Friday, February 17, 2023

In New York, a Statement of Progressive Principles

The New York City Council has 51 members; last summer 35 belonged to the Progressive Caucus, giving them a clear majority. But then the leadership of the caucus published a "Statement of Principles" that they expected all members to support. At which point 15 members promptly quit, putting them back in the minority. It's a perfect illustration of American politics on the left. Of course it may be that the Progressive leaders were right here, and some of their members were not progressive at all and just took the label because they thought it would help in the primaries. Anyway, what do New York's Progressive leaders think being a progressive means?

The article that drove those 15 council members out of the caucus was probably this one:

A holistic, multistrategy approach to community safety that ensures true safety and justice. By enacting policies that build a robust public health infrastructure to provide New Yorkers with mental health support, stable housing, violence prevention teams and tools, training and employment, and harm reduction for drug use, we will do everything we can to reduce the size and scope of the NYPD and the Department of Correction, and prioritize and fund alternative safety infrastructure that truly invests in our communities.

Doing "everything we can" to reduce the size of the police department probably seemed too dangerous to many politicians in a city where crime remains a serious problem.

The other principles are:

A fair budget that incorporates a more transparent, inclusive and participatory budget process to provide strong core City services, prioritizes support for the most marginalized, protects funding for public schools, and utilizes progressive revenue streams.

Economic policy focused on the creation and preservation of jobs that provide life sustaining wages with adequate benefits, leave, and security to support a family, that enhances rates of unionization, that aims to nurture a diverse economy, and that generates affirmative opportunities to those who have been left out.

Creating and preserving safe, habitable, truly affordable housing for all New Yorkers — with a particular emphasis on low-income, very-low income, and homeless households.

High-quality, public education from early childhood education to higher education that prioritizes desegregation and reducing class sizes, as well as universal free or low-cost early childhood development (ages 0 – 5) and universal after school programs, which should enable all kids to succeed and aim to eliminate the achievement gap.

A more sustainable and environmentally just city that leads in the fight against climate change and embeds climate solutions in all policymaking.

Full civil rights for all New Yorkers regardless of race, gender, ethnicity, national origin, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or physical disability. This includes a commitment to the safety and well-being of LGBTQIA New Yorkers, but especially Black and brown trans women, reproductive rights for women and other people who can become pregnant, full municipal privileges and responsibilities regardless of immigration status or criminal record.

The education statement is actually a bit of New York-specific code for opposition to elite public schools with entrance requirements, a burning issue in the city. The "class size" bit is for teachers' unions, which are always focused on that, when the statistics do not show much effect on student learning. The "diverse economy" line is an attack on Wall Street. Some of the other items may also point toward particular local issues I don't recognize. But in general this is a pretty standard list of Progressive goals. 

A few notes: 

New York's progressives are still in the Simone de Beauvoir camp of wanting state daycare for babies; "parent" is one of the suspiciously missing words.

It is interesting that even progressives bring up mental health in their statement on "community safety;" the way to get even left-wing voters to care about mental health care is to tie to it to fear of crazy homeless people.

The progressives talk about lot about Civil Rights, race, and so on, but minority voters are not impressed. In the last mayoral election they went strongly for the moderate, pro-police Eric Adams, because they care more about safety than inclusive language and don't trust progressives on crime.

Otherwise the big issue, to me, is that questions of how one might go about achieving things like affordable housing and good jobs is entirely ignored. E.g., there are lot of good jobs in New York building expensive condo buildings for stock market millionaires; do we care more about jobs like that, or some abstract notion of justice?

But, hey, it's a short statement of principles, not an actual plan, so maybe it's not the place to look for such details. But the older I get the less impressed I am by such vague statements and the more I want to know what your plan is.

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