Breitbart - The Most Dangerous Man in New York
Bill De Blasio: The Most Dangerous Man In New York City
by David Webb and Thomas J. Basile
29 Aug 2013
When people think about New York City, they think about America –the great melting pot, center of innovation, communication, arts and finance. Many also think about true blue Democratic politics going back to the days of Tammany Hall and a chicken in every pot. Fact is no registered Democrat has won City Hall in the Big Apple since 1989. The results speak for themselves. Republican leadership, or at the very least more conservative, pragmatic decision-making over the last twenty years have turned the city once insolvent and perceived as ungovernable into the Capital of the World once again.
If the silent majority doesn’t mobilize, this year’s mayoral election may turn the city so sharply to the left, there could be national consequences. Should the numbers hold, a Quinnipiac University poll released yesterday may give New Yorkers a glimpse into a very different future than their recent past. Bill de Blasio, the most progressive candidate in the race is nearing the 40 percent mark in his crowded field of rather undistinguished Democrat rivals. He should be considered the most dangerous man in New York.
Bill de Blasio isn't dangerous just because he believes that government is the solution. He's dangerous because he's under the mistaken impression, like most progressives, that New York or any place for that matter, will be stronger if he divides the city onto itself. His theme of “Two New Yorks” is eerily similar to the “Two Americas” rhetoric we’ve heard from the Obama machine. It's the same leftist, us versus them mindset that reduced the city to an unlivable, burned-out, bankrupt shell of its former self back in the mid 70’s. It can happen again.
With an Obama-like discipline and focus, de Blasio has become the champion of division. Class warfare rhetoric is the norm at his campaign stops along with promising tax hikes for the so-called wealthy, tax hikes on businesses, an end to incentives for corporations and massive government spending when the city already has billions in unfunded obligations. He’s following the typical playbook of promising everything to everyone, especially his backers in the public employee unions and the giant among them the SEIU. He’s for throwing out Stop-and-Frisk, thinks the Feds should monitor the NYPD and wants to raise taxes to pay for universal pre-K as a way to somehow fix the city’s floundering public school system.
He’s surrounded by celebrity endorsements. No, not Oprah, but washed up celebrity hacks like Susan Sarandon, Harry Belafonte, and Cynthia Nixon of “Sex in the City” fame. It literally is the Obama-nization of the Big Apple.
Even New York’s newspapers, in a rare demonstration of unity and common sense, endorsed de Blasio rival Christine Quinn. When you’re too liberal for the New York Times, alarm bells have to start ringing.
His ascent to the general election appears inevitable because he’s managed to tell white liberals what they want to hear, pander to unions, appeal to black voters with greater ease than the only black candidate in the race, Bill Thompson, and use class warfare rhetoric to grab a segment of the city’s struggling middle class. He’s benefitted from the fall of the demented Anthony Weiner and the city’s embattled comptroller John Liu while using the Obama message arc to craft a voter coalition for himself that all of his rivals lack including Christine Quinn.
Over the last twenty years, New Yorkers have proven to be a lot smarter than the Democrat politicians thought they were. They’ve demonstrated that by electing more centrist and more independent minded candidates like Giuliani and Bloomberg.
Over the next ten weeks, the city that never sleeps must wake up and understand that division, being anti-business and being in the pocket of the public employee unions are not correct answers. If New York’s mayor sounds more like an Occupy Wall Streeter than a leader with a pro-growth vision for every New Yorker, the renaissance we witnessed in Gotham will come to an end. London will replace New York as the world financial capital, thousands of jobs will be lost to other more affordable places, billions in revenue will leave the city – and perhaps the country and we will see an exodus of not only the successful but the middle class.
Picture Detroit with bigger buildings and the worst example of government failure in the nation’s history at the hands of another radical progressive.
Co-authored by Thomas J. Basile, Breitbart Contributor and political commentator. Follow him on twitter @TJBasile.