Breathing a sigh of relief, are you?
Representatives of the State of Good have done the will of the people, chased the bad king from the castle. He is fleeing, threatened with the sheriff should he return. Dancing citizens fill the streets. Sorrow, pain, anger, dissension gone. Song and merriment reign. Those pure of heart lead the victorious people to a new age of kindness. All will be good.
Are you kidding?
Politics does have some highly tested, historically proven, and uncontestable laws–not the garbled often incomprehensible salesperson political consultant blah blah.
One-party rule creates factions. Don’t believe it? Ask the former legislators knocked off the payroll last year by those self-described progressives, and Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) leaning and affiliated candidates. The DSA/progressive who’s a Democrat definition begins with: let the corporations–including Amazon–who want to bring jobs to New York drop dead.
Developers? To be banished without discussion. Small property owners? Who needs them? And while working in the heavily state police patrolled and controlled state capitol, they demand police defunding. Oh yes. The best one of all? No one’s leaving New York. They’re lying even at the moment the moving truck pulls up.
If you don’t hear legislative leaders disagree loudly, you don’t have amnesia. You’re sane. More progressives win seats, more factionalism. One thing remains, however. Legislative leaders don’t become leaders to give up power, cars with drivers, bigger paychecks, and titles. The job is to calm things down and do nothing to offend. Those legislative leaders need the progressives to vote for them so they remain leaders.
The best way to calm the progressives was to pry Andrew Cuomo out of office. It was a three-step final process: Biden says goodbye, impeachment to follow, and then the cops. Do you really think the former governor wanted to be arrested, fingerprinted, and processed at the Albany County Sherriff’s office?
Now that he’s gone all will be well? Governor Hochul will certainly have an easy time of it, right?
The progressives are part of a national social movement. And social movements do not want legislation enacted that resolves problems they cite. It’s another rule of politics. Pass a law, kill a social movement. And the progressives don’t want to die.
That’s the real world.
Smile they will at Governor Hochul as she promises to lead us to the one-day COVID-19 conquered land of health, fiscal stability and safety. And yes reform.
The celebration of the bad king’s banishment will be short. It is the long-term policy issues that remain. CUNY needs to be funded. MTA fare boxes are suffering from no and low ridership. Virus spikes, crime, shootings are the news. The governor’s demise is old news.
How will she and those who work for her answer a simple question: what’s a Governor Hochul? That will calm the voters who will want to know how the State of Good really works.
The problem? The progressives are not pure of heart. They want it done their way. Or else.
Hail the Queen Mother, but she has to watch her back.
Hank Sheinkopf worked as a meat cutter and a police officer before being introduced to political consulting as a union organizer. Sheinkopf founded Sheinkopf Communications Ltd., a political-strategic communications firm, in 1981. Over the course of his career, Sheinkopf has contributed to more than 700 political campaigns across the United States including presidents, governors, mayors, and numerous elected officials.
