A construction worker, a fisherman, and a woman walking by the United Nations were knifed to death in Manhattan in separate, random attacks on Monday by a blood-covered lunatic with a long rap sheet who should not have been loose on the streets.
Three lives lost. Three more reasons to rid this city of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg.
Pundits say Bragg — the soft-on crime lefty largely responsible for the mayhem on New York City’s streets — will likely coast to reelection next year.
That would disgrace New York City. But it’s not a fait accompli.
True, no Democrat has emerged yet to challenge Bragg in the upcoming June 25 primary.
But data from the recent presidential election suggest defeating Bragg is possible.
In that election, 120,916 fewer Manhattan voters cast their ballots for Harris than for Biden in 2020. Trump gained 18,000 of them, but the lion’s share of that shortfall were disaffected voters who chose to stay home rather than vote for Harris’ uber-left agenda.
Call them Manhattan’s vanishing voters. They number as many as 103,000, though probably slightly less because Harris’ poorer showing is also in small part the result of the borough’s loss of population.
At 103,000, these voters amount to as much as 70% of the entire Manhattan turnout (143,572) for the November 2023 municipal election when the entire city council was elected, and roughly -40% of the Manhattan turnout in the 2021 primary when top city officials were chosen.
This potential voting bloc of Manhattan Democrats fed up with left-wing extremism, could help elect a law-and-order DA to replace Bragg.
If there’s a candidate. Now that the numbers show a sizable shift in Manhattan voting, it’s the duty of the city’s political decision-makers to back a candidate who will give the criminal-coddling DA a run for his money.
The same seismic shift in urban voting attitudes is occurring across the nation. Urban Democrats are fed up with the crime, mayhem, homeless encampments, drug use, and squalor that progressive policies have wreaked on their cities.
On Nov. 5, voters in the bluest areas of California rebelled. They dethroned Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao, Alameda County DA Pamela Price, San Francisco Mayor London Breed, and Los Angeles’ Soros-backed DA George Gascon. Blue California overall backed Proposition 36 to strengthen drug and shoplifting penalties.
Manhattan voters will have an opportunity to oust Bragg in less than a year. The shift in voter sentiment suggests it’s time to seize it.
Citywide election results were even more promising. Trump gained voters. But a far larger number of disaffected Democrats — that growing reservoir of persuadable purple voters — stayed home rather than vote for the progressive policies that have doomed their neighborhoods.
Citywide, 573,618 fewer New York City voters cast their ballots for Harris than for Biden in 2020. Trump gained 94,611, but most of the rest sat out the election. Again, the citywide drop in population had some impact, but even so, hundreds of thousands of Democratically inclined voters refused to follow the party leader’s leftward lurch.
That’s a sizable voting bloc, considering only half a million people total (578,877) turned out for the November 2023 municipal election to elect the entire City Council. These disaffected democrats have the numbers to decide the next New York City election.
Public Advocate Jumaane Williams blames the falloff in votes for Harris on “anti-Blackness and misogyny.” That’s far-left delirium.
Republican Party State Chairman Ed Cox said voters are fed up with the “ideological experiments” coming out of Washington, D.C. Democrat Mike Gianaris, deputy leader of the state Senate, said “Democrats who voted for Biden didn’t vote” this time around.
Journalist Ezra Klein pointed to “the rage I just hear from people in New York … the sense of disorder rising, not just crime, but homeless encampments, trash on the streets, people jumping turnstiles in subways, crazy people on the streets. You just talk to people and they’re mad about it.”
That anger isn’t going away now that the presidential election is over.
New York’s disaffected Democrats should be wooed to support a common-sense mayoral candidate and reject the progressive lunacy of Williams, super-woke Comptroller Brad Lander, democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani, and others vying to move the city leftward.
In Manhattan, disaffected Democrats are numerous enough to wage a formidable campaign against Bragg.
There’s no better cause. Bragg prosecutes Daniel Perry but allows deranged fiends — walking time bombs — with long rap sheets to go free, causing the rest of us to fear getting slashed, punched, or shoved onto the tracks. Time to seize this opportunity to oust him.
Betsy McCaughey is a former lieutenant governor of New York and chairman of the Committee to Reduce Infection Deaths. Follow her on Twitter @Betsy_McCaughey. To find out more about Betsy McCaughey and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website.
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Getting rid of DA Bragg would merely be one of many, many changes that would be needed for NYC to have some chance to getting back to a law and order-based justice system. The entirety of the NY state and NYC government is dominated by Democrats, who all share the same ideological views as DA Bragg, and thus have all contributed to the creation of the current mess the author writes about. The NY state Governor could replace Bragg today, if she wished, as that is in her power to do so. Yet even despite numerous calls for her to make such a change after she replace Andrew Cuomo as Governor, she has chosen not to.
The state legislature is also completely controlled by Democrats in Albany, and despite the consistent instances of crime out of control, the legislature refuses all calls to repeal the very anti-policing and pro-criminal laws they passed after George Floyd that have created the mess that currently exists. Never let a good crisis go to waste as Democrats like to say.
Finally, the majority of voters in NYC are Democrats and the ONLY candidate for Mayor, City Council, Governor that they will vote for, despite the deteriorating conditions that an increasing amount of them find impossible to live with, is of course a Democrat who essentially promises to follow the exact same failed policies they enjoy now.
So, let’s get real here. Sure, DA Bragg should be gone, but the reality is that he would likely be replaced by a carbon copy of the same dysfunctional Democrat, spouting the same failed rhetoric and policies, that they have now, Different face, same bad policies. The answer is that the Democrat voters of NYC need to either change their views and reject the failed policies that have placed their entire state government in the hands of people just like Bragg or learn to live and accept that soon the streets of NYC will look and feel just like those of every other country that has put their trust in people only interested in enriching themselves and profiting off the misery and chaos they create.
Pathetic that there is no Law and Order in our cities. Biden and his Demon Democrats must be held responsible.
New Yorkers better wake up and vote for Patriotic candidates before their State goes down to trash, like most Blue States.
They didn’t care about public cases such as Kate Steinle or Laken Riley, think they care now? An illegal beat Paul Pelosi and that didn’t influence her.
Nothing will change until the majority of the voting public wake up to the fact that the Democrat Party, never any friend to this nation or its citizens, long ago morphed into The New Communist Party of the USA. As such, they have the same goal as all Communists have had since Communism emerged as a political movement perhaps 150 years ago: the destruction of this nation, the downfall of Western Civilization, and the creation of a worldwide Communist dictatorship. Sadly, I don’t think most people will wake up before it’s too late.
team betsy
The nonchalance displayed by the city leadership is mystifying, given such frequent outcomes on so many fateful days. Hey, as long as THEIR loved ones aren’t dying…
Everyone of these soros bottom feeders need to be voted out,way out.Then send the soros cult,everyone of them to their own island,with an active volcano,it may already be too late.
Finally some Justice
And uh….while standing firmly in allowing DOGE to cut spending so as to literally save this country, where is the money coming from to feed, house and provide medical care for the jillions of newly jailed criminals? What will be cut to provide for building hundreds upon hundreds of new jails and prisons?
We could just shoot anyone convicted of a felony carrying more than say a 5 year sentence. THAT would help but in the real world, will we do such?
Delivering political narratives like “go hard on criminals” has occurred every 4 years for as long as Ive been voting which is 52 years now. The results? Well, look around.
Left’s favored weapon when all else fails is racism. Is it not peculiar that most cities plagued by crime but not punishment are ran by blacks, mayors, DAs etc. Many maybe most are women. Were they white there would be accusations of genocide. I can hear Al Sharpton and the rest of the fighters screaming for justice for black community.
It’s time to stop the insanity!
Democrats encouraged the riots of 2020. Democrats encouraged the “Defund the Police ” movement. Democrats opened the border and allowed millions of unvetted illegal aliens ( including rapist and murderers and gang members) into the country. Democrats thrive on chaos and anarchy. They WANT America to fail so that they can step in with big government and wrest more power and wealth for themselves. What is sad, in spite of all this is 71M Americans continue to vote for them……Scary.
I for one want to see Bragg Gone along with the entire New York City and State Corrupt Judicial System!!!! There may well be even more to be done to bring back civility to New York City and State including sending all Illegal Immigrants back to where they came from!!!!
Both Bragg (doesn’t come across as too bright) and Letitia James who is probably the worst DA w/o ethics or principles ever in NY needs to br tossed out as well. Cannot come soon enough.
Blood covered lunatic? Check to see if Betsy was there lol