The "Progressive" Future of Mayor de Blasio's NYC

The "Progressive" Future of Mayor de Blasio's NYC

 

Wednesday’s swearing-in ceremony of Bill deBlasio, formerly Warren Wilhelm, Jr., as New York City’s 109th mayor marked a number of firsts in the history of the Big Apple.

Those firsts include but were not limited to the fact he is the first Democrat to hold that office in 20 years, the first city Public Advocate (ombudsman) to become mayor, the first mayor to be sworn in by an impeached American president, the first mayor to be introduced by a cleric who compared the city to a slave plantation, the first mayor who admitted to being a Communist sympathizer, and the first mayor who fathered a confessed drug addict.

And de Blasio and his wife, activist and reputed poetess Chirlane McCray, are also the first interracial couple to ever live in the official mayoral residence, Gracie Mansion.

Mayor de Blasio touted himself and his candidacy as “progressive” in the mold of Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia, the popular, dimunitive Republican who was more a Democrat than a Republican half a century ago, and he repeated that ”progressive” mantra in his inaugural address in which he pledged to make NYC  “a fairer, more just, more progressive place” after 12 years of Michael Bloomberg’s administration.

It’s hard to imagine a more “progressive” town than New York City unless we compare the city with Democrat-run, “progressive” towns like Detroit, Chicago, and San Francisco where politicians are so “progressive” they have driven their municipalities to historic levels of corruption and bankruptcy, to murderous mayhem in the streets, and to blind tolerance of virtually every depravity known to man.

Loosely defined as “moving forward,” when applied to politicians the term “progressive” takes on whole other complexities and nuances involving everything from civil rights and justice, border security and war, health care and education, wealth and poverty, and labor unions and even religion.

Ironically, the man de Blasio has replaced at City Hall, the man repeatedly smeared at his inaugural, the 12-year mayor, Mike Bloomberg, was almost as progressive as the new mayor. . . (Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=34940.)