Monday, June 21, 2021

Man In The Gutter



On June 8, 2021, I wrote lthat Eric Adams, former NYPD captain and current Brooklyn Borough President and leading candidate for the Democratic nomination for mayor of New York City, understood one important issue better than did any other candidate.

"Stop and frisk," Adams explained, was originally implemented to remove illegal firearms from the streets of New York, but went awry when police used it increasingly to arrest individuals for illegal possession of drugs, which usually was marijuana.

The GOP likes firearms in as many hands as possible. The Democratic Party lives in the fear that it will have to admit that much crime is not mass shootings committed by mentally ill or bigoted whites but ordinary street crime committed by whites, blacks, and all manner of bad individuals. Therefore, a Democrat or a Republican prioritizing confiscation of illegal handguns is all to rare, and worthy of consideration for the most difficult governmental job in the nation. Usually.

Some say the presidency is the most hardest job. However, Donald Trump somehow served four years as President (Ronald Reagan eight years). And speaking of the Chosen One:

During an Easter Sunday visit to the Church of God of East Flatbush, Mr. Adams cited a biblical passage that describes a test of courage under duress.

“I believe in all my heart that this is an Esther 4:14 moment,” Mr. Adams, 60, told the parishioners. “God made me for such a time as this.”

Imagine questioning a policy or statement of a Mayor Adams, and being accused of criticizing God. By contrast, two of the other candidates, Andrew Yang and Kathryn Garcia, in what has shaped up as a four-person race

joined forces this weekend to urge voters to list Ms. Garcia second on their ranked-choice ballots and to say that Mr. Adams should not be mayor. Ms. Garcia did not suggest that her supporters rank Mr. Yang second.

Mr. Adams and some of his supporters have characterized the alliance as a bid to disenfranchise Black voters. On Sunday, Mr. Adams said that it was disrespectful for the candidates to unveil their alliance on Juneteenth.

“While we were celebrating liberation and freedom from enslavement, they sent a message and I thought it was the wrong message to send,” Mr. Adams said Sunday.

Speaking on CNN’s “New Day” and Fox 5’s “Good Day New York,” Mr. Adams continued to talk about the joint campaigning as disrespectful to efforts to elect Black and Latino leaders.

“What message were you sending during this time that we’re talking about how do you empower various ethnic groups in politics?” Mr. Adams asked on CNN.

Another Black candidate for mayor, Maya Wiley, said she did not see any problem with the alliance between Mr. Yang and Ms. Garcia, acknowledging that such coordination often happens in ranked-choice elections.

On Fox, Mr. Adams argued that the alliance “feeds into the signals of America.”

“We know America’s dark past,” he said. “Everything from poll taxes to how we stop the vote, what we are seeing across the country.”

 However, another black primary candidate, Maya Wiley

said she did not see any problem with the alliance between Mr. Yang and Ms. Garcia, acknowledging that such coordination often happens in ranked-choice elections. “I’m not calling this racism,” she said Monday morning.

Wiley's statement was classy. The quasi-coalition between Garcia and Yang also is classy, at least on the part of Yang, who evidently expressed a generosity of spirit uncommon in politicians. Then there is Adams, who is little more than an egomaniacal, race-baiting bigot.

 

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