But, be warned: first impressions so often mask truth.
Here is this dyslexic, poor black kid from Brooklyn, with little but a rough life ahead of him. His learning difficulties put him behind the classroom eight ball…covering the lost feeling of not knowing with behavior that amuses his classmates but angers the powers that be from teachers to Principals.
And then comes trouble outside of school in neighborhoods armed with drugs and guns and kids like him on the loose with nothing to do and where nothing but trouble awaits.
Lots of brothers and sisters, trouble within the home, living on the outside, then beaten by Police.
And then comes a savior named Phillip Banks, a lieutenant in the NYC Police Department, who finds him in trouble, sees something more in him, brings him home to a house with his own sons as examples, finds him to be a willing worker, focuses on getting him through high school and finds a place on the Transit Police for him…turning his life around completely and starting him on a course which eventually elevates him far beyond any imagined success.
Understandable. But a better fit would have been the Church to become a Minister — for a man with a Magic Mouth and an eye for sharp clothing.
Instead, after fifteen years he is elevated from the Transit Police to the regular force where he becomes a Captain and immediately becomes political: attacking the actions and internal reaction of the Department by forming the 100 Black Policemen for Social Justice as a furious Commissioner Ray Kelly is unable to get rid of him and his dissident voice.
But he moves on by abandoning Police service to run for the State Legislature as a Republican in Brooklyn and serves in the State Senate for seven years until he builds enough of a positive reputation to run for Brooklyn Borough President as a Democrat where he wins and serves two undistinguished four year terms.
And then, thanks to a “Junior High School” designed new electoral primary program called Rank Choice voting where if you prefer, you can choose three candidates in order of preference and wait and see how the count comes out- he becomes Mayor of New York with barely any impact from a Republican Party disappearing from the New York scene.
The count came out Eric Adams – he of the perfectly tailored suit, and perfectly matching classy shirts and snazzy ties – with lips that never stopped moving as he talked and promised his way into some sort of day to day nirvana, and New York City suffered from empty office buildings and closed restaurants to failing schools, to daily crime in the streets and a sense of fear in every Subway ride.
The motto of the NYPD is Protect and Serve and yet but for traffic officers, you could never find a cop patrolling the streets…and almost four years later, still can’t. The motto should be “We’ll catch ‘em eventually.”
All those promises of progress followed not by success but by the agonizing deflation of a hot air balloon slowly losing air and beginning to fall from space, slowly reducing those early impressions to what they really were — a never ending stream of words — the perfect picture of a political Minister losing grace within his massive public Church and all the while, from the very first day, surrounded by a band of brothers taking him down one at a time and then running off to hide.
And as he stood in Federal Court and pled not guilty to charges of bribery and fraud, a TV commentator doing her best to present a decent picture outside the courtroom, wondered how a man who used to arrest people and stand in court behind them listening to them plead their case must have felt having to do the pleading for himself.
That thought would never have entered her mind if she knew that in all his years on the Police force, Eric Adams had never made an arrest.
ONE PARTY RULE
Roosevelt dug deeply into the American Labor Party- which was also quite “red”-to attract major union support from the Ladies Garment Workers and the Hatter’s Union and in the process of helping himself, established a new political party in New York, the Liberal Party, pledging to make the Republican Party more humane and the Democratic Party honest.
Working together they saw to it that Tammany Hall was driven out and never returned. But looking back one sees now that Tammany was only a strong group of weeds and that the roots of corruption remained then – and now.
But just a few years ago, we missed how $280 million dollars given to Mayor Bill De Blasio’s wife to establish a new government department focused on helping New Yorkers with Mental Health, “disappeared” in barely a year without any explanation of where it all went.
Once a long- standing structure begins to fail, very little can stop it.
New York has become a one-party town.
The Republican Party has all but disappeared. Republican candidates in the last two Mayoral elections got about 32% of the vote.
Once liberal Republicans or former conservative Democrats with something to offer, could find support from the Liberal Party. MAGA had nothing to do with it then. But MAGA has since overwhelmed what was left of a national party. Polling shows that Donald Trump has more support in New York than New York’s Governor, Kathy Hochul.
Yet when MAGA candidate Lee Zeldin ran against Hochul he lost even as his pitch – out of control crime in New York – helped bring four Republicans from New York to Congress giving them control of the House. The advent of Project 2025 has swallowed what we once knew as the Republican Party.
PROMISES, PROMISES
Almost four years ago, Eric Adams outlasted rank choice voting and became the Democratic candidate for Mayor.
Curtis Sliwa, radio Talk Show host and well known for his leadership of the Guardian Angels had become the choice of the disappearing Republican Party.
We talked to both about a political affiliation and support during the campaign. As much as we admired his courage and ambition, Curtis had no genuine preparation to become Mayor. Maybe Public Advocate, certainly a City Councilman or member of the State Legislature. But Mayor? Running a massive administration? Doing the second toughest job in the country? It made no sense.
Eric Adams did not need the Liberal Party to succeed. But we spoke intently and in earnest for 45 minutes. We poured questions at him and he was ready in a flash with the answers. Problems in education, crime, traffic, welfare, the stunning impact of Covid…all of it came back with what seemed like logical, well thought through responses.
He insisted he could genuinely handle the results of the young Progressives call for an end to police funding, to the effort against racism by ending cash bail for those caught in the commission of a crime, for the denial of personal immunity for each policeman leaving them open for legal action against them.
He could deal with all of it even as he suggested he dealt with the activities Brooklyn’s district committees and the often ridiculous decisions they made regarding governing in New York’s oldest borough now with an average citizen age of 32.5 years…the youngest borough in the city.
A strong first impression. Promising. Hopeful.
And all words. And little more.
Like the sound stages in Hollywood. All those various streets full of houses…but nothing more than fronts with nothing whatever behind them.
All those promises. All those close friends with brand new six figure jobs.
All those suits and ties and biblical talk as if he was standing in an endless pulpit and we were his congregation and the words alone would be enough.
AND NOW
It is possible that despite the collapsing Adams administration, He might somehow escape to live another day. You can never be sure what will happen in NYC even with the Federal Justice System breathing down his neck.
In the meantime, lots of candidates for Mayor will be appearing in the months ahead. They will be Democrats. And whatever the tide, the result will be a Democratic Mayor.
Where will the Republicans find a credible candidate?
And if there is no change in leadership in City Hall, how will we ever get to believe the Democratic Party will finally rid itself of the corruption that keeps it afloat?
This is not to suggest that every Democrat running for that job or any elective office is corrupt…not at all.
But it is a statement that says anyone running from that party needs to be aware of the history that does not go away. We are not talking about ghosts of the past.
The fact that a policeman for thirty years did not have the will to bring the NYPD back onto the streets to protect New Yorkers because he did not bother to challenge the actions of those who took away a policeman’s individual immunity, is evidence enough that he thought other things were more important and that there would be no Republican to challenge him with the truth.
And that is where we are today. The ghosts walk among us.