This week, NYC elected it’s first true Democrat in two decades, and I’m happy to welcome Bill de Blasio to the office of mayor. NYC is one of the wealthiest cities in the world but it’s one that desperately needs new ideas and more opportunities for its millions of poor residents. And it became clear that Bloomberg really didn’t care about any of that.
Yes, I love the guy’s ban on smoking. It made it to where you could actually go to a bar or restaurant and not smell like death by the time you came out of there. Yes, I think his stance on trans fats made it easier to stay healthy in NYC than just about any other place I’ve lived. But lets take a look at the negatives…
5. He’s a billionaire and the richest resident in the state of New York and the Mayor of the country’s most populated city. There’s just something wrong with that to me. And it’s especially wrong for said billionaire to make his money through a media-empire to spin the message in his direction.
4. Said that his successor Bill de Blasio having a black wife and interracial family actually helped him in the race. What a buffoon! Anyone who knows what they’re talking about knows that interracial families (true ones, not adopting kids from a different background but having a white wife, although Bush did use it to smear John McCain) face a steep battle in the war of public perception and especially elected office. Put simply, do you really think Barack Obama would be president of the United States if he’d married a white woman? Because I really doubt it. Mayor-elect de Blasio won because Anthony Weiner (finally) imploded and his departure from the race allowed the anti-Quinn vote to rally around one candidate.
3. An adamant defender of Stop and Frisk, a policy that may not even be effective but is definitely racist. Black and hispanic men in the world’s most racially diverse city feel harassed and intimidated for just walking down the street, despite NYC usually being listed as the safest big city in America, and one of the safest mega-cities in the world.
2. The man rigged the city council to pass new rules that allowed him to serve a third term as mayor. The mayor’s office in NYC was supposedly to last for two terms only (even Saint Rudy only served for eight years and then let it go) but he had new legislation passed so he could stay there for twelve years. If this were a third world leader doing the same thing, wouldn’t we be threatening sanctions against him?
1. I know it’s been said a million times, but Bloomberg is a mayor for the rich, by the rich. He let his privileged background drive every one of his policies, and the city’s poor into the ground. The income gap is through the roof, and opportunities for even middle-class residents are slim. [Bloomberg was terrible for the unions, the largest supplier of middle-class jobs.] He shrugs this label off, but of course he would. His “protect the rich” sensibilities apply to himself too.
Bonus Reason: I also hate the way he’s bad-mouthed Bill de Blasio to anyone who’ll listen (have some professionalism or objectivity for your replacement and go out with some class). I particularly take offense to this “he’ll plunge NYC back to the 70’s” line of logic he keeps peddling because, of course, the Democratic Party of today is a lot different than the “corrupt, boss-tweed, big-city Mayor” image of the 70’s. Yes, Rudy Guilani (not Bloomberg) was tough on crime back in the 90’s and made the city safer for tourists, no question, but this was the Clinton-era when crime was down all over and Democrats weren’t particularly soft on it either. It’s misleading to not consider national trends of economic boom-times and downward crime as being just as helpful for the time a Republican took office as the Republicans themselves.