De Blasio and fellow ‘progressives’ will assert their power

As Bill de Blasio and other incoming city officials pledge loyalty to the agenda of the Rev. Al Sharpton, it occurs to me that there is a missing link in New York politics. Middle-class taxpayers are the only ones who don’t have a community organizer.

If they had one, Gotham might have a government that represents their interests. Instead, too many people making it in New York stayed home on Election Day and now must face the consequences of the most far-left government in memory.

Once the wheels of the new City Hall start turning, they’re going to regret not voting.

The new mayor, the new public advocate and an army of new City Council members all come out of the radical hot houses of the Sharpton caucus. They call themselves “progressives” but what they really mean is militant liberals. Think class warfare with distinct racial overtones.

The tilt is so pronounced that one academic says the city’s two-party system now consists of centrist Democrats and far-left Democrats. He’s right up to a point, though I’m not sure how many centrists there are among the 48 Dems in the council, against only three Republicans.

Consider that the majority’s leading candidate for speaker, Democrat Melissa Mark-Viverito, only recently started standing for the Pledge of Allegiance to the American flag and declared herself proud when a fan did a photo mock-up of her wearing a Che Guevara beret.

“I take this as a compliment,” Mark-Viverito said when she posted the picture on Instagram. Incredibly, she and de Blasio still share a romantic view of Fidel Castro and other leftist tyrants.

Even in deep-blue New York, communism fell out of fashion long ago. For most residents, the American dream is the goal and there is still shame in taking handouts. Yet the election results reflect the rising power of a different mindset, one that scoffs at the values of independence and self-reliance and instead puts its faith in government rulers.

But there is no mystery about those warped results. A historic number of voters simply didn’t show up on Election Day.

The city’s Board of Elections says the 22.6 percent turnout was the lowest in at least 60 years. Not incidentally, the turnout in 1953 was 93 percent.

Since then, it has declined at a quick rate. It was 57 percent when Rudy Giuliani beat David Dinkins in 1993, but only 33 percent when Michael Bloomberg beat Freddy Ferrer in 2005. Turnout fell further, to 28 percent, when Bloomberg beat Bill Thompson four years ago.

Fewer people are voting, even as the population increases. There were nearly 1.9 million votes in 1993, but less than 1.1 million this year.

The decline in turnout percentages also stems from increased registration. There are now 4.6 million people on the rolls, up 500,000 from 2009, and 1.3 million above 20 years ago.

Activists are more likely to vote, of course, and their numbers are magnified when others don’t. Whether it was changing demographics, Bloomberg fatigue, a lack of enthusiasm for Republican Joe Lhota or a combination of factors that kept so many people home, those who voted were those most unhappy with the city’s direction.

Elections always have consequences, but some people upset by these results argue de Blasio and his crew are too smart to jeopardize the gains of the last 20 years and will temper their agenda. They say this with more hope than conviction.

I say they are kidding themselves. De Blasio and those who rode the wave with him are far-left movement people. They won a resounding mandate and they intend to aggressively assert their power, as they will demonstrate soon enough.

O ignores history at our peril

For millions of Americans, ObamaCare proves the point that President Obama’s policies are wrong for the nation, but there is another policy in the works that is actually more dangerous. It is his handling of the Iranian nuclear issue.

Desperate for an interim deal, he is ready to remove some sanctions in exchange for mere promises that Iran will not build a weapon. In theory, an interim deal will build trust and lead to a final, peaceful settlement.

But history shreds the theory. Iran pulled the same gambit before and used the time-out to expand its enrichment capacities and build secret facilities. North Korea also followed a rope-a-dope strategy and ended up with the bomb.

Doubts about the White House theory also focus on Obama’s demand that Congress back off a plan to add more sanctions. Press Secretary Jay Carney told reporters that more sanctions could scuttle a deal and force America into a war nobody wants.

As Lee Smith writes in The Weekly Standard, the subtext of that argument is that Obama, who used to insist a military strike against Iran was an option, has taken the threat off the table. Smith writes, “The White House has dragged the US debate so far toward the Iranian position that the most hawkish stance is to impose further sanctions.”

And even that is too hawkish for Obama.

The issue boils down to two questions: Is there any sign the mullahs will end their quest for a nuclear weapon? And is there any sign Obama will do whatever it takes to stop them?

So far, the answer to both is no. Everything else is irrelevant.

Not gov’s ‘brightest’ idea

Thanks to David Halberstam’s incisive writings on the Vietnam War, it is not a compliment to describe anyone as “the best and brightest.” Somebody should tell Gov. Cuomo.

Halberstam used the phrase to describe the brilliant eggheads who led America astray. The governor’s people use it without irony to describe their search for talent.

A Cuomo aide recently defended a $20 million consultant contract as a way “to attract the best and brightest to state government.” The governor himself said two new hires “represent the best and brightest from their respective fields.”

Somebody also should tell them what George Santayana said: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

The truth hurts for Times

For those keeping score, The New York Times editorial page is making progress. After first calling the ObamaCare debacle an “overblown controversy” and saying only that the president “misspoke” in promising people they could keep their insurance, the page is coming around. Yesterday’s editorial accused Obama of “falsely promising” the insurance retention.

If the editors summon the courage to take one more step forward, they’ll land on the truth: The promise, repeated at least 30 times, qualifies as a lie because the president knew it was false.

Can the Gray Lady handle the truth?

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