[[link removed]]

WHY ERIC ADAMS ROSE SO HIGH  
[[link removed]]


 

John Teufel
October 2, 2024
Indypendent
[[link removed]]

*
[[link removed]]
*
[[link removed]]
*
*
[[link removed]]

_ Adams made it easier for centrist Democrats to distance themselves
from Black Lives Matter. _

,

 

In the hours after Eric Adams’ downfall, as cheers rang out from
open windows and the sun’s rays touched our faces for the first time
in three years, haters who had narrowly avoided becoming waiters
played a timeless game: Who looked the most foolish in retrospect?

Was it Nate Silver, once famed for accurately calling the 2012
election, and now better known for predicting that Adams could one day
be the Democratic nominee for President
[[link removed]]? Or maybe it
was Bret Stephens, who from his lofty perch at _The_ _Times_ called
Adams a “godsend
[[link removed]]”
who would “save New York?” (Some fun trivia: Stephens quotes Adams
complaining about how long it took the Buildings Department to issue
certificates of occupancy — maybe the Turks were already in his ear
[[link removed]].)
And what about Al Sharpton, who went from an Adams attack dog
[[link removed]] against
Maya Wiley to baptizing
[[link removed]] the
mayor at Rikers Island, of all places?

Let’s be clear: These hacks look foolish not because Adams fell.
That happens. Lots of people liked Anthony Weiner at one point, too.
(I didn’t.) The Adams sycophants are laughingstocks because from the
start it was clear that he was a grifter and a liar. During the
campaign, he awkwardly pretended
[[link removed]] to
live in his son’s Brooklyn apartment, forgetting to clean out the
meat from the fridge and the shoes from the floor. He theatrically
announced an intention to receive his pay in cryptocurrency, that
evergreen shiny object for idiots and scammers. Throughout the ’90s,
he ping-ponged
[[link removed]] from
being a vocal Louis Farrakhan supporter who criticized a Latino
politician for not marrying a Latina woman to a “conservative
Republican,” David Dinkins critic and Giuliani fan. He was endorsed
[[link removed]] by
the New York Post!

Why were so many powerful political figures willing to overlook
Adams’ clear dysfunction? To answer that we can look at the most
powerful politician of Adams’ time: President Joe Biden. In February
of 2022, with midterm elections on the horizon, Biden trekked to New
York for a “public-safety summit
[[link removed]]”
with Adams. Speaking directly from the NYPD’s headquarters, Biden
declared, “The answer is not to defund the police” but was instead
to give police “the funding to be partners, to be protectors.” At
the same appearance, Adams called for
[[link removed]] a
“9/11-type response” against urban crime, which he classified as
“domestic terror that is pervasive in this city and country.”

Such was the direction of the Democratic party in the post-George
Floyd, post-Trump malaise, when heavily posed and highly cringe photos
of kneeling in _kente_ cloth gave way to billions more in federal
funding
[[link removed]] for
local police departments. As memories of Floyd’s brutal murder
faded, protests died down without Trump to serve as a unifying force
and Biden’s limp police reform legislation died a quiet death in
Congress, Democrats across the country
[[link removed]] embraced
the same police forces they had once promised to rein in. 

At the center of this shift was Eric Adams. Third-ranking House
Democrat and Biden booster James Clyburn claimed that Eric Adams’
victory was “proof
[[link removed]]”
that defunding the police is a “non-starter, even with Black people.
In _The Atlantic_ Democratic pundit Juan Williams authored
a fawning longform piece
[[link removed]] on
Adams focused on his policing career and fight against crime,
castigating the “white liberals” uncomfortable with Adams’
“working-class” persona (a truly spectacular assertion for a mayor
who favored expensive suits, veganism and nights at exclusive social
clubs). Another puff piece, this one at resistance-heavy _The
xxxxxx_
[[link removed]],
quoted a bevy of Democratic consultants and politicians extolling
Adams’ “centrism,” pro-police politics and even his decision to
bring solitary confinement back to city jails, arguing that “his
victory could have national implications for himself and for the
Democratic party.” _USA Today_, in an ostensible straight news
piece
[[link removed]],
announced “Eric Adams’ Win Slows New York Democrats’ March to
the Left.”

Adams rose to the top because he was a convenient way for Democrats to
distance themselves from the Black Lives Matter campaign, which you
may remember as the largest spontaneous mass protest movement in
modern history — and one with which Democrats were never truly
comfortable. Starting at the very top of the party, Democrats made
their deal with the devil: They would ignore Adams’ history and
general weirdness to trumpet him as the ultimate foil to critics of
the police and to pivot from Black lives to blue lines.

We can see where this led us. Every year
[[link removed]] since
George Floyd’s murder, police have killed more Americans. Biden
increased federal police funding by the aforementioned billions,
and state funding increased nearly across the board
[[link removed]].
Just last month when Kamala Harris was asked about
[[link removed]] police reform, she
pivoted to gun violence, talked up the long-dead George Floyd Police
Reform Act, and ended her answer by implying that many American
communities are under-policed. By any measure, Black Lives Matter
lost.

That’s why Eric Adams isn’t just another awful politician, or even
just another corrupt one. His victory was a symbol — a Black man, a
former cop, giving Democrats permission to throw overboard the
millions of marchers, activists and protestors who voted for Joe
Biden, in part because George Floyd’s public execution sickened them
so.

Adams would prove to be a liability long before the indictments broke.
New York was a weak point for Democrats in the 2022 midterms, possibly
costing the party control of the House, as Democrats fully
internalized the GOP’s crime talking points Adams had laundered into
the national discourse. He and the president would go on to have
a falling-out
[[link removed]] after
Adams viciously criticized the Biden administration for allegedly
failing to contain the migrant influx, which Adams claimed would
“destroy
[[link removed]]”
New York. New Yorkers themselves have fully internalized the
near-constant fear mongering of the last few years and feel less safe
now
[[link removed]] than
they did in 2017, despite crime levels being comparable.

It is too early to say if Adams’ downfall will have similar symbolic
consequences to his rise. I’d expect to see arguments that Adams’
personal corruption is unrelated to his general fascism. This is, of
course, shortsighted and foolish, and not something most people would
argue about, say, Donald Trump. There is by necessity a certain
lawlessness inherent in law enforcement — when society walls off
from criticism the same group of people who have a legal monopoly on
violence, it creates a toxic, exploitative sense of entitlement. In
other words, by accepting bribes and defrauding the city, Adams was
just being a cop in a different context.

For now, let’s try and remember the fools, cowards and freaks who
helped Adams to the top even when they knew he was a scam artist of
the first order, and for the worst reason: because they wanted to
protect cops from accountability. Shame on them.

_John Teufel is a lawyer and freelance writer with a monthly column
[[link removed]] at The Indypendent.
Follow him on Twitter: @JohnTeufelNYC
[[link removed]]._

_THE INDYPENDENT is a New York City-based newspaper
[[link removed]], website and weekly radio show
[[link removed]]. All of our work is made
possible by readers like you. Please consider making a recurring or
one-time donation [[link removed]] today
or subscribe [[link removed]] to our monthly
print edition and get every copy sent straight to your home. _

* Mayor Eric Adams
[[link removed]]
* Black Lives Matter
[[link removed]]
* police accountability
[[link removed]]
* Democratic Party
[[link removed]]

*
[[link removed]]
*
[[link removed]]
*
*
[[link removed]]

 

 

 

INTERPRET THE WORLD AND CHANGE IT

 

 

Submit via web
[[link removed]]

Submit via email
Frequently asked questions
[[link removed]]
Manage subscription
[[link removed]]
Visit xxxxxx.org
[[link removed]]

Twitter [[link removed]]

Facebook [[link removed]]

 




[link removed]

To unsubscribe, click the following link:
[link removed]