As Democratic officials citywide come to grips with both a second Donald Trump presidency and the startling reality that even deep-blue New York City has shown a significant shift to the right over the last three national elections, notable lefties like state Sen. Andrew Gounardes of Brooklyn are wondering out loud how all this could have happened.
Allow me to offer some advice to my Democratic friends: Look in the mirror.
See, big blue cities like ours serve as the exemplar to the nation of what it looks like when Democrats have unlimited political power.
New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Portland, Chicago . . . these cities are a living, breathing advertisement for Democratic governance.
And it’s not a pretty sight lately, to put it mildly.
So as we top the nation in population loss, with most exiting New York for the greener pastures of red-state Florida, Texas or the Carolinas, it’s time for the Democrats who run the show here to do some serious introspection about what exactly they’re doing to our city, and how it’s being perceived both at home and nationwide.
Now, I can already hear the progressive cries of denial — it’s all right-wing propaganda!
The city has never been safer! Migrants contribute more than citizens!
Shoplifting is no big deal!
Bail reform worked! We’re not bankrupt!
Some will even be tempted to return to their activist instincts — “The real problem is that we’re not progressive enough. We’re failing because we’re too centrist, and what the voters really want is for us to move even further left.”
To all this I say, it’s time to get real.
We’ve always been a liberal city, but Democrats took a hard-left turn under former Mayor Bill de Blasio and never looked back.
Since then, we’ve been ruled by a miserable cadre of far-left progressives, who, to be frank, have run New York into the ground.
Within 10 years, we went from a safe, clean, orderly and prosperous city to a basket case — no other way to put it.
And pretending otherwise isn’t going to do anyone any favors.
How can Democrats expect people to vote for them nationally when the best examples of their governance all appear to be in a death spiral?
Why would a voter in North Carolina take that risk, when some of their new neighbors are probably former New Yorkers with horror stories about the crime and dysfunction they fled?
What happens in New York and our other blue cities is not a secret.
Everyone sees the videos of shoplifting gangs, moped robberies, antisemitic assaults, street takeovers, migrant hotels, campus riots, subway murders and other chaos.
And everyone sees Democratic officials and their media allies basically denying the significance of any of it.
People are fed up.
And they voted accordingly.
To that end, reading progressive Twitter in the days after the election feels like dispatches from an alternate universe.
Nobody on the left seems to have any clue about why the nation — and our city — experienced such a rightward shift.
They of course have wild theories ranging from the KKK to Eric Adams being too right-wing.
But leftists across the board, including prominent New York political figures, are completely uninterested in examining the (correct) idea that a whole lot of voters simply view modern progressivism as an abject failure and don’t want to have anything to do with it anymore.
Yes, even New York City voters.
And while politically I’d love to see the Democratic Party continue to commit political suicide, as a New Yorker and an elected official, I’d much rather see a functional government populated with reasonable adults.
So, Democrats, what’s it going to be?
Are you going to ignore the writing on the wall and continue to tell each other comfortable lies?
Are you going to blame “messaging,” as though all you need to do is find the right combination of words and suddenly everyone will stop believing their own eyes?
Are you just going to ramp up the propaganda and denials?
Or are you going to do the hard work of introspection, and come to terms with how deeply destructive and unpopular these far-left policies really are, how they’ve hurt people, and jettison the progressives holding your party hostage in favor of a return to pragmatism and maturity?
One of these choices has a future.
When what you’re doing isn’t working, there’s no shame in admitting it and moving on.
And one of them will lead to political death, but not before a lot more actual New Yorkers suffer at the hands of your obviously defective and dangerous policies.
I think I already know which one you’ll choose.
But at least now you can’t say you weren’t warned.
Vickie Paladino is a Republican City Council member representing the 19th district in northern Queens.
