There has been a transit of power in New York as a result of the November elections
After two mayoral terms, Bill de Blasio resigned. His reign will be remembered for the dramatic rise in the municipal nomenclature and the permanent municipal crises – sometimes with sewers or uncollectable rubbish (as its disposal market was monopolized), then with the death of pensioners in nursing homes, or the spread of street crime.
Di Blasio’s constant conflicts with the city police, exacerbated by his family’s corruption scandals, coupled with measures to downsize law enforcement, have hit the city’s security hard. Violent crime rates went through the roof, with shootings more than doubling in two years and murder rates jumping to a multi-year high.
The “law and order” agenda was the hottest issue in this year’s elections, eclipsing even the pandemic. Unsurprisingly, former Brooklyn police chief Eric Adams won. His win caused real confusion among the liberal wing of the Democratic Party. New York’s choice of a moderate Democrat after the left-wing Di Blasio struck them as an example of ideological “regression”.
Tellingly, immediately after his inauguration Adams called the police right under the cameras to report a street attack. Such a ridiculous political technique was apparently meant to show the combative attitude of the new government. But it rather pointed once again to the catastrophic situation of urban crime – when even the mayor, upon leaving the town hall, immediately witnesses an attack.
At the inauguration itself Adams tried to manoeuvre between many interest groups among the Democrats, promising at the same time to fight crime, protect civil rights, defeat the pandemic and not impose new quarantines. Although the municipal schools were closed again anyway.
For their part, the Liberal Democrats defiantly ignored Adams’ assumption of office. Ocasio-Cortez went on holiday. Ironically, though, she chose not her native Puerto Rico or Democratic California but right-wing Florida. For which she was thoroughly ridiculed on social networks – Democrats love to tear down the foundations of Florida, but for some reason they want to go there themselves.
The main idea voiced by the new mayor of New York is that the city still has a chance for renaissance. Let the people flood out of it (it lost more inhabitants than any other state in America), the quality of life rapidly declines, and crime flourishes. So far, though, the rhetoric seems like a desperate attempt to use half-measures to slow down the rapid decline of New York.
Malek Dudakov