In the wake of Bill DeBlasio’s wholly predictable re-election as the mayor of New York City (wholly predictable despite exploding ethics scandals, atrocious performance, and a “I don’t give a shit about NY City other than as a stepping stone for my national liberal fantasies” attitude, because he’s a Democrat), I offer a bit from just a couple months ago, to let New Yorkers know what’s really rattling around inside that brain pan of his:
What’s been hardest is the way our legal system is structured to favor private property. I think people all over this city, of every background, would like to have the city government be able to determine which building goes where, how high it will be, who gets to live in it, what the rent will be. I think there’s a socialistic impulse, which I hear every day, in every kind of community, that they would like things to be planned in accordance to their needs. And I would, too. Unfortunately, what stands in the way of that is hundreds of years of history that have elevated property rights and wealth to the point that that’s the reality that calls the tune on a lot of development….
Look, if I had my druthers, the city government would determine every single plot of land, how development would proceed. And there would be very stringent requirements around income levels and rents. That’s a world I’d love to see, and I think what we have, in this city at least, are people who would love to have the New Deal back, on one level. They’d love to have a very, very powerful government, including a federal government, involved in directly addressing their day-to-day reality.
I’m certain that there are many, many New Yorkers who have the very same druthers, because there are many, many New Yorkers who embrace the modern version of American Leftism, where the Best-and-Brightest manage the world on behalf of everyone else.
Here’s the thing. All this has been tried already. Many times over. It has been called socialism, communism, and fascism. It has failed. Spectacularly. With a couple hundred million dead and with billions kept in poverty.
The persistence of this stupidity is testament to the sad reality that there’s no idea so awful, no experience so terrible to dissuade people from trying it again.
Why? In a word, ego. Or hubris, or arrogance, or vanity, if ego’s too dull a word for you. The irony is that libertarians, who are the polar opposites of the people who embrace DeBlasio’s delusion, are the ones accused of egotism. This validates another reality: that people accuse and project onto others of behaviors they themselves exhibit.
New York City re-elected Bill DeBlasio. In his second term, he’ll have little or no motivation to temper his leftism, his ego, and his greed ahead of an election campaign, so I expect a giant shit show. When it comes to pass, perhaps, just perhaps, all the reflexive, tribalistic “I’d rather chew hot gravel than vote against a Democrat” New Yorkers will learn a lesson.
And, perhaps, just perhaps, I’ll become the last king of Scotland.
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