The Harvest That Is Reaped

Here he goes again, with a twist, remarking "My low-skilled work is my cooks, my dishwashers, my messengers, my shoe shine people, those who work in Dunkin' Donuts."

Umm, how are “Essential workers” of 2020 now the “low academic skill” workers of 2022? 🤦🏻‍♂️

NYC mayor @ericadamsfornyc says “Low skill workers like cooks, messengers and Dunkin’ Donuts employees don’t have the academic skills to sit in a corner office”. 👀 pic.twitter.com/BJobdmPVym

— Eric Feigl-Ding (@DrEricDing) January 5, 2022

My cooks, my dishwashers, my messengers, my shoe shine people. How many cooks, dishwashers, messengers, and shiners of shoes does one person need? Plenty, apparently, if that man is the New York City mayor. Better had he referred to "the residents of our city who are cooks, dishwashers...."  Better yet had he cited them and then "all the others who do the  hard work for often inadequate wages."

If he had, Adams probably wouldn't have made himself an easy target for the individuals who are slamming him for asserting these poor and working-class individuals "don't have the academic skills."  Presumably, they are not sufficiently higher-educated to warrant that corner office but they may possess intelligence and skill the mayor is implying they lack. Also:

I’m trying my damndest to figure out how and why New York City Democrats chose a got damn fool like Eric Adams over an accomplished, brilliant scholar like Maya Wiley. Seriously WTF?!?! pic.twitter.com/OvCXVBf8JC

— Kenny BooYah! 🖖🏾 (@KwikWarren) January 4, 2022

  

It is worth considering how and why Adams, someone who often seems more a Republican than a Democrat, was nominated by the dominant party for the highest office in the nation's largest, and solidly liberal, city.  One reason is tht he set himself apart as a "law and order" kind of guy in a primary field whose major candidates otherwise were perceived, accurately or not, as being insufficiently concerned about violent crime. Additionally, there is the case of Scott

Stringer, the city comptroller who was considered a presumptive front-runner at the beginning of the Democratic primary, saw his campaign crash and burn after two women came forward to accuse him of sexual misconduct.

He got just over 5 percent of first-choice votes, finishing behind Eric Adams and three other candidates. He emerged early for a concession speech, opening with a quip that he was surprised “you all came"....

Stringer’s campaign was just beginning to pick up steam this spring, winning the endorsements of the Working Families Party and the United Federation of Teachers.

Then Jean Kim, a volunteer on his 2001 campaign for public advocate, accused him of repeatedly groping and kissing her without her consent. He denied the allegations, but the WFP and a host of progressive elected officials and advocacy groups that had gotten behind his campaign quickly withdrew their endorsements.

Stringer pressed on with his campaign, and continued to show some strength in polls even after his institutional support collapsed. But then a second woman, Teresa Logan, told the New York Times that Stringer groped her and made unwanted sexual advances when she was an 18-year-old waitress at a bar he ran three decades ago. After that, the longtime politician was largely written off.

Progressives, led by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, eventually coalesced behind attorney Maya Wiley, who came in second to Adams in first-choice votes and remains in the running for a ranked-choice tally next week.

You'll remember Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the "AOC" of rock-star fame, leader of the "Squad" in the House, and prominent leftist. In the 2020 presidential primary campaign, she faced the difficult choice of endorsing Elizabeth Warren or Bernie Sanders. She chose the latter, whose candidacy briefly soared (while Warren's plummeted), then (unfortunately) crashed to earth when he faced Joe Biden one-on-one. In so doing, Ocasio-Cortez may have burnished her reputation while ultimately destroying the candidacy of the individual who would have been the stronger candidate when the field narrowed to the moderate Biden and a progressive.

Ocasio-Cortez may have the nearly unique quality of mobilizing the hard left to support a candidate while somewhat alienating voters not similarly ideologically inclined.

No one found that Stringer did not perform in a competent fashion as controller, nor that his views placed him in a position unacceptable to New York's Democratic primary voters. Rather, it was because of improper personal behavior he allegedly took part in... 20 and 30 years earlier. Allegedly. Decades ago.

This is a problem few if any Democratic officials or pols, some of them intimidated by the identity warriors currently dominating the Party, want to take on or even acknowledge.  It may be facilitate the loss of the White House, or a Senate and House majority, or failure to win elections from statehouses down to local school boards. Where exactly is unknowable, but the damage won't be negligible.

Democrats and social media leftists can continue to lament the GOP's continuing effort to drive a wedge between groups of Americans by exploitation of the "culture war."  However, they simply will not confront the electoral danger they face in submitting everything to acceptance by the race and gender left.  Until they acknowledge they need to do so, the ground will remain fertile for Eric Adams, Donald Trump, and other egomaniacal candidates who will damage the wide-ranging interests of liberals and progressives.

 

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