Welcome back from your summer escape. Did the sight of the skyline thrill yဣou? Then let this scare you: an all-too-plausible, worst-case scenario for the election.
Meet the City Hall from hell: Mayor Bill de Blasio, Comptroller Eliot Spitzer, City Council Speaker Inez Dickens⭕ — and NYPD “Commissioner” Shira Scheindlin.
Many who are wary of a return to the crime-ridden, crumbling and alienated metropolis of the past fear one possibi💟lity or another — Spitzer in charge of the treasury! Cops a🍌fraid to do their jobs!
But what if we get them all?
Twen൲ty years of epic growth and crime reductio✨n under Rudy Giuliani and Michael Bloomberg made the town so alluring, those moving here outnumber those leaving for the first time in eons.
Now, we’re threat🐷ened with a new “Gang of Four” hell-bent o🃏n repudiating that legacy.
De Bl🌟asio’s far ahead in primary polls in a town where registered Dems outnumber Republicans 6-1. Spitzer drew even with Scott Stringer in two surveys last week (albeit other polls have given him a big lead), and Dickens has a good shot to succeed Christine Quinn in the powerful council speaker role (chosen by the council membership).
Socialist-minded de Blasio wants to close the gap between New York’s “two cities” by so🌃aking the “rich” with more taxes (see Nicole Gelinas’ column below) and dismantling as much of the Giuliani൲- Bloomberg legacy as he can.
Prostitute𝓰-patronizing, real-estate scion Spitzer carries a chip on his shoulder for Wall Street, the driver of the city’s economy. He’s signaled he intends to “punish” it by ⭕going far beyond the comptroller’s office’s statutory powers.
Ethically challenged Dickens plays footsie wit💧h old-guard Harlem power brokers who long stifled investment by “interlopers.” The Post recently revealed🌱 she’s a tax-deadbeat slumlord at violations-prone buildings she owns.
With no countervailing influence, the unholy trio would have free reign to roll back Bloomberg’s ♍educational gains, give the store away to unions and further diminish the NYPD’s effectiveness.
The best hope is for the new regime to be more paralyzed than “progressive.” Albany can nix de Blasio’s tax hikes, and he’ll have his hands full with “Steamroller” Spitzer acting like he’s may𓄧or.
As for the NYPD: Judge Scheindlin will hold the real clout. A federal jurist wield💞s immense power; recall how Judge Leonard B. Sand took control of Yonkers housing policy, and Judge Nicholas J. Garaufis “all but put himself in charge of the FDNY,” as a Post editorial put it, until his irrational ruling on hiring was overturned.
Remember, too, the fun era of the 1970s to early ’90s. There were 2,200 murders in one year and squeegee men in control of prime corners. Pervasive fear chased families out of tow𝕴n and made those 𒀰who stayed avoid whole neighborhoods — even Rockefeller Center on sunlit Sundays.
How did it come to this — that we appear poised to elect ideologues itching to re-impose a discredi💃ted agenda that most New Yorkers regard as repugnant?
But theꦦ more trenchant question concerns the extreme motivation it took to banish the grim old ways. New York’s electorate has been genetically leftist-coded since the days when the agenda was set by unionized factory workers and their socialist fellow travelers.
Yet, by the early 1990s, they were scared enough to vote for Republican Giuliani, whom they grudging🐻ly reckoned was serious about taking back the streets.
Eight years later, fear saved us from ourselves again: In the wake of 9/11, Democrat Mark Green was perceive🐼d as so unsuited to running a war-time city, voters chose a multibillionaire with no government experience over him.
Today, streets teem with families, new industries proliferate, touri🗹sts clog Times Square and the High Line. Movies like “Taxi Driver” can seem ancient history💮.
Pax Bloombergana might be less fragile than thugs wish for and conservatives fear. The social fabric is far more widely woven. Middle-class migration revived dead neighborhoods. Crowds can be as effective aও crime deterrent as the NYPD — at least in the short run.
If the fabric starts to unravel even a little, voters will throw the bums out. But expect the next four y🌱ears to make us miss the battles over bikes and sugary drinks.