Bill De Blasio blasts Democrats with inconvenient truth
New York City Bill De Blasio came out swinging in his rather calm manner. When George Stephanopoulos asked him about his op ed titled “Don’t Soul-Search. Stiffen Your Backbone” in the Huffington Post, he doubled down. The article is very powerful and progressive. His response was classic about what needed to be done.
Talk about income inequality. Talk about the economic crisis that is the pervasive reality in American life right now.
About a third of Americans today are living at or near the poverty level. Here in New York City, that’s 46 percent, in fact, at or near the poverty level, the greatest income disparity in this country in 100 years. That’s what we’re experiencing.
In the 2014 cycle, Democrats did not speak bluntly about it. They did not honestly say to the people of this country, here’s a crisis and we’re going to do very specific things about it. We’re going to be willing to take on those who are wealthy and ask them to do their fair share. We’re going to be willing to take on corporations that are not being fair to their workers.
If the people of this country heard Democrats enunciate a clear vision for economic fairness, I think you would have seen a very different result in 2014.
When asked if Hillary Clinton needed to stiffen her spine, Bill de Blasio’s answer made it clear that he was not going to be a blanket supporter with his response.
I think the world of Hillary Clinton. I think she’s an extraordinarily capable person. I would say this to all Democrats running for any office, that we have to talk about economic reality and we have to talk about economic fairness. And if we’re not blunt about it — by the way, it’s very much similar to what we just talked about. If we’re not blunt about a history where there’s been racial problems in this country, if we’re not blunt about income disparity, how do we expect the people to hear in us as leaders the ability to change anything?
How are they — how are they going to believe we’re going to fix anything if we’re not blunt about the problem?
I think what happened with a lot of Democrats this time, in the absence of a real message and a real vision, even their own Democratic voters stayed home because there was nothing to latch onto.
Bill de Blasio is correct. A year ago I wrote the piece “All Politicians Must Run In Support Of Obamacare And Progressive Values.” It mimics much of what Bill de Blasio said. Unfortunately you can take the horse to the water but you cannot force it to drink.