Eric Adams: The Secrets of His Success

The vision-less, incompetent mayoralty of Eric Adams is now getting more and more attention from what some might call the "elite" media -- specifically, The New Yorker, whose big new article on him, "Eric Adams' Administration of Bluster", goes into a mayoralty that's long on narcissism, short on accomplishment. The New York Times has run a few articles on his empty yet braggadocious tenure -- as well as the fact that, while many want to see him defeated for reelection in 2025, who the Adams-slayer might be remains frustratingly unclear. 

And that, in fact, has been the secret to Adams' mayoral success thus far -- a total lack of credible challengers, a strong alternative to him.

Even though he almost lost the 2021 Democratic mayoral primary, Adams' main challengers were the smart but politically inexperienced Kathryn Garcia, the "entrepreneur"/former presidential candidate/con-man Andrew Yang, and others who were either unknown or unimpressive. In the general election, his Republican opponent was Curtis Sliwa who was, and is, in short, insane. The NYC political reporter -- and three-time Mr NYC interviewee -- Ross Barkan asks in one of his latest articles, "How did New York get Eric Adams?" and then answers it in the same vein -- Adams was the best of a very bad bunch, the strongest in a very weak field; in short, he became mayor almost by default, thanks to a process of elimination where he was viewed as the "least-worst" option.

Unlike the big-time media, this blog and Ross have been covering the oddness and misgovernance of Eric Adams ever since he took office. This is yet another example of how Mr NYC has been "ahead of his time."

And, looking ahead, it's important to remember one big thing: political survival comes down to, at the end of the day, who supports you. Political survival, sadly, is not about how good a job politicians are doing, not about whether or not they're delivering good policies or tangible benefits for the public, but whether or not they have the support for the powerful forces that can keep them in office. Besides weak or non-existent political opposition, Adams has had and retains strong support among black and Hispanic voters, the business community, Jewish voters, police and the tabloid press. These are the same constituencies (saving the black and Hispanic communities) who strongly supported Koch, Giuliani and Bloomberg back in the day, and who violently opposed Dinkins and DeBlasio -- and it's why those former three mayors remained popular despite their plutocratic and corrupt mayoralties and the latter two became hated.

Eric Adams is mayor -- and may very well continue as mayor until January 1st, 2030 -- since he has probably the most powerful aforementioned group of supporters that any mayor has ever had, he has (for now) no potent opposition, the daily horror show and threat that Donald Trump poses continues to overwhelm and distract the public from Adams's failings, plus the sharp decline in local reporting has reduced the scrutiny that NYC mayors have gotten in the past. 

Adams doesn't really have any secret to his political success, he's no genius or playing some great game, some kind of multi-dimensional chess -- he's just been lucky (so far). He's been luckier than his opponents who are either dumber or weaker or crazier than he is; and if, in 2025 and beyond, his luck holds and his opponents remain imponent and he doesn't end up getting indicted (and it wouldn't shock me if he is), Adams may be able to retire from politics on January 1st, 2030 with NYC thinking he was a successful mayor.    

It will be classic case of failing upwards.