It’s not a matter of what you want in politics.
It’s a matter of how you deal with what you get.
We must accept two realities that exist today and will for years to come:
The first is that we have lost at least one complete generation of young people to a deplorable system of education which stopped working years ago and has not completely and successfully changed and significantly improved.
This is a national problem but one that certainly exists in New York City and State – and has for years.
The second reality is that there is an order of things that makes room for generation after generation. When that generation is incapable of solid, logical thought, the nation suffers until those with ability are found and recruited to take up the slack.
When that happens there is hope that with patience and understanding, good will follow.
When that does not happen there is Williamsburg in Brooklyn as an example of what simple and sincere ignorance can produce. The Dutch landed in Williamsburg not in lower Manhattan and for years Brooklyn was a city on its own.
It has taken fifty years for the redevelopment of that section of Brooklyn and today high-end retail businesses that used to be on Madison Avenue are locating in Williamsburg along with very expensive glass and steel condos perched right on the East Riverfront.
The political and government leadership of that borough and that section of the borough is young – millennial-age and sadly is a perfect example of what uneducated ignorance can produce.
Few of the government officeholders there majored in history, political science, civics or business. They hold office nonetheless because young people like them have crowded into the area, are unable to afford apartments but are able to rent rooms in apartments.
While they do not as yet outnumber the older residents who own homes and cars and have lived in that community since arriving from Europe years ago, they are the only group running for office and so have managed to take control of the community.
Because bikes are their main form of transportation, they do their best to close streets and eliminate auto traffic. There are long lines of City Bikes on street corner after street corner.
Although Mayor Eric Adams had originally fought back against turning McGuiness Blvd, their three lane major commercial avenue, into a one lane road with room for parking and outsize bike lanes, he gave in and now a main artery which connects Brooklyn and Queens to Manhattan with the help of two bridges is a single lane nightmare.
That disaster is compounded by new traffic rules so badly designed that one street has become a cause for so many accidental deaths that Adams stepped in and rearranged it.
Common sense? Impossible from people who do not know what they do not know. They are without the knowledge and the learned ability to think problems through to logical conclusions.
Another millennial has become a citywide example of preposterous thinking with ideas about freezing rents for rent stabilized apartments and developing grocery stores run by the City of New York to help it become an affordable city.
It is no surprise that Democratic Socialists AOC and Bernie Sanders have endorsed Mr. Mamdani. They know better – at least he does – but couldn’t care less. Bernie may have simply forgotten that he was raised and educated in Brooklyn.
MOVING TO THE LEFT
In that regard it became a centrist force working with both parties to achieve essentially honest liberal government based on working for opportunity, freedom and justice for all.
The meaning underlying liberalism was that only government was strong and rich enough to hold off the negative consequences of a capitalist economy in which money and those who possessed it, had overwhelming power and influence.
It is no accident that only 10% of the people in this country own 90% of the country itself.
Deciding to limit its activities to New York State, the Liberal Party immediately limited its power to influence the country and to join with such progressive powers as the Farmer Labor Party in Minnesota.
The Liberal Party, working with liberal, honest politicians in the Democratic Party and to openly liberal Republicans such as Bill Green, Jack Javits and John Lindsay, rid the city of Tammany Hall, until then the obvious reason Democratic Party politics were dirty. That reality didn’t last long and certainly does not exist today.
He believed instead that the Democratic Party needed a vocal and organized left to push it towards liberal government policies and formed an organization he called Democratic Socialists of America.
It was never a political party…just an organization.
Sadly, Prof Harrington, whose book about The Other America became the template for Lyndon Johnson’s War on Poverty, was stricken with cancer and passed away before he could truly influence the organization he had formed.
Until the arrival of Bernie Sanders in the Senate, who called himself a Democratic Socialist for the first time in his political career in Vermont, no one had ever heard of it.
And then several years ago, a northern Westchester bartender, ran for Congress in Queens as a Democratic Socialist. She was going into the Democratic primary against longtime Congressman, Joe Crowley.
Mr. Crowley at the time, was influencing NY City Council elections and trying to oust Nancy Pelosi as Speaker of the House. He did not bother to return to Maspeth, Queens to run against Alexandria Ocasio Cortez and she defeated him.
And now, Mr. Mamdani is running as a Democratic Socialist with support from the Working Families Party.
Dinkins who first won and then lost to Republican Rudolph Giuliani who had the total support of the Liberal Party, was angry with the party and devoted himself to helping make the WFP a replacement liberal organization much further left wing than the Liberal Party had become.
He and they succeeded. And until recent years the WFP had a great deal of support from the Democratic left. The Democratic Socialists seem to be vying with the WFP – but they are an organization, not a political party free from the expectations of a party.
THE MAYOR’S RACE
Facing a line-up of eleven Democratic contestants, the New York Times decided months ago to not endorse a candidate in this upcoming Democratic primary.
It is simple to agree with the fact that neither Mr. Mamdani nor Republican nominee, radio host Curtis Sliwa have anything close to the experience necessary to run New York City.
The primary leader in projected votes and money raised right from the beginning is former Governor Andrew Cuomo.
Mr. Cuomo is the oldest man ever to run for the Mayoralty in New York.
Only Jerry Brown in California became a Mayor after serving as Governor. The jobs are Very Very different and call for a very different involvement in city politics day after day. There is no sleeping late in the Governor’s Mansion or hiding in a Golf club. Does Andrew Cuomo have a clue? Don’t bet on it.
The Liberal Party supported Mario Cuomo in his race for Mayor against Ed Koch. Mr. Koch was successful. When they ran against each other again for Governor the party again supported Cuomo and this time he won
The Liberal Party then developed a “difficult” relationship with Mr. Cuomo.
Gov. Cuomo, a tough guy, decided to bounce Mr. Harding from his position as Liberal Party Vice Chairman. He sent Andrew to arrange it. They succeeded and for five years Harding struggled to regain his position – eventually doing so.
And yet despite the history and the bad feelings, Harding chose to support Andrew Cuomo’s first attempt to become Governor using that support during the primary contest between Andrew and then Comptroller, Carl McCall.
Listening to the still angry David Dinkins, McCall whose vote on the Liberal line won him the Comptroller’s position, decided to ignore the Liberal Party support for Governor and Harding turned to Andrew Cuomo.
Harding was informed prior to the official Liberal Party designation of Cuomo as its candidate for Governor, that Andrew was going to quit the race before Primary Day at the urging of the city’s Black leadership at the time – Dinkins, Charles Rangel, Basil Patterson and Percy Sutton. They had pledged their support of him from that day forward if he stepped away to let McCall, the first Black candidate for Governor run against sitting Governor, Republican George Pataki, without a primary struggle.
While both Cuomo and Harding hotly argued that the information was incorrect, Cuomo did quit the race one month before Primary day and after the Liberal Party could have dropped him as its candidate and selected someone else.
We can understand why Mr. Cuomo wants to be Mayor of New York. But we see no reason why New Yorkers should trust his ability to be a Mayor and deal with the many problems in the “street” that a NYC Mayor must handle.
He has absolutely no experience in that kind of leadership position. None.
Brad Lander? Comptrollers generally know enough about the business of New York to handle it.
But here’s a hard truth: None of the candidates have spoken at length about what will make the Police stronger and more effective or what will finally happen to start educating our kids.
As for the Police, then Mayor Bill DeBlasio never defunded the Police….what he did do was cancel a cadet class coming in and with the assistance of the City Council and State Government, removed each Policeman’s state of immunity so that any citizen can personally sue any Policeman for whatever reason.
New York’s Police no longer “protect and serve” …instead they hide and then capture after a crime has been committed.
One sees traffic cops, not Police protection driving our streets and walking their beats.
More cops without this critical change is meaningless. No candidate has mentioned a word of this.
There is nothing said about education changes at all.
How our media handles these issues and the silence about them or rather ignores them entirely, is meat for another analytical meal.