Make no mistake. The ascension of Eric Adams to the most powerful position in the nation’s greatest city represents a whole lot more than just the success of another black Democrat. In fact, his victory over a bevy of conventional urban progressives in overwhelmingly liberal New York City may well come to be seen as a watershed moment for the left, a time of choosing. Will the national Democratic Party, presently in the thrall of its outspoken progressive caucus, see the wisdom in Adams’ victorious pledge to return his city to safety through aggressive law enforcement? Or will it continue on its merry way, oblivious to sinking approval for its disgraced anti-police blueprint? Will it embrace, or at least accept, Adams’ hardscrabble realism as he attempts to pick through the rubble left by his universally condemned predecessor Bill de Blasio, a stereotypical progressive?
But before Democrats decide on whether to position themselves to win elections, or continue with policies that only they believe to be virtuous, they will first need to process the abject failure of their present political decadence disguised as social welfare. AOC-style progressive deconstructionists are about to meet with the reality that, as Nelson Rockefeller once proclaimed in assuming the governorship of New York, their days of wine and roses are over. You can see it in their collapsing approval, their repudiation at the ballot box, and in the quiet sotto voce refunding of police taking place in cities that wore their insane defunding schemes on their bloodstained sleeves – and conscience – throughout the 2020 summer from hell. A child of three can plainly see that the national urban crime wave was spawned by progressives encouraging and justifying lawlessness – perversely typified by their mind-bending assertion that the violent mobs incited by their hate-filled depiction of the country did not have to wear masks like everyone else, due to the righteousness of their cause.
But as detached from reality as this movement has become, we inhabit a nation with a famously short attention span and wildly changing preferences: We went from George Bush to Barack Obama to Donald Trump to Joe Biden. Need we say more? Democrats in general and progressives in particular have the opportunity granted by Adams’ successful campaign – and, it is hoped, his administration – to rebrand themselves. They can turn down the volume on their shrill progressive voice and posture as sensible liberals intent on winning back the hearts of blue-collar America. And, of course, they can certainly, as always, count on big media to faithfully transmit whatever message they believe will allow them to sidestep a potential tsunami headed their way in this year’s midterms.
Eric Adams (Photo by Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)
Progressives must accept, much to their chagrin, that they have the ability to win individual overwhelmingly Democratic congressional districts but not states. As long as party leadership allows them to continue dominating the Democratic agenda, at the expense of centrist policies and approval in the heart of the nation, the party will continue to suffer untold damage to a brand already flagging badly under the weight of a failed presidency and radical agenda.
The choice could hardly be more clear. Adams is the answer to what ails Democrats across the land. But are they so blind and so limited by one-step thinking that they cannot understand that which is right before their eyes? Do they even realize, not to mention accept, how their ignominious behavior over the last 18 months is indelibly imprinted on the minds of normal, everyday Americans? It’s up to Democrats. They can either change their ways, bow to reality, and embrace the platform that spelled victory for the freshly inaugurated New York mayor, or reject it and carry on with their progressive path of destruction at their great peril.
~ Read more from Tim Donner.
