Bill de Blasio has just completed his first year in office, but his press clips are starting to make him sound like a lame duck. Today’s New York Times story on de Blasio’s deteriorating relationship with the police is based on “dozens of interviews in recent weeks” with police officers and “senior police leadership.” But in a classic sign of a political team already looking to shift blame, the most damaging anecdote is the one that begins the story, and it clearly signals discomfort within the mayor’s team.
The story is headlined “In Police Rift, Mayor de Blasio’s Missteps Included Thinking It Would Pass,” which really does sum up the in-depth piece quite well. But it also signifies a sense of frustration from those around the mayor that too many of his errors are unforced, and that his lack of focus is materially damaging the administration’s image. Here is how the story opens:
Not long after Mayor Bill de Blasio sat beside the Rev. Al Sharpton at a July summit meeting on police reform, a political adviser gave the mayor a blunt assessment: You have a problem with the cops.
Rank-and-file officers felt disrespected by the mayor, the adviser explained, and were dismayed to see Mr. Sharpton, a longtime critic of the New York Police Department, embraced at City Hall.
But Mr. de Blasio, a Democrat, rejected the notion that officers disliked him. His message, the adviser later recalled, was clear: Everything was under control.
Everything was not under control, but de Blasio didn’t seem to understand how easily it could have been. In one sense, the exasperation of the mayor’s defenders–especially among those on the mayor’s team who don’t want de Blasio’s anti-cop reputation to stick to them–is understandable. Crime is down, and even the mayor’s critics among the political class, such as former Mayor Rudy Giuliani, plainly reject the accusation that recent police deaths are on de Blasio’s head.
And yet, the police could turn that back on the mayor. After all, they have changed tactics as ordered and have still been able to keep crime low, showing they can adjust to a very different view of police work in the mayor’s office than the view that has prevailed for two decades. (Though to be fair, current Police Commissioner Bill Bratton was commissioner for a spell during that time as well, so there is some continuity–or at least familiarity.)
Giving de Blasio the benefit of the doubt, then, he might not have believed there was a burgeoning crisis between him and the defenders of public safety because there was no crisis in public safety. As far as he was concerned, there was no sign personal animosity behind the scenes was endangering New Yorkers.
Which is why the pattern of seemingly gratuitous mayoral swipes at the police were so baffling. And they undermined the sense that if there were a crisis of some sort, the mayor would have the NYPD’s back. In other words, if the two sides couldn’t get along when the streets were quiet, what would happen when the quiet dissipated? It’s easy to see why the police felt the groundwork was being laid to scapegoat them if need be. The Times explains the relationship from the NYPD’s perspective:
Some bristled when Ms. Noerdlinger, the former Sharpton aide, was named chief of staff to the mayor’s wife, Chirlane McCray. And when a television reporter caught the mayor’s city-issued S.U.V. speeding, other officers noticed, Mr. de Blasio failed to take responsibility, implicitly faulting his police detail.
And in November, when Mr. de Blasio arrived late to a memorial ceremony in the Rockaways, in Queens, his aides said his police boat had been delayed by fog. The mayor later conceded he had overslept. The incidents left an impression that Mr. de Blasio could undermine the police.
The unease that had been simmering first boiled over in July, after Eric Garner, an unarmed black Staten Island man, died after being placed in a police chokehold. Eager to address the furor, Mr. de Blasio invited journalists to attend a round-table discussion at City Hall, intended as the sort of “come together” moment that he prides himself on.
That’s when things really went off the rails. The Times, which has been supportive of de Blasio, admits “the stagecraft was odd from the start. On the mayor’s right sat Mr. Bratton; on his left was Mr. Sharpton, the symmetry suggesting the two held equal sway in the administration. When Mr. Sharpton began a broadside on law enforcement, the mayor silently looked on.”
The New York Times story is probably intended as a wake-up call. Thanks to his maladroit, and at times just plain lazy, management of city affairs, de Blasio is begging for a primary challenger. The fact that crime has stayed low would help him fend off a Republican, but Democratic mayors of New York don’t usually lose in the general; they get primaried. (Starting with Abe Beame in 1977, three consecutive Democratic mayors were unseated in primaries. Beame didn’t even make it to the runoff that year, in which Ed Koch beat Mario Cuomo.)
And ironically enough, the maintenance of public safety makes it easier for de Blasio to get challenged from the left. This is because the election wouldn’t be about law and order; it would take security for granted, enabling the conversation to focus on things like inequality and social justice. Actually, they would only ostensibly be about those things. In reality, a primary challenge to de Blasio would simply be about identity politics.
The reason the last Democratic mayoral primary wasn’t totally about identity politics is because the strongest candidate archetype was the role played by Anthony Weiner: a candidate with an authentic “from the boroughs” persona. But Anthony Weiner couldn’t get out of his own way, and never gave the voters reason to believe he was a changed man.
De Blasio’s ineptness, if it continues, will almost surely attract serious Democratic opposition. He needs to turn around his public image. But to do that, he’d have to listen to the advice he’s getting. And that would be a change indeed.
