The Populist Mayor of New York City Takes the Stage

He placed that mission in the progressive history of the city – from Al Smith campaigning against child labor to Franklin Roosevelt and Frances Perkins battling for the minimum wage to de Blasio’s hero, Fiorello La Guardia, who built a coalition powerful enough to take on Wall Street.

The Mayor set out clear – if difficult to achieve – first steps.  An extension of New York City’s paid family leave law.  Reform of the “broken stop and frisk policies.”  A requirement that luxury condo developers build low-cost housing.  Extension of community health centers to neighborhoods in need.  And the centerpiece:  a call on the wealthy to pay “a little more” in taxes – about the cost of a latte a day – to fund universal pre-school and after school programs. (That will require approval from the state legislature which won’t be easy).

The new Mayor was smart enough to wrap himself in the aura of the Clintons, asking Bill to swear him in, and proclaiming himself part of the “Clinton family.”  The former president is a master at stroking the egos, easing the insecurities and tapping the pockets of the city’s millionaires. He surely should be enlisted in gaining the barons’ support for de Blasio’s progressive taxation request.

Clinton used his remarks to embrace de Blasio, enveloping him into his favorite themes of “shared opportunity, shared prosperity and shared responsibility” but the contrast with the more conservative Clinton was stark.  Clinton and his New Democrats championed “equal opportunity, not equal outcomes,” intentionally excluding concern about inequality even as it soared to Gilded Age extremes.  And of course, Clinton embraced harsh sentencing and aggressive policing as part of showing that Democrats were tough on crime too.  De Blasio’s focus represents a clear return to the New Deal and populist tradition that Clinton scorned.

There was one notable omission from the de Blasio speech:  any mention of economic growth.  Clinton and the New Dems focused on economic growth to the exclusion of any concern with inequality.  The new populists should not make the reverse mistake of focusing on inequality to the exclusion of economic growth.  A full employment economy is the best way to reduce inequality, enabling workers to demand a better deal.  America does best when its economy is growing and the rules are fixed to ensure that the rewards are widely shared.  Now we are plagued by extreme inequality that hinders robust growth.  Admittedly mayors, even the Mayor of New York City, can’t do much about economic growth, but at shouldn’t preclude emphasizing its importance.

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This has been reposted from the Campaign for America’s Future.