Even (some) NYC Council progressives get the madness of ‘Defund the police’
February 12, 2023
NYPD at the scene of a shooting in Manhattan on February 9, 2023.
The City Council’s progressive circus — er, caucus — has fallen apart. Last week, nearly half the members who had proudly called themselves progressives deserted. They now see the progs’ “Defund the police” stance as a political albatross, and they’re right.
The council’s sobering up is also a reminder to the mayor: Any potent challenger in two years will come from the middle, not the left.
Until last week’s exodus, the progressive caucus held two-thirds of the City Council — 34 out of 51 members. Almost everybody wanted to be progressive, or pretend to be, because they feared the left. Close Rikers, stop prosecuting drug sales and shoplifting, forbid landlords from considering whether a potential tenant has a recent violent criminal record — all good.
But the caucus went a step too far. Chairs Shahana Hanif and Lincoln Restler of Brooklyn wanted members to sign a new loyalty pledge, including this statement: “We will do everything we can to reduce the size and scope of the NYPD and the Department of Correction.”
What does this even mean? Taken literally, it would involve the council just zeroing out the police and corrections budgets — immediately.
Hollowness aside, the statement enshrines “Defund the police” in black and white — something more than a dozen moderates and liberals couldn’t abide.
The caucus quitters are diverse.
Councilwoman Diana Ayala left the Progressive Caucus over its “Defund the police” stance.
Selvena Brooks-Powers represents working-and middle-class black neighborhoods in Queens; Diana Ayala represents parts of Harlem and the South Bronx. Their wariness in being associated with “Defund” points up the city’s political reality: Black and Hispanic New Yorkers are fearful of violent crime and not reflexively anti-police.
Most surprising, however, is the mass defection of the councilmembers who cover much of Manhattan: Erik Bottcher, Gale Brewer and Shaun Abreu from Greenwich Village through the Upper West Side to Washington Heights and Keith Powers and Julie Menin from Stuyvesant Town to the Upper East Side.
These are places where voters think of themselves as liberal and, you might even say, progressive. But core Manhattan has also been ground zero for the explosion of disorder and violence over the past three years.
Upper West Side and Hell’s Kitchen parents are aghast at the dozens of pot shops using cartoon characters to market to kids. Times Square last week had another fatal street shooting, at rush hour on 8th Avenue and 44th Street. Drug dealers apparently killed the 22-year-old victim, Idrissa Siby.
Suddenly, the people who make up a big chunk of voters in these districts have stopped being virtuously liberal. They’ve started saying to themselves: You know what, I’m not a bad person for wanting to stop mass shoplifting so that we can keep at least one drugstore open around here.
A Quinnipiac poll this month found that 53% of Manhattan voters consider crime to a “very serious” problem, up from 21% in 2017.
Their council reps, well attuned to their constituents’ interests, are just following this about-face. Council members are up for re-election this year because of redistricting — and it’s not that hard for a moderate challenger to harvest votes from a dissatisfied populace.
The dissolution of the progressive caucus has implications for the mayor, as well — which could be good or bad.
On the plus side, affluent Manhattan was not Eric Adams’ constituency in 2021. Manhattan mostly voted for Kathryn Garcia, who essentially ran on nonideological competence, and for progressive Maya Wiley.
If Adams can deliver on crime and disorder, he’ll pick up votes in Manhattan next time around.
Even Manhattan’s Gale Brewer split with the progressives over the “defund” pledge.
On the minus side, if Adams can’t deliver on crime and disorder, he’ll prove vulnerable to a candidate who sounds a lot like, well, him: tough on crime.
And so far, he’s not. Through Feb. 5, felony crime in core Manhattan is up 11.6% from last year and 27.5% over the pre-pandemic 2019 number. Citywide, New York has lost 15 years of progress, with felonies back to 2006 levels. Don’t even ask about misdemeanors.
So 52% of Manhattanites disapprove of Adams’ performance on crime, not far off the 57% disapproval rate citywide. In 2017, only 28% of Manhattanites disapproved of Mayor Bill de Blasio’s handling of crime (because back then, crime was near record lows).
As their councilmembers know, Manhattan voters want to regress, back to 2019, so that they can go back to pretending to be left-wing liberals.
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