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New York Democrats recently announced they were abandoning plans to create a new ballot line called the Fair Deal Party after getting reassurances from the Working Families Party that Gov. Hochul would have their line after the primary.
The irony here is that the WFP’s radical left agenda is neither a fair deal nor good for the state’s working families. In fact, it would be downright catastrophic for law-abiding taxpayers. But the details behind the deal New Yorkers should be concerned about is the one Hochul cut with this group of defund-the-police, tax-and-spend socialists in order to stay in power.
Nothing comes for free, especially in politics, and the WFP’s price to not play spoiler in the general election is going to be costly. Democrats’ marriage with a party that aligns itself with the Democratic Socialists of America and proudly backs Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s “Squad” means plenty was promised. It shouldn’t surprise anyone. What started as a fringe element is now the tail wagging the dog.
Kathy Hochul knows this, and it’s why she aims to please. Immediately after ascending to the governorship, she adopted the Kirsten Gillibrand playbook and did a lurch to the left so dramatic that even the queen herself must have been proud. She was so desperate to establish her leftist bona fides that in her first major decision as governor, she selected a “defund the police” Democrat engulfed in shady ethics scandals as lieutenant governor. Brian Benjamin has since been arrested and resigned from office. Her replacement, Antonio Delgado, is not much better. He has taken money from AOC’s PAC, which sets litmus tests for candidates including supporting defunding the police, has voted with her 92% of the time, openly supported “a Green New Deal” and cashless bail, ending mandatory sentencing, and voted to open up police officers to civil lawsuits.
It was only just a few short months ago that the State Democratic Party Chair Jay Jacobs himself called the WFP’s policy priorities “divisive” and “very problematic for candidates running in the suburbs and upstate.”
Problematic indeed. The WFP agenda is so extreme even Jacobs at the time called the questions it is asking of candidates “out of touch with current realities.” They have been the driving force behind the dismantling of our criminal justice system. They want to dramatically reduce our prison population with policies like geriatric parole, and they oppose judicial discretion for keeping dangerous criminals behind bars. Even far-left progressive Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg was not “progressive” enough to earn their primary endorsement last fall.
It’s not just the criminal justice policies New Yorkers need to worry about. The WFP is calling for their endorsed candidates to support a devastating $50 billion increase in taxes on high-income earners, capital gains, inheritances, businesses and Wall Street transactions. Couple that with the budget-busting price tag of free health care for illegal immigrants. If you think our state’s mass exodus is bad now, hold on for dear life.
It doesn’t stop there. The WFP is waging war on charter schools, whose successes are giving thousands of children the chance at breaking the chain of poverty, and joining forces with allies who support a dangerous anti-Israel agenda. And their climate policies will mean even more crushing energy and gas bills for New Yorkers. They want to give non-citizens the right to vote and open more taxpayer-funded heroin injection sites.
If that agenda sounds stunningly tone-deaf to the issues facing you and your family, you wouldn’t be alone.
But Kathy Hochul and Jay Jacobs chose to put their own political power over what’s best for New Yorkers. Democrats on the ballot this year will continue their election year tap dance to keep the powerful left happy while trying to reassure the public with empty rhetoric, but there is an old saying in politics to watch the hands, not the lips. Translation: Don’t trust the words of a politician, watch their actions. If they’re running with Working Families Party support, you can guarantee what they’ll do after the election.
Langworthy is the chairman of the New York Republican Party.
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