Beyond their obvious role in separating winners from losers, elections also serve as teaching lessons to society in general.
They give directions about what cultural trends and policies citizens favor and what they don’t like.
That was especially the case with the presidential election.
The resounding victory by Donald Trump and congressional Republicans was a clear rejection not only of the Biden-Harris regime but also of the ultra-woke, anti-family, anti-common-sense radicalism that dominates the Democratic Party.
Trump offered a course correction with his positions on public safety, parents’ rights, a secure border, lower taxes and less government spending, along with a strong military, and voters across the country responded with unmistakable support.
Unfortunately, New York’s leaders missed the message.
Eyes and ears closed, Gov. Hochul and Mayor Adams are sticking to their failed approaches, voters be damned.
Gov’s congestion deceit
Take Hochul, whose name is a synonym for “makes everything worse.”
With the sky-high cost of living in the city and the state already driving historic numbers of middle-class and wealthy taxpayers to the exits, imposing the rapacious congestion tax would rank among the worst of all possible ideas.
But Hochul not only did just that, she managed to compound the damage with false claims and the deceitful way she played with the timing.
She suddenly and without a clear explanation “paused” the tax before the election to protect suburban Democratic candidates from voters’ wrath, then imposed the plan even before all the votes were counted.
Her actions mark the height of cynicism, and she added insult to outrage by claiming that by reducing the planned daily tax from $15 to $9, she was saving drivers 40%.
Or, as her office put it, the program “will save drivers up to $1,500 annually.”
This is the government’s idea of saving: You’re now paying zero, but instead of paying the planned $75 a week for 50 weeks, or $3,750 annually, you will now pay $45 a week, or $2,250 annually.
Presto — you’ve saved $1,500.
Any more savings like that and we’ll all go bankrupt.
It’s a case of consumer fraud and if any private business tried that, it would find itself in court.
But government exempts itself from the laws it imposes on others.
Her re-elex in peril
Yet elections still matter, and with Trump getting a surprising 44% of the vote in the state, and doing especially well in some black and Latino neighborhoods in The Bronx and Queens, Hochul ought to watch her back.
She had a close call in her election two years ago and hasn’t helped herself by being two-faced about Trump’s victory.
Even as she talked to him about helping the state, she told others she rushed the congestion tax so it would take effect before his inauguration.
It was an amateur move.
Thankfully, Trump has promised to kill the tax, and let’s hope he does.
It would be a gift to commuters and a lesson to Hochul and other Democrat dead-enders that there’s a new sheriff in Washington.
Meanwhile, in Albany, the governor squanders her authority and is widely viewed as weak and a pushover for the Legislature and her donors.
She won’t dare tackle the big problems — migrants, crime, spending — because that would mean taking on the radical left, and she doesn’t have the courage to even try.
She controls the MTA but won’t lift a finger to go after the agency’s bloated labor and construction costs and the legions of riders refusing to pay the fare.
To hide her surrender, she busies herself with puffery and minor projects she pretends are game-changers.
But she can’t hide New York’s decline and the proof that it lags far behind the dynamic growth of competitors.
One report says New York is on a path to lose three more congressional seats after the next census.
Drip, drip, drip.
Here’s my prediction: Hochul’s latest approval rating is a mere 34% — and hasn’t hit bottom yet.
No wonder Republicans already are excited about their chances of defeating her in 2026.
Adams is also playing word games that fool nobody.
Last month he boasted on X that “it’s hard keeping track of all the ways we’re getting stuff done for New Yorkers.”
Actually, it’s not that hard because not much is getting done.
Witness the background of the homeless madman charged with three Manhattan murders Monday.
Revolving doors
The mere fact that Ramon Rivera was on the street shows how the mental-health and criminal-justice systems have become revolving doors.
Rivera has a long criminal history, with sources telling The Post he’s been arrested at least eight times in New York.
He also has known mental-health problems and had numerous police run-ins here and in other states.
Noting some of that history, Adams said “it is a clear, clear example of the criminal-justice system, mental-health system that continues to fail New Yorkers.”
Right — and you haven’t fixed it!
Three years on the job and the mayor still portrays himself as an outside critic.
Sadly, that’s become his go-to position when he says anything at all.
He offered no resistance to Hochul’s congestion-tax scam even though any success at keeping cars out of Manhattan likely will come at the expense of city businesses, ranging from sandwich shops to garages to department stores and theaters.
And although Adams was elected in 2021 largely because of his police background and a pledge to tackle crime, no sane person would claim the city is safe.
Two relevant facts: The NYPD has hemorrhaged officers on his watch.
And the current police commissioner, Tom Donilon, appointed on an interim basis, is the third person to hold the job in three years.
The previous one, Edward Caban, resigned under a corruption cloud.
And Adams himself has the unwanted distinction of being the first mayor in New York City history to be indicted while in office.
That, along with the end of his term next year, might have inspired him to take a more active, hands-on approach to major problems, including the enormous migrant influx that his office now says brought nearly 240,000 people to New York.
But Adams never complained about the open border, instead insisting only that Albany and Washington help pay for the costs, many of which were inflated because of city largess and incompetence.
More recently, Adams adopted the Hochul habit of making false claims about being a wise steward of taxpayers’ money.
With the city already having spent some $5 billion on the migrant influx, he said recently his moves are “saving taxpayers billions of dollars.”
His theory seems to be that although the entire cost of providing food, shelter and health care keeps rising, the number of new arrivals has fallen and some are moving out of city shelters, leading to what he calls “savings.”
That’s no more persuasive than Hochul’s spin on congestion “savings.”
By their way of thinking, taxpayers are living in a safe, orderly and efficient Eden.
Good luck selling that bull.
