The nightmare reign of hardcore Leftist Mayor Bill de Blasio is staggering to a close in the sinkhole of high crime, Marxist lunacy, and enforced apartheid via vaccine mandates. It was not all that long ago that New York was the greatest city on earth, but the remaining residents of that city may not yet have endured their last humiliation, indignity, and government-enforced highway robbery at the hands of Comrade Bill. Instead of going off to a comfortable retirement in Havana or Caracas, Red Bill is planning to take his Marxist clown show to Albany; yes, he is planning to run for governor of New York in 2022.
Haven’t New Yorkers suffered enough? Nah. They love the political perspective that de Blasio represents. If he were running for another term as mayor, he would likely win. If he is elected governor, which is well within the realm of possibility, he will succeed Kathy Hochul, who has proclaimed that the unvaccinated “aren’t listening to God and what God wants,” and done what she apparently thinks is God’s work by firing large numbers of frontline healthcare workers who wouldn’t comply with her vaccine mandate. Hochul in turn succeeded Andrew Cuomo, whose COVID-19 policies notoriously led to thousands of deaths. Cuomo was forced to resign not for lying about and covering up the number of deaths his policies had caused but because of spiraling accusations of sexual harassment.
In that company, de Blasio fits right in. And he knows it. He knows that a candidate who called for individual freedom, free enterprise, low taxes, and other sane policies wouldn’t have a chance. But stultifying government regulations, skyrocketing tax rates, the aggravation of racial divisions, and ever more intrusion into citizens’ private lives? In New York today that sounds like a winning formula.
And so on Wednesday, according to Politico, de Blasio “finalized forms to establish a candidate committee with the state Board of Elections. He is calling it ‘New Yorkers for a Fair Future.’” This is the standard Leftist premise: the past and present have been unfair to “marginalized” groups, and now those groups are going to enjoy some privilege. Comrade Bill is running on straight socialism and government control: “His longtime friend and adviser Peter Ragone is overseeing the nascent operation, reasoning that de Blasio has a loyal base of Black and Latino voters throughout the city who will be persuaded by his record of launching universal pre-kindergarten and shepherding New York through COVID-19.” I.e., free stuff and more government.
De Blasio is, for all intents and purposes, a genuine Marxist and is unapologetic and relatively open about that fact. Late last year, he aroused controversy when Fox News reported that he had called for redistribution of wealth. In response, he doubled down: “I’m going to say it one more time in case Fox News is watching again: ‘NYC mayor sees the redistribution of wealth as an important factor toward ending structural racism in education.’” In line with that, he has done a great deal to gut New York City, and now it’s time to move on to bigger things.
Related: The Cost of Communism: ‘Comrade de Blasio’ Has Gutted the Big Apple
As he launched his committee, de Blasio offered an echo of Biden’s “Build Back Better” slogan: “We need to look ahead; we need to build something new; we need to build something better. The better question is, when will we reach our greater glory? And let’s do that together.” Underlying this boilerplate are bedrock hard-Left assumptions: “history” is moving in the direction of collectivism and socialism, which is why they call themselves “progressives.” Their victory and the implementation of their entire program is, they believe, inevitable in the long run. And so “together” we must destroy old institutions and practices and build something new that will inevitably “progress” toward the goal of full socialism.
New Yorkers need him, says Red Bill, presumably to help them make this “progress.” If you thought New York was already collectivist and restrictive enough, you were wrong: de Blasio says he will use “New Yorkers for a Fair Future” as “a vehicle…to get the message out about things we need to do differently in New York City and New York State.” He added: “There’s a lot of things that need to be fixed in Albany.”
Yes, there are, but there is absolutely zero chance that a Governor Bill de Blasio would do anything but make all of them much, much worse than they are today. And he may well get his chance. “I’m really looking forward to getting into this bigger discussion about where this state is going,” de Blasio said. That should worry every New Yorker. But it won’t.
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