One of the most prominent left-wing magazines in the United States on Friday denounced New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, whose candidacy the publication endorsed in 2013.
You know what they say — “Better late than never.”
“Bill de Blasio Broke His Promise to New York,” reads the headline to The Nation’s anti-de Blasio editorial. “The mayor’s retreat on police reform is a wound that won’t heal.”
“Seven summers ago,” it starts, “when Donald Trump was still a punch line and the biggest scandal rocking the political world was Anthony Weiner’s stunning act of auto-destruction, New York City seemed to be on the cusp of a new era.”
“Bill de Blasio was, in some respects, an unlikely champion — a liberal, not a lion — but he spoke of the city’s pain in words both moving and resonant.”
Alas, the editors bemoan, their faith in de Blasio clearly was misplaced.
“Seven years later, de Blasio has … failed spectacularly in recent weeks as tens of thousands of people came out to protest the murder of George Floyd and countless other black people — and were met by the pepper spray and batons of de Blasio’s police department,” they said.
They add, “For those who believed de Blasio’s 2013 promises — for those to whom those promises were made — his response to the most vital racial justice uprising in decades has been a stunning betrayal.”
That is not all. The editorial continues for quite a bit, listing off one broken promise after another.
“[W]hat has made the betrayal of the past few weeks so bitter is that it’s not new,” they write. “It’s merely the latest in a long line of disappointments that began even before de Blasio took office. … As de Blasio is perhaps learning, it’s a dangerous thing to campaign on the promise of progressive change and then fail to follow through.”
We have come a long way since 2013, back when The Nation said of then-candidate de Blasio, “the city’s current public advocate,” that he was the only person who offered a bold and progressive vision for New York City.
“[H]is commitment to reimagining the city in boldly progressive, egalitarian terms is the reason we are endorsing him for mayor,” the editors wrote.
Congratulations, The Nation. You just discovered (seven years after the fact) what most of us understood almost immediately when de Blasio first ran for mayor: that he is incompetent, unrealistic, and, worst of all, an all-talk activist. There is a reason why de Blasio was hands-down the most-hated of all the 2020 Democratic presidential candidates.
