big money and has been at the center of bribery and corruption scandals.
As if there aren't enough con-men in politics, in de Blaiso we have another. He's more than happy to pay lip-service to any progressive social policy as long as it doesn't cost the wealthy, and particularly his scandalously wealthy real estate donors, a penny. After NYCHA officials' gave sworn testimony before the City Council this past winter that NYCHA tenants were at risk of freezing to death after being in the cold for days on end, di Blasio went to every news outlet he could find and lied, saying the expert testimony was untrue. It was awful and positively Trumpian.
If people fool themselves into believing that narcissistic and corrupt men like de Blasio embody progressive ideals there will never be a way to confront the likes or Trump, or counter the destructiveness of the Republican Party which is fomenting bigotry while decimating the working and middle class. de Blasio stands for nothing, cares for nothing, but himself. He's using us to further his ambition to be president.
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You asked the wrong question. Progressive? Who cares. Competent? Honest? Capable? those are better questions.
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The biggest weakness in de Blasio’s claim to be “progressive” is his “affordable housing” plan. It’s not that different from Bloomberg.
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