Zohran Mamdani, a democratic socialist who won the mayoral primary, said the department was racist and homophobic in a social media post.
its true tho
Zohran Mamdani, the Democratic nominee for mayor of New York City, said on Thursday that he intended to apologize for comments he made in 2020 calling the New York Police Department “racist, anti-queer & a major threat to public safety.”
He said that the remarks, which he wrote in June 2020 in a social media post in support of the defund the police movement, were made after the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis a month earlier.
The comments were made “at the height of frustration,” he said in an interview with The New York Times, and were not reflective of his current campaign or “my view of public safety and the fact that police will be critical partners in delivering public safety.”
Mr. Mamdani’s post from 2020 has been recirculated by his political opponents, who have used his previous criticism of the police to portray him as weak on issues of public safety. Mr. Mamdani, a New York State assemblyman, is far ahead of his three rivals, who include Mayor Eric Adams, a former police captain who has consistently placed fourth in recent polling.
When he was asked if he should apologize to the city’s police officers, he paused noticeably before answering. He then went on to explain how his views had changed. After he was asked again if he owed officers an apology, he said, “Yes.”
Mr. Mamdani’s statements on Thursday came amid recent attempts to reach out to the police rank-and-file, an effort to address one of his biggest political vulnerabilities. His past criticism of the police has fed the skepticism and even hostility expressed by many police officers, who are wary of the changes he plans to make to the department.
dude you have like a 20 points lead, stop capitulating
Fun Historical Fact
Louis Blanc was a popular French Socialist who advocated for the creation of State-run Stores & Businesses to benefit the Working Class
He would go on to condemn the Paris Commune for being too Radical, just before the Army violently purged the City's Working Class
Is caving to this shit not indicative of a tendency which will likely continue to include the policies you want? "Of course the grocery store owners aren't leaching off of the people of New York, I was just talking to the daughter of a store owner yesterday about how fearful she it for their livelihoods. Of course we won't replace them with state-run grocery stores. We will just incentivize them to lower grocery costs"
I'm not saying that's going to happen, but I'm in no way convinced by his recent moves that he has any strategy for pulling through. The pressure he will get for those is immensely, astonishingly stronger than for "NYPD is racist". There's an entire economic system he'll be directly up against.
If the claim is that this is strategic to reach that end, then either I am useless at understanding the argument or it makes no damn sense because I sure can't figure out how this helps the other.
no i don't think this is strategic unless it's directly in exchange for something from the party or the strategy is "please don't assassinate me pigs".
i think the difference between this and reneging on a policy is that the policies are actually material, i don't care nearly as much about the politicking as i do about non-pig first responders getting funded and the police taking a cut (i.e. no increase is a cut because of inflation). He campaigned on endorsing the liberal myths about what cops are supposed to be "for", so this apology is dumb if there isn't a gun to his head but it doesn't indicate a policy change.
and to be clear i think this and the previous capitulation to racism are bad moves. it's also been like six years since a politician promised good things. democrats and DSA entryists should at least be forced to lie to people instead of doing what they've been doing for 10+ years other than bernie and a couple congresswomen.