Eric Adams Is Handing Republicans a Flamethrower for 2024. Again.

[Celerity]

The problem with creating the impression of a nonexistent problem is that it becomes impossible to solve.

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2023/09/eric-adams-migrant-crisis-mayor-new-york-republican-flamethrower-for-2024.html



In 2022, New York City’s Democratic mayor Eric Adams wanted to talk about crime. To anyone who would listen, he repeated again and again that crime in the city was rampant, unchecked, out of control. “I have never in my professional career—I have never witnessed crime at this level,” he said last year, echoing his campaign trail refrain that crime had reverted to 1990s levels. “We”—he said on the stump, implying the Democrat-controlled local government, “are waving a big white flag of surrender.”

That rhetoric may have helped Adams win a crowded, low-turnout Democratic mayoral primary in 2021, but there were problems. For one thing, his hyperbole was plainly counterfactual. As the writer Ross Barkan pointed out in New York magazine, crime was up slightly over 2019 levels, sure, but homicides were down 75 percent since the early ’90s. Adams, his mind made up that “crime” was politically expedient for him, continued braying about it through the 2022 midterm election cycle. Who it was actually expedient for was New York Republicans, who were borderline giddy about the mayor’s gambit. Borrowing from his unequivocally false pronouncements about crime being rampant and uncontained, they campaigned hard on that same talking point and crushed New York congressional Democrats in November’s election, putting up the GOP’s best statewide overperformance in the country. Eric Adams drew up the blueprint for Republicans, and they followed it to a tiny but meaningful House majority.

Since then, Adams has been undone, in part, by his own tactic. The problem with creating the impression of a nonexistent problem is that it becomes impossible to solve that problem, and Adams’ favorability, for that and a whole host of other reasons, has plummeted. No longer as eager to talk about crime, he has settled on a new boogeyman as the 2024 election cycle heats up: the migrant crisis. “This issue will destroy New York City. Destroy New York City,” he said of the famed city of immigrants in public comments made last week. “They’re destroying us … the city we knew, we’re about to lose.” The comments were headline-grabbing for how blunt they were—and for the fact that that sentiment was coming from an elected Democrat—but Adams has in fact been preaching this exact message to anyone who would listen since at least April.

Link to tweet

For years, Republicans have been desperately trying to sell the American public on a migrant crisis. In 2018, they spent the last days before the November midterms prophesying an incoming migrant wave, and expected it to save their House majority (it profoundly did not). Since 2022, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis have gone to extreme lengths to bus migrants from their home states to the bluer locales of New York, Los Angeles, and Massachusetts, hoping that those kind of stunts—which may yet yield criminal charges—would make the issue a permanent fixture in the news.

snip

[nycbos]

2. We ignore this at our peril.

https://chicago.suntimes.com/2023/8/30/23853293/kenwood-neighborhood-residents-decry-plan-lake-shore-hotel-migrant-shelter

I am a New Yorker who came to Chicago for work. This meeting occurred in a diverse community. Even people who want a welcoming community are angry at the situation. I have a theory when it comes to immigration that I call 20/20/60. 20% of the people in this country are really racist assholes who say kickout all immigrants. 20% say you are a racist if you don't support open borders. The remaining 60%, the silent majority, are those who know immigration is one of the many complex public policy matters that require a more nuanced solution than those extreems.


Our new mayor ran on a platform of investing in communities that have been disinvested in for decades. Lack of decent economic opportunities, education, etc. I am guessing many of the folks in those communities are part of the 60%. But if they see the city moving this quickly for new arrivals it's not wrong for them to think hey Mr. Mayor what about us?

[Mad_Machine76]

3. When migrants are unexpectedly dumped on the doorstop

What else are the leaders supposed to do?

[nycbos]

4. For starters not respond like one of the Alderman who attended the meeting.

You can know that people have legitimate grievances of people in communities that have been disinvested for decades.

While this statement “It is an intentional attack on the city of Chicago to get us to be divided,” Vasquez said, eliciting some claps. “They don’t want to see a successful Democratic Party, they don’t want to see the president reelected, they want to see Chicago look like a disaster" it's true. It gives the appearance that some African-Americans feel the city is moving heaven and earth, to help the new arrivals from Venezuela while their communities that they lived in their whole lives lack economical opportunities, and quality schools for their children due to disinvestment. You need to acknowledge that this is a legitimate grievance. One of the things I learned working on the Obama campaign what is the phrase "I hear you I understand" can go a long way.

Also, remember the Latino community is not a monolith. It is very diverse. I guarantee you. There are many Latinos immigrants who are watching what's happening on the border and they are thinking "I came here legally. Why can't they?.

[Polybius]

5. It's not "a nonexistent problem" though

I live in NYC, and it's become an issue.

[Celerity]

6. Adams: "I have never in my professional career--I have never witnessed crime at this level," he said

last year, echoing his campaign trail refrain that crime had reverted to 1990s levels. “We”—he said on the stump, implying the Democrat-controlled local government, “are waving a big white flag of surrender.”

but that's not true:

That rhetoric may have helped Adams win a crowded, low-turnout Democratic mayoral primary in 2021, but there were problems. For one thing, his hyperbole was plainly counterfactual. As the writer Ross Barkan pointed out in New York magazine, crime was up slightly over 2019 levels, sure, but homicides were down 75 percent since the early ’90s.

and there also is this hyperbolic (and Republican-aiding) nonsense from the former Republican (reverting to norm?) Adams:

No longer as eager to talk about crime, he has settled on a new boogeyman as the 2024 election cycle heats up: the migrant crisis. “This issue will destroy New York City. Destroy New York City,” he said of the famed city of immigrants in public comments made last week. “They’re destroying us … the city we knew, we’re about to lose.”

then there is this:

As the publication The City reported, Adams enjoyed major financial support, in the form of donations to super PACs supporting his candidacy, from hedge fund manager Kenneth Griffin, a top Ron DeSantis and Republican megadonor, and Daniel Loeb, a fellow billionaire financier and top Republican benefactor. Adams, of course, was a registered Republican himself from 1995 through 2002.

and:

Finally, Adams has even more self-serving motivations for playing up the migrant crisis, beyond simply hurting his fellow (or not-so-fellow) Democrats. In the same breath as his migrants-are-destroying-New-York speech, the mayor announced a stunning citywide budget cut, blaming the decision on the migrants. To call that framing dishonest barely does it justice. Adams, perhaps owing to his Republican roots, has been clamoring to enact deep, devastating budget cuts since he arrived in office, despite the fact that the Independent Budget Office identified a massive budget surplus in 2023 and forecast another surplus in 2024.