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In the two years since the progressive lefts call to defund the police went mainstream, the word defund has been weaponized against them by Republicans and Democrats alike. Now in the run-up to New York City Mayor Eric Adams first budget, the citys progressive movement is trying to reclaim defund in some cases, turning it against the mayor saying that he is the one trying to defund public safety.

The tactics have been on full display as activism around the citys fiscal year 2023 budget heats up while the City Council holds hearings on Adams preliminary budget. The final budget is due before July 1. On Wednesday, hundreds of members of the citys progressive movement heard from City Council Member Tiffany Cabn at a rally organized by The Peoples Plan NYC criticizing Adams austerity budget.

Weve heard a lot of scare-mongering the past few years, Cabn said, and people like her and those at the rally who use scary words like defund have been blamed, castigated and denounced for any manner of problems.

But the one that will really cause problems, Cabn said, is Adams. Mayor Adams has proposed a budget that would defund many of our most vital public safety and public health agencies and institutions. It would defund schools. It would defund sanitation. It would defund homeless services. It would defund our public hospital systems. It would defund the departments for youth and community development. It would defund the department of small business services.

By one interpretation, thats all true. Adams proudly touted the fact that he asked for 3% budget reductions for most agencies, and he got it. The Department of Educations budget is projected to be down $1.3 billion, according to city budget documents (though the city is actually expecting to increase its share in respect to federal and state funds by nearly $600 million). Sanitation would be down $136 million (though, again, the city itself would spend $314 million more). Homeless services would be defunded by $615 million compared to the current years budget. Health + Hospitals spending would be down $1.3 billion. DYCD, $184 million less. And SBS, $379 million less.

The New York City Police Department, by the way, would see $204 million less in its expense budget though the NYPD budget is expected to grow when more state and city funding are factored in.

That goes to show that budgets, especially preliminary budgets are a blunt instrument, a messy shorthand that might not actually reflect the impact of the money and the services rendered. New York City spends almost double per pupil on schooling than Los Angeles, but that doesnt mean the education is twice as good.

But the art of Cabns statement was that it turned this loaded word, defund, against the mayor. And her office is itching for a fight. Throwing down the gauntlet here, Cabns spokesperson Jesse Myerson texted reporters Thursday, sharing a clip of Cabn on NY1 saying that Adams budget defunds homeless services, schools, parks and sanitation.

The word defund and the idea behind it of reducing police departments budget to weaken their influence has been used as a political cudgel in the two years since a police officer killed George Floyd in Minneapolis, sparking Black Lives Matter protests nationwide. In the summer of 2020, the call by progressives to defund the NYPD by at least $1 billion and reinvest the money to support low income communities got so much attention that then-Mayor Bill de Blasio felt he had to stretch the truth to its limits in order to claim that he hit that $1 billion goal. In reality, the budget was reduced by far less, and planned cost shifts such as moving school safety agents to the education budget have been reversed.

Still, almost immediately, opponents variously derided the call to defund the police as wrongheaded, disrespectful to brave officers or an academic theory only pushed by primarily white people living in safe neighborhoods. Republicans used it to criticize all Democrats, and moderate Democrats are still denouncing it to this day. The answer is not to defund the police, its to give you the tools, the training, the funding to be partners, to be protectors, President Joe Biden said at NYPD headquarters during a February visit. A month later, it was an applause line at his State of the Union. We should all agree, Biden said. The answer is not to defund the police. Its to fund the police.

You wouldnt know it by reading some coverage, but Adams himself has largely avoided the red meat of criticizing the defund movement, even as he ran for office on a platform centered on public safety. He gave into the obvious temptation sometimes telling New York magazine that the defund conversation was being led by a lot of young white affluent people but he never leaned in as much as others. Maybe because he agreed that the NYPDs budget could be reduced, noting in his campaign plans that the city could save $500 million by reducing overtime and moving some uniformed officers out of clerical positions.

Adams office responded to Cabns charge that he was defunding essential agencies. The budget that the mayor proposed last month is fiscally responsible while making upstream investments to promote an equitable recovery, a statement from the City Hall press office emailed to City & State read. The truth is that for too long, New Yorkers have not gotten their moneys worth from our government, and we need to make it better and more efficient. Were also increasing investment for New Yorkers in the greatest need adding 30,000 summer youth jobs, expanding the citys Earned Income Tax Credit, baselining funding for the Fair Fares program, and promoting affordable childcare.

Ironically, Adams argument that he was spreading money to other areas got a boost at the very rally where Cabn spoke Wednesday. There on the steps of the Department of Educations headquarters in Lower Manhattan, organizers from the progressive advocacy group Vocal-NY held up a massive Black and white sign reading defund means invest.

Two days later, organizers held the same sign again at a peoples public safety rally in City Hall Park, where VOCAL-NY organizing director Jawanza James Williams explained that it was just another way of reclaiming the term defund.

I dont think weve ever had to not reclaim it. I think that its been intentionally misconstrued, he said. Its been intentionally politicized in a way to erase its actual meaning.

Cabns new rhetoric doesnt mean she rejects the sign of the message behind it, her spokesperson Myerson explained. Theyre just two sides of the same coin. Both approaches are attempts to re-contextualize that word, which has become such a hideously whipped scapegoat, here and around the country, Myerson wrote. The core message of each is the same: we need to shift our budgetary priorities away from policing, prosecution, and punishment, and toward community, care, and compassion.

Across the rallies, some speakers seemed to show discomfort with the word defund. Jails reform advocate Darren Mack said we need to strategically deflate the Department of Corrections budget. But defund is still on progressive activists lips, even two years later. After Macks moment at the mic, dozens gathered in a chant. Defund the police, invest in our communities!

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NYC progressives are reclaiming defund, after it was used against them - City & State

Local campaigners in Londonderry. (Paul Skudlarek)

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It wasnt supposed to turn out this way. For months now, Republican Party leaders have trumpeted their intention to run hard on parent grievances en route to routing the Democrats in the midterms. According to this narrativepartially based on the 2021 elections in Virginia, then endlessly echoed by Democratic punditsparents frustrated over school shutdowns, Covid restrictions, and the focus on race and social justice in schools are the new swing voters, poised to flee the Democratic Party.

But in New Hampshire, where bitter debates over school masks and critical race theory (CRT) have dominated local politics for more than a year, the season of parent rage ended in a stunning sweep of school board elections last week by progressive public school advocates. It was a complete repudiation of the GOPs attempt to drive a wedge between parents and schools, says Zandra Rice Hawkins, executive director of Granite State Progress. Of 30 candidates designated by the group as propublic education, 29 won their racesmany in traditionally red regions of New Hampshire. Across the state, culture warriors and advocates of school privatization lost to candidates who pledged to protect and support public education.

Instead of resonating with voters, the rights efforts to weaponize cultural grievances appears to have alienated them. With the GOP poised to make the education culture wars a central focus of its midterm appeal, New Hampshire offers some clear lessons for Democrats.

Michael Boucher chalks up his decision to run for the school board in the southern New Hampshire town of Atkinson to a single word: extremism. Last year, he watched as the debate over local schools grew steadily more rancorous, first over CRT, then masks. Boucher became a regular presence at board meetings, where he noticed that many of the loudest voices werent actually from the district. Suddenly there were all of these groups coming inthe Government Integrity Project, Moms for Liberty, Americans for Prosperity. I realized that if I didnt step up, one of their people would, says Boucher.

Boucher, who works as a data analyst for a government contractor, says that he set a goal of talking to as many people in Atkinson as possible about the rising climate of extremism. He found a receptive audience. While the community has long leaned Republican, many voters remain what Boucher calls classic GOP. They want to see tight budgetsbut they also want to see opportunities for all kids and a welcoming culture in the schools. There are actually a lot of people who feel that way, says Boucher. MORE FROM Jennifer C. Berkshire

He campaigned on the need to teach history honestly against a candidate who ran on opposition to CRT. Boucher won resoundingly, claiming nearly three-quarters of the vote.

And Boucher wasnt alone. Thirty miles north, in Bow, first-time candidate Angela Brennan, the subject of a Republican mailer calling her anti-parent and a Biden-like progressive, was the top vote getter in a five-person contest for two seats on the school board.

All of these attacks on public education really backfired at the local level, says Molly Cowen, a member of the select board in Exeter, which has also seen acrimonious debates over mask and vaccine mandates and school district diversity policies. In the lead-up to the election, a conservative parents PAC spent an estimated $20,000 on mailers making the case that the districts focus on racial equity had led to a precipitous decline in academic achievement.

Voters in the district, which covers five towns, responded by booting two conservative members off the board and electing a number of pro-public-education candidates.

Cowen, who has two kids in local schools, recounts talking to her neighbor, a Republican, whose own kids are long grown. He told her that he was glad that all these outside groups were sending mailers telling him whom to vote for. He held onto one just so that hed know who to vote against.

In Bedford, long a GOP stronghold, teacher and first-time candidate Andrea Campbell ousted a conservative school board member by a wide margin in an election that saw record turnout. Campbell, an elementary school teacher whose two children attend local schools, told a local newspaper that her decision to run was spurred in part by concerns over calls to ban books.

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Bedford, like many communities, has seen the hot-button topics morph from Covid mitigation policies to how matters of race and racism are handled in schools, and then to the reconsideration of books on race, gender, and LGBTQ issues.

Lawmakers, meanwhile, have enacted sweeping restrictions on what teachers can and cant talk about in the classroom. Over public outcry and objections from the business community, New Hampshire banned discussion of so-called divisive concepts. Last fall, the states education chief set up a website that allows parents to report violations of the states new anti-discrimination law. A proposed teacher loyalty law, meanwhile, threatened teachers who presented negative accounts of the nations founding with official sanctions. While that bill was voted down amid intense public backlash, proponents say they plan to bring it back in a future session.

For Bill Politt, concerns over a rising climate of censorship were enough to spur him to run for office for the first time, at age 75. Politt declared his candidacy for school board in Weare just days before the filing deadline.Related Articles

I saw a story about book banning in Tennessee and I knew I couldnt just sit on the sidelines. I know there are people who want to ban books in this community and I just couldnt stand to see that happen here, says Pollit, who works as a substitute teacher in a local school.

Polls show that measures to censor speech and ban books remain deeply unpopular with voters. One recent survey found that large majorities of Americans, of both political parties, overwhelmingly reject the idea of banning books about history or race. While concepts like curriculum transparencymaking school materials publicly available to parentsare broadly popular in the abstract, support craters when voters associate such policies with book banning and censorship.

Politt made his concerns over book banning and censorship a central part of his campaign, speaking out at a candidates forum about what he described as a narrowing of viewpoints and a growing unwillingness to accommodate students curiosity. When minds are closed, schools become exceptionally bad, he warned.

Weare voters apparently agreed, electing Politt and another pro-public-education candidate, Alyssa Smalls, to the school board. Like many communities, Weare saw record voter turnout last weekincluding a record number of first-time voters. I take personal pride in that, says Politt. A lot of the new voters were my former students.

The fliers just kept coming. Glossy, professionally printed, expensive, the mailers made what might seem an unlikely pitch for a candidate for school board. With fewer kids enrolling in the local schools, and a growing number of school choice alternatives, did Sunapee actually need its schools any more?

People didnt buy it, says school board member Jesse Tyler. Communities that have K-12 schools are going to be the only communities anywhere that regenerate, with families, youth, workforce. Once these schools go, thats it. That sense of home and place is broken. Where is the sense of community and comradery?

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The candidates pitch for a school-free Sunapee fell flathe lost, along with another conservative contender. But the argument that New Hampshire no longer needs public schools increasingly counts as mainstream GOP thinking here. Leaders of the Free State Project, a libertarian movement that wields growing power within the Republican Party, openly acknowledge that their goal is to end state-provided public education.

Last year, New Hampshire lawmakers enacted a controversial education freedom program that redirects education spending to parents who can use the funds for private religious schooling, homeschooling, or other education expenses. The state has also embraced what are known as micro schools, in which unlicensed guides operate schools in their homes for just five to 10 students. Lawmakers are now considering a measure that would limit what state schools are required to teach, removing art, music, and computer science from the list of core academic subjects.

The perception that lawmakers and state officials are actively working to undermine local public schools added an urgency to local school board races, says Norm Goupil, who won reelection to the school board in the central New Hampshire town of Hopkinton by a substantial margin.

Theres a threat to public education thats coming from the state. I made that clear throughout my campaign and I think people here understand that, says Goupil. On election day, Goupil stood outside the polls for 13 hours. All day, he says, people came up to thank him. They saw the vote as being about saving public education.

Robin Skudlarek was keeping an anxious eye on the election returns. A Democratic Party activist who got her start organizing during the Obama campaign, Skudlarek had been advising two first-time candidates for the school board in the southern New Hampshire town of Londonderry. Amanda Butcher, a behavior specialist in the local schools, and Kevin Gray, a software engineer, had decided to run out of concern over increasingly toxic school politics. In school board meetings that were growing ever more raucous, parents rights activists, joined by Republican legislators, demanded an end to mask orders and denounced what they described as indoctrination in the local schools. The message coming from them was basically that we dont care about anybody else but our own kids, says Skudlarek.

Skudlarek saw the candidacies of Butcher and Gray as part of a grassroots movement to defend not just the local public schools but a vision of education itself as a public good. But would voters in this Republican town agree?

When the results started coming in, I was over the moon, says Skudlarek. Butcher and Gray defeated candidates who campaigned on parent rights and tighter spending. Voters also rejected a measure that would have prohibited the school district from ever imposing mask orders in the future. And in communities across the state, a similar story was unfolding.

My first thought was that this could really help the Democrats in the midterms.

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How Progressives Won the School Culture Warin New Hampshire! - The Nation

Progressive political observers onFriday scoffed at comments from corporate Democratic Rep. Stephanie Murphy of Florida, who tried to blame progressives in the party for her retirement from Congress, despite the fact that right-leaning members have gotten much of what they wantedincluding blockage of President Joe Biden's agendaover the past year.

The congresswoman, who has represented Florida's 7th Congressional District since 2017 and announced her plan to retire in December, told Politico that the Democratic Party does not give conservative members of the party "leeway" to cast right-leaning votesdespite the fact that many lawmakers have spent their careers doing just that and have successfully damaged Biden's chances of passing his domestic agenda.

Murphy was one of several Democrats who in early November delayed a vote on the Build Back Better ActBiden's 10-year spending plan to invest in climate action and anti-poverty programs which is now stalled in the Senate due to conservative Democrats' objectionsclaiming they wanted to wait for a cost estimate from the Congressional Budget Office.

The congresswoman objected to tying the passage of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act to the Build Back Better Act, a strategy pushed by progressives including Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), who reasoned that passing the infrastructure bill by itself would put at risk the president's broader plan to provide paid family leave, free community college, and climate actiona prediction that has proven true four months later.

Murphy complained that the labor movement backed progressives' strategy.

"The infrastructure bill was one of the most historic job-creating bills for labor. And instead of [being] focused on the bill that would create jobs today for their members, they were focused on carrying out the Democratic leadership's approach to the two bills," she said of labor groups.

As Mike Casca, communications director for Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt), noted, progressives' efforts to ensure Biden's full domestic agenda was passed have not been successful so far, allowing Murphy to get "everything she wanted"likely to the detriment of Democrats' chances of maintaining power in November.

The bill Murphy and other right-wing Democrats refused to pass last year contained broadly popular policy proposals, even after being significantly cut down to appease the party's conservative faction.

As Frederick Vlez III Burgos of the Hispanic Federation tweeted, Murphy's claim that the party's tolerance for its corporate-aligned members "has eroded" is evidence that she and her allies plan to engage in "revisionist history" to explain the party's probable losses this November.

In addition to helping to kill the Build Back Better Act, journalist David Sirota noted, the Big Pharma-backed congresswoman helped to weaken a proposal to allow Medicare to negotiate drug pricesa longtime Democratic priorityby voting against it in the House Ways and Means Committee in September. A narrower version of the proposal was later included in the Build Back Better Act.

Despite successfully obstructing her own party's agenda, Murphy claimed in the interview that Democratic leaders have "beat moderates into submission" in recent years, dismissing the president's proposals as "rainbows and unicorns."

As progressives including the Sunrise Movement and Ocasio-Cortez have warned repeatedly, not delivering on Biden's campaign promisesparticularly amid a worsening planetary crisis, an ongoing pandemic, and rising costs of essential goods and servicesis what is likely to doom Democrats in November.

Ironically, as Steve Morris of The Recount pointed out Friday, Murphy's ideological allies in the Senate, Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) and Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), joined every Republican in January in rejecting changes to the filibuster, effectively killing voting rights legislation that would have protected Murphy's own district from gerrymandering.

Offering a critical summary of the congresswoman's position,The Intercept's Austin Ahlman put it this way: "Stephanie Murphy won a redrawn Obama district that's trending left, helped sabotage Bidens agenda (which she and other moderates ran on), and is now throwing a fit and retiring to go sit on some corporate board."

See more here:
Critics Blast Murphy for Helping Drive Dems 'Into a Ditch' and Then Blaming Progressives - Common Dreams

Our budget is a moral document and the preliminary budget that weve seen lays bare our moral failings, City Council Member Crystal Hudson, who belongs to the bodys progressive caucus, declared as Adams SUV cruised past the rally.

The mayor flashed the detractors his trademark smile and a thumbs-up.

It may seem counterintuitive that a new mayor who won the Democratic primary by just 7,197 votes eight-tenths of 1 percent would so confidently brush off his critics as they are gearing up to challenge him, at a moment in his tenure when many leaders would be looking to broaden their appeal.

But Adams knows political trends are working to his benefit: From President Joe Biden to Mayor Jacob Frey in Minneapolis, centrist candidates have been seizing executive power throughout the Democratic Party, even as far-left lawmakers made recent gains in the New York City Council and the Boston mayors race last year. Large cities throughout the country backed pro-police candidates and ballot measures in a seeming rebuke to the defund the police movement that had taken hold following the murder of George Floyd in 2020.

In New York, progressives arent satisfied with Adams law-and-order agenda, but until now they hadnt figured out how to effectively rebuke him either.

In his own race, Adams toughest competitor wound up being a like-minded moderate Democrat, while progressives squandered most of the campaign cycle trying to figure out who to support and treated the ultimate winner with kid gloves. Little money was spent on attack ads against Adams, even as he described a vision for the city that was out of step with the progressive movement one amplified by millions of dollars in support from hedge fund magnates backing his candidacy.

Adams sees this as his moment and is all but daring the left wing of the party to take him on.

As last Wednesdays rally showed, his opponents are now getting ready.

I dont think its a secret that the left has been in disarray, Zara Nasir, coordinator of The Peoples Plan, said in an interview. Im not trying to hide it. This is an attempt to do something a little bit more coordinated and aligned than things have been.

The strategy is to focus on policies and issues, Nasir added.

To that end, the blueprint her alliance released on Wednesday zeroes in on Adams early decision to require budget cuts from nearly every city agency spending reductions his team insists will not result in any diminished services, and ones they argue were necessary to rein in runaway spending under his more liberal predecessor, Bill de Blasio. (The preliminary budget is still nearly $100 billion.)

The Peoples Plan paints an entirely different picture.

Our communities have been devastated in ways that are measurable and unfathomable, Jawanza James Williams of the activist group VOCAL-NY said as he kicked off the rally. And Eric Adams proposed preliminary budget does not account for our realities, does not account for our nuances.

Jawanza James Williams of the activist group VOCAL-NY.|Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images

The speakers ticked off a series of concerns with the $98.5 billion fiscal plan: Lack of investment in dilapidated public housing, insufficient funds for affordable housing, too much money for charter schools compared to their public counterparts.

The rally took place on the heels of another well-attended protest of Adams decision to halt the expansion of its organics recycling program a priority for environmentally-conscious groups given that one-third of the citys residential waste comes from compostable food scraps.

Adams also took heat from Democrats of all ideological stripes when he appointed three people with a history of anti-gay remarks to high-ranking city jobs. The pushback was not enough to dissuade him from going forward with the hires but created a public fissure early in his tenure.

In the realm of public safety, where Adams and the left-wing groups are most at odds, the demonstrators slammed his plan to reinstate a police unit that was disbanded for its involvement in controversial shootings. Adams argues that as a Black man who was assaulted by cops before opting to join the department and agitate for change from within, he is uniquely positioned to ensure that the unit reverses crime without unfairly targeting people of color.

This is my lifes work, dealing with reforming police and public safety, Adams told ABCs Bill Ritter in a Jan. 30 interview. Were not going backwards. Were not going to use tactics that are abusive to zero in on those who are carrying guns.

Im not going to have a police department thats going to illegally and unfairly target Black and brown men in the city like we saw in the past, he added.

The mayors office declined to make Adams available for an interview regarding his relationship with the left.

City Hall Communications Director Maxwell Young said in a statement that the mayor will continue to work with a broad coalition of partners, and that broad coalition will continue to see their goals reflected in this administrations plans and accomplishments.

But Adams, without naming names, has left little room for confusion about how he perceives his critics on the left.

We cant fail, and there are too many people who believe we must be safe and we cant be distracted by the loud noise of the numerical minority that believes we cant move this agenda forward, Adams said in the ABC interview.

He outlined several positions that are out of step with the progressive movement: Going after subway fare evaders and shoplifters and people taking on train cars.

We have to be compassionate, but we have to be clear that laws must be followed, Adams said.

The mayor, a retired NYPD captain, took to showing up to crime scenes late at night and denouncing those who inflict violence during his first weeks in office. By contrast, The Peoples Plan lists as one of its guiding principles resources not criminalization and notes, For every criminalized New Yorker there is a social safety net or resource that has failed them.

One of the biggest public disputes in this realm took place before Adams even assumed office.

After announcing his new Department of Correction commissioner in December, the mayor-elect indicated partial support for the controversial solitary confinement policy at the Rikers Island jail complex.

Opponents in the incoming City Council penned a public letter condemning that position, and Adams bristled at the fairly commonplace political maneuver, suggesting none of them had the right to criticize him.

I wore a bullet-proof vest for 22 years and protected the people of this city. And when you do that, you have the right to question me on safety and public safety matters, Adams said at the time.

The exchange served to demonstrate not only the pending showdown between the new mayor and left-leaning Democrats, but his sensitivity to criticism on matters of public safety.

His response to our letter was pretty aggressive. Thats all I needed to see to recognize what were up against, Shahana Hanif, co-chair of the City Councils progressive caucus, said in a recent interview.

Hanif, who represents the liberal bastion of Park Slope, Brooklyn, said the caucus so far has 30 members out of a body of 51. She and more than a dozen people interviewed for this story regard it as a vehicle for organized opposition to Adams.

This caucus is first and foremost the accountability machine to the mayor, Hanif said.

It remains to be seen whether Council Speaker Adrienne Adams, who backed Eric Adams in the mayors race but won her leadership contest without his support, will empower the progressive caucus. (The mayor and the speaker are not related.)

The group was born out of a similar movement in 2009, when Hanifs predecessor, now-City Comptroller Brad Lander, and former Council Member Melissa Mark-Viverito led the bodys opposition to Mayor Mike Bloomberg, a corporate-minded billionaire and lifelong political party hopper, and Council Speaker Christine Quinn, a Democrat.

At the time, New York Citys progressive wave was cresting.

De Blasio and John Liu, students of the left, had been elected to citywide office public advocate and comptroller, respectively. The Working Families Party, then the anchor of the operation, had defeated five Council candidates backed by Democratic Party machines and several other incumbents across the city. Occupy Wall Street had yet to take shape, but concerns about the lack of affordability which would serve as the underpinning of de Blasios successful mayoral campaign in 2013 were already forming.

The movement had many architects, notably the late Jon Kest, whose vision is still heralded today by his political disciples as unparalleled. Emma Wolfe, a former labor operative who became de Blasios chief of staff in City Hall, maneuvered behind the scenes to scoop up electoral wins while the Working Families Party merged the ideology of activists with the financial resources of unions.

Little of that model remains today.

Following a blood feud between former Gov. Andrew Cuomo and the Working Families Party, the labor organizations opted to leave the political organization rather than suffer Cuomos wrath. De Blasio and progressives split over housing and policing issues once he became mayor. Mark-Viverito became Council speaker, rendering the progressive caucus somewhat pointless.

And perhaps most importantly, the left no longer had Bloomberg leading the city and Quinn partnering with him in the Council. No matter the depth of the divide between progressives and de Blasio, he was not a Wall Street defender who had belonged to the Republican Party when it suited him, like his predecessor.

Therein lies the challenge for the left: Convincing an electorate worried about public safety that a crime-conscious mayor who grew up poor, worked his way up to police captain after being beaten by cops as a teen, and won a tough election with widespread union support, is out of sync with Democrats even if he parties with rich Republicans and calls himself a compassionate capitalist.

Several progressive lawmakers have privately acknowledged that challenging Adams approach to crime could prove a liability at the polls next year, when the 51 Council members are up for re-election due to redistricting.

Adams defenders publicly agree with that sentiment.

From owing his mayoralty to middle-class non-Manhattanites to his focus on fixing crime against liberal orthodoxies, Eric Adams is the second coming of Ed Koch, consultant and long-time Bloomberg adviser Stu Loeser said of the citys 105th mayor who served from 1978 to 1989.

He said Adams critics are not aligned in their disagreements with the new mayor, which, he added, makes it really hard to build a coalition against him. Because most people agree with what hes doing on most things.

Former City Council Member David Greenfield, who leads the anti-poverty nonprofit Met Council, said Adams political superpower has been his work ethic particularly in contrast with his predecessor, who was dragged for late-morning jaunts to a Brooklyn gym.

Every New Yorker respects hard work, regardless of where you are on the political spectrum, Greenfield said. Thats how hes earned the credibility that no single politician on the left has.

Like any true New Yorker, hes just not fazed by the nay-sayers, Greenfield added. If anything, the left-wing criticism only seems to embolden him he almost relishes it.

The progressive groups political strategy, for now, seems to be pitching a wide tent that covers everything from recycling to public education to controversial hires a broad approach that several left-leaning operatives privately warned may become too unwieldy to penetrate the electorate.

Whats more, Adams and other moderates a descriptor the mayor rejects, as he believes political labels fail to capture his complexities have made strides in depicting progressives as wealthy white people who bear little connection to the troubles of those they purport to represent.

In response, The Peoples Plan and the progressive caucus have made diversity a priority.

Gone are the days when white progressives can be the face of this movement, and I think to good measure, said Nasir, a Pakistani-American.

Equally important, she said, is expanding progressives appeal by conveying a positive vision instead of simply opposing the mayor.

This is about a long-term vision for New York City. Its beyond this mayor. Its beyond the current politics of this city, Nasir said.

For now, Adams re-election is a political lifetime away and will hinge on external factors that have not been determined, like crime trends and pandemic recovery.

We should expect more from this mayor.

Working Families Party State Director Sochie Nnaemeka

But, after being caught flat-footed in 2021, the left is already paying attention to 2025.

Its never too soon as we saw we were not quite prepared for last year, Working Families Party State Director Sochie Nnaemeka said in an interview. I dont know what kind of pool were looking at right now, but Id be surprised if he didnt have a serious challenge to his left.

After a brief pause, she added, We should expect more from this mayor.

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Eric Adams is daring the left to take him on and they're game - POLITICO

Progressives are concerned that high gas prices are worsening inequalities, creating tension between activists who want Democrats to do more to condemn big oil and those trying to navigate Russias deadly invasion of Ukraine.

Some on the left are critical of their own partys ties to fossil fuel, saying Democrats should be doing more to curb the industrys influence and clout.

We seem to have little or no political will to ensure accountability and to get the oil and gas industry to straighten up and fly right, said Jeri Shepherd, a progressive Democratic National Committee member from Colorado. Regular people are going to be feeling the pain, and we as a political system are going to be indifferent.

Liberals have often targeted oil and gas corporations, and anger is rising that such firms are entering a boom time even as their customers are hit with inflation. Gas prices have risen to well above $4 per gallon across the country.

The calls were joined on Wednesday by President BidenJoe BidenBelarusian president says Putin is 'completely sane' and 'in better shape than ever' Arizona Democrat tests positive for COVID-19 Thousands of Mariupol residents forcibly taken to Russia, city council says MORE, who took aim at the oil giants.

Last time oil was $96 a barrel, gas was $3.62 a gallon. Now its $4.31, Biden tweeted. Oil and gas companies shouldnt pad their profits at the expense of hardworking Americans.

Biden was piqued that gas prices had not fallen even as oil prices had.

Gas prices averaged $4.32 per gallon on Tuesday, according to the AAA.

Short version: If the price of oil goes down, the price of gas should also go down, White House press secretary Jen PsakiJen PsakiWhy you shouldn't expect profit margins to fall when prices rise Energy & Environment Interior to continue oil leasing plans Health Care Fauci warns of cases rising again MORE said on Twitter.

Sen. Sheldon WhitehouseSheldon WhitehousePush to make daylight saving time permanent has longtime backers If Democrats have their way, gas prices will surge even higher Democrats divided over how to deal with rising inflation MORE (D-R.I.) and Rep. Ro KhannaRohit (Ro) KhannaGas prices lead to tensions within Democratic Party A chance to improve research Here's who stands to win from high gas prices MORE (D-Calif.) introduced a bill last week aimed at taxing windfall profits on crude oil. Sen. Bernie SandersBernie SandersWhy you shouldn't expect profit margins to fall when prices rise Former Bernie Sanders press secretary: US should 'more holistically' fight climate change Gas prices lead to tensions within Democratic Party MORE (I-Vt.), who has been vocal about rising gas prices for years, reiterated his support for the measure, which is also backed by climate hawks outside of Congress.

The rising gas prices have exacerbated Bidens political problems with inflation, which have cut into his campaign pledge to give working- and middle-class people relief in their daily lives.

The rhetoric from climate groups has also stepped up. Groups are accusing the oil companies of using the Russian war to boost profits and to take advantage of average consumers all at the expense of the climate.

The fossil fuel industry is really showing us their playbook, said John Paul Mejia, national spokesperson with the grassroots-led Sunrise Movement. He argued that corporations are looting Americans at the gas pump.

I think everyones seeing through that right now, he said.

Democrats are divided over how to address the issue.

On the campaign trail, left-wing endorsers and organizers are broadly supporting candidates who reject fossil fuel contributions, including in a high-profile Democratic primary match-up in Texas. Insurgent Jessica Cisneros is headed for a runoff election against Rep. Henry Cuellar, who has taken contributions from political action committees linked to the industry.

Sen. Joe ManchinJoe ManchinFormer Bernie Sanders press secretary: US should 'more holistically' fight climate change Equilibrium/Sustainability Repurposing petroleum to build electric cars On The Money Democrats search for plan on inflation MORE (D-W.Va.), who proudly accepts fossil fuel funding, has caught fury from progressives for holding up Bidens Build Back Better package in the Senate.

Some on the left have also criticized Biden directly, saying he is facing a choice either to transition to clean renewable energy or to give more leverage to fossil fuel executives.

Others, however, have shied away from attacking the president, particularly one navigating the crisis in Ukraine.

There are real villains, said Zac Petkanas, a senior adviser to Invest in America Action, a group advocating for more public spending. We have a mad man invading sovereign countries that is driving up not just the cost of fuel, but very likely food and other things down the line.

A cost is a cost is a cost, whether youre paying a gas station to fill up your tank or a pharmacist to fill out a prescription, he said. We need to let people know that not only do we get that things cost too much, but we are laser focused on getting those costs down.

Biden has already taken action to decrease prices, including dipping into the nations strategic oil reserves, and suggested in his State of the Union address that he may do more. Energy Secretary Jennifer GranholmJennifer GranholmGas prices lead to tensions within Democratic Party Overnight Energy & Environment Biden calls for faster gas price drop Biden argues gender equality benefits everybody to mark Women's History Month MORE last week asked top oil leaders to increase the amount of oil they are producing, citing a state of emergency.

We have to responsibly increase short-term supply where we can right now to stabilize the market and minimize harm to American families, Granholm said.

She acknowledged in a later interview that the administrations goal remains to wean the country off fossil fuels.

The gas prices and general worries about inflation are issues that Republicans have used to attack Biden and Democrats and are another reason why the party is pessimistic about retaining the House majority this fall.

While the price of oil did dip below $100 per barrel this week, the price of gas has remained frustratingly high and Biden has warned of tough days ahead.

No matter what, he is likely to face more pressure from the left to take more actions against oil companies and to back renewable energy sources.

Fighting authoritarians and oil oligarchs by merely propagating and empowering our own is a false solution, Mejia, of the Sunrise Movement, said. Continuing to rely on oil and gas is nowhere near energy secure.

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Gas prices lead to tensions within Democratic Party | TheHill - The Hill