After seven years under the dual tyrannies of Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Mayor Bill de Blasio, whoever replaces the oafish communist running New York City into the ground will have a Herculean task ahead of them to salvage the city.
To the conservative or evenly tepidly liberal New Yorker, the last year alone of unilateral Democratic control over the Big Apple resulting in the second-highest coronavirus death rate per capita in the nation and the financial ruin of the global financial center would be reason enough to give a Republican a chance at running City Hall. But considering that de Blasio beat Nicole Malliotakis, now the congresswoman-elect of the district covering all of Staten Island and part of southern Brooklyn, by nearly 40 points three years ago, New Yorkers of all political stripes have a vested interest in the Democratic primary for next year’s mayoral contest. That leaves one obvious and viable candidate to support: Andrew Yang.
Just two years ago, Yang was a virtual nobody, the technocratic businessman whose quixotic bid for the Democratic presidential nomination was described by the New York Times as a “longer-than-long” shot. Yet, with a forward-thinking message about automation and a meticulously detailed agenda featuring a universal basic income and nuclear energy development, Yang’s enthusiastic base and shockingly resilient polling allowed him to outlast three senators, three governors, five representatives, and two mayors in the primary. He became a high-profile campaign surrogate for Joe Biden and is currently camping out in Georgia to fight for two crucial Senate seats. But given that Yang’s party loyalty doesn’t seem to be resulting in an appointment to the Biden administration, the question of what’s next for Yang leads to the one obvious option he’s reportedly committing to.
The native New Yorker is about to formalize his stature as the front-runner of the New York City mayoral race, reportedly telling sources that he will file with the New York City Campaign Finance Board this week. Multiple polls give Yang a narrow lead over Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams and both a substantial one over the rest of the pack.
This should come as incredible news to anyone two inches to the right of Elizabeth Warren, as Yang is the solutions, not ideologically, oriented technocrat a high-spending city needs to grow economically and reorganize out of a government-manufactured crisis.
Even if you would detest Yang’s plans on a national level, Yang has the right priorities for New York.
New York City suffers from a number of problems, but those most immediately ailing it can be summarized as taxes and shutdowns chasing the rich, that means the tax base, out of town. Additionally, the city has limited housing development, leading to high equilibrium housing prices and high unemployment thanks to lockdowns. The lockdowns have also led to questions about the long-term viability of major city industries such as restaurants and Broadway. The conservative sensibility would also point to the city’s lawlessness as a major issue, and even on that, Yang seems promising.
Yang hasn’t released a new slate of plans as they pertain to the city in particular, but if we use his presidential agenda and recent public statements as any indicator, Yang is the only viable candidate in the race with somewhat workable solutions to at least ameliorate the problems.
For starters, Yang’s embrace of a value-added tax could allow the city to reduce its income taxes, some of the highest in the nation, to encourage savings and not force the city’s tax base to fund social services very few have access to. More important are the two points the socialist magazine Jacobin has used to oppose Yang: that he’s both pro-business and pro-cop.
Yang is an ardent YIMBYist, and by liberating hamstrung areas of the city from restrictive zoning laws, high-capacity housing could make rents cheaper for everyone. Yang’s close association with strategists from Michael Bloomberg’s successful mayoral runs also signals that he’ll be a realist on crime, a relief to the millions of New Yorkers who watched peaceful protests devolve into violent rioting and looting over the summer.
And if you believe that black lives matter, then bringing back a Bloomberg and Rudy Giuliani-minded mayor on law enforcement ought to be a priority for you. As I noted back in the height of the riots, every single person shot in NYC in July was nonwhite, and 97% of the city’s shooting victims in June were minorities.
Furthermore, Yang is no lockdown loyalist. He’s interviewed economist Emily Oster on his podcast, during which she made an impassioned case for reopening schools, and Yang has defied Democratic leadership in supporting increased Paycheck Protection Program spending to salvage struggling businesses.
Most crucially, Yang isn’t beholden to Marxism, wokeness, or any of the ideological nonsense that has tied New York politics to economic suicide and educational rot. Sure, no conservative will align with Yang’s positions on some social issues, but if that relatively mild compromise, given the reality of the situation, means the conservative, centrist, or even sane New Yorker can send their child to a school that teaches more STEM classes than critical race theory, open their businesses and trust that the police will ensure it won’t be looted, and maintain a tax base capable of funding the greatest city in the world, it’s a fair one to make.
Yang isn’t perfect, but he can win in a Democratic primary, and of those who can, he’s the one who can reverse the destruction done by the bozo from Brooklyn.
