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. 

The Mayor Adams Style

Eric Adams has been Mayor of NYC for almost three months now and it's been ... interesting.

He's made it very clear that he wants to be tough on crime which, for a mayor, is de rigueur. He's targeting bail reform and bringing back the "anti-crime" unit for the NYPD (which I don't entirely understand since I thought the police's whole job was anti-crime but nevermind). He's also issued some business-friendly executive orders, encouraged remote workers to return to their offices, and is advocating for the state legislature to extend mayoral control of the public schools through 2026 (i.e. the remainder of his term and then some). Otherwise, policy-wise, he hasn't done much -- no big intiatives, no clear vision for the city -- but it's early days yet.

However, when it comes to style, he's done a lot. 

Adams talks a lot about bringing back "swagger" to the city, and loves to swagger himself. He goes to nightclubs, pops up all over city at any given hour, performs vegan-friendly cooking demonstrations, posts pictures on social media of him on his exercise bike while he holds online meetings, and he talks about sheep for some reason a lot. He clearly revels in being the town's #1 guy. This is probably what accounts for his (for now) high approval rating of 61%.

Adams' approval rating is all the more remarkable for the number of odd and, one would think, politically harmful unforced errors he's made -- appointing his brother and unapologetic homophobes to his administration, insulting low-skilled workers, and lying about being a vegan while eating fish. One might think that this kind of insensitivity, dishonesty, and tunnel-vision might harm a mayor's approval ratings but this is clearly not the case. (In case you haven't been paying attention, we are living in the era of shame-free politics). 

I think the reason all of this nonsense hasn't hurt Adams (so far) is that he loves being mayor -- that's very clear. New Yorkers generally like a mayor who enjoys leading the city, at least the mascot aspect of the job. Koch, Giuliani, and Bloomberg, all in their different ways, loved being mayor as well, and it showed -- no matter how divisive, controversial, or elitist they were. And New Yorkers, at the time, gave them a thumbs up for it. Adams has clearly learned this lesson from his predecessors but his love for the job is also obviously genuine.

But what's depressing about this is that it proves that styles matters over substance -- in politics and as in so much of life. For example, Mayor De Blasio had many accomplishments with extending sick leave, universal pre-K, expanding ferry service, more affordable housing, and keeping crime low. He also handled COVID well (not perfectly but then who did?). Not to mention that, during his tenure, the city's population absolutely exploded. De Blasio was re-elected in a landslide so his efforts weren't entirely unappreciated, but he became hated, especially by the press, because he didn't seem to love the job or the people and the city he governed. (Did he really have to openly root for the Boston Red Sox?) De Blasio did the job, and did it well -- that's the most important thing after all -- but his mayoralty had no style, no "swagger", he didn't seem care at all about being the city's #1 person, and it eventually generated public derision. (Especially his also arriving late for events.)

You gotta sell 'em the sizzle more than the steak.

This extensive profile on Mayor Adams and his early days as mayor looks at the man and his mayoral style -- but it also shows so much how image, how flash, how interesting quotes (like this really weird sheep obsession he has), and most of all how a combination of political shamelessness and policy vagueness overrides actually delivering good policies. The press is responsible for much of this -- they care more about the personality of politicians and their various conflicts instead of their policies and the impacts they have on people's lives. Adams and politicians like him play along because they understand the rules of the game. It's not enough for a politician to say "Here's my record, it's helped a lot of people, please like me for it" --  no, they need to feed the media beast with good optics and quotes and an appearance of non-stop energy. The public can understand the flashy side to politicians since the policy part is, ya know, boring. 

Style over substance is the Mayor Adams style -- perhaps that will change, perhaps his popularity won't last, perhaps more substance will be forthcoming -- but it's a telling sign of the NYC and American political culture that playing a politician is more important than actually delivering beneficial policies. 

Crises? What Crises?

Public service is generally defined as serving in a job, often in government, where your work is to better the lives of the general public. That's generally how public service has been understood throughout American history.

Elected officials, politicians, are two things at once: public servants but also celebrities of a sort -- they need to have a certain charisma, "star power", magnetism of some sort that gets lots and lots of people to vote for them (at least get more votes than their opponents) and often has little to do with their qualifications or competence for the actual work of the job.

Something interesting has happened in last decade or two -- now we have politicians who clearly have no interest in serving the public, who don't care about doing the actual job. They just want to be a celebrity. 

Sarah Palin and then Trump are classic examples. But we have one big one closer to home.

Mayor Eric Adams is the very model of a modern politician -- he doesn't actually care about governing, he's not much interested in policy. He likes to hang out at nightclubs and rant about crime but doesn't seem have any vision, any policies, any ideas about helping the general public.

There are twin crises in NYC today that Mayor Adams seems wholly indifferent to:

1. The fact that, in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, generations of Hasidic children are not receiving a proper education or being prepared for adult life, all of which is being partially subsidized by taxpayers. The New York Times published a bombshell investigation about how a huge number of Hasidic children are essentially living in a mini-North Korea. Adams response? It's no big deal. To be fair, this has been a years-long, bipartisan disgrace but this has been fully exposed on Adams watch -- and his response is to do nothing.

2. The odious thing about the conservative political movement is to say that government doesn't work and then, when they get control of the government, make sure it doesn't. There is currently a crises in the staffing of the municipal government because the salaries are too low, there are no work-from-home options, and attrition since COVID began has been awful. Again, Adams doesn't see a problem with this and, in fact, has contributed to the problem -- he wants the city government to lowball salaries to applicants for city jobs and has been totally inflexible on them working from home. 

Ross Barkan, a three-time Mr NYC interviewee, has a great new article about how Mayor Adams doesn't see this as a crises because he doesn't see governing as a priority. The depressing thing is that Adams is not an outlier, not the exception to the rule: he is the rule, he's the standard of today's politician who do nothing policy-wise, claim to have no responsibility for anything, and preen for cameras and social media feeds. 

So if you wonder why problems in today's city, today's country, today's society remain unresolved, this is why.

The Business They Chose

More than once or twice I've blogged about the oddity that is Mayor Eric Adams -- you can read all about it here, no need to rehash it.

This new article elaborates more on this oddness, calling him the "chaos mayor."

But more than cataloguing the mayor's chaotic reign, it also shows how Adams, like other prominent politicians of this era, simply have no idea whatsoever of what it means to be a leader. They spend their time blaming others for their problems, they use overheated crises-ridden rhetoric, they constantly attack the press as being out to get them, and they openly engage in self-pity.

Poor me! Poor me! Everyone's mean to me, I'm a victim, all these conspiracies and dark forces are out to get me! 

It's not like they have power or something. 

In Adams' case, it comes down to his handling of the migrant problem. When they started coming into NYC, Adams showed that he was overwhelmed and unable to handle it. He said this problem was a "crises" that would "destroy New York City" and that we were about to "lose" the city. When the press asked him how he plans to handle this problem, he told others that they had to provide the answers about how to handle the problem. He demanded severe budget cuts in order to handle the problem -- even though the city is running surplus. Instead of projecting confidence in his skills and in his administration's ability to handle this problem, he basically said "I can't handle it! Oh my god, the city is going down, you tell me how to fix it!" 

Real leaders rush into a crises, come up with a plan, handle it in a pragmatic and confident manner, restore order, and fix it. Like that old guy in Godfather II, leaders say "This is the business we've chosen!" and get on with the job, showing that they're in charge and getting things under control. They don't whine and complain, attack their critics and demand pity. They work -- and the positive results speak for themselves and their leadership abilities.

You see this same problem with Trump --- the constant consipiracies, the constant attacks on critics, the constant self-pity. The former British Prime Minster Liz Truss, who managed to the screw up the UK economy in six weeks so badly that her own party kicked her out of office, is now out complaining that the Bank of England and the "blob" that is the UK Civil Service is responsible for her fall -- and not her own decisions. She was Prime Minister when the Queen died in 2022 and apparently Ms. Truss's reaction to this was "Why me?" Can you friggin' believe that?

It wasn't always like this. Leaders led and did the job. Jimmy Carter didn't complain, deflect, or demand pity during the Iran Hostage Crises. Reagan didn't either during Iran Contra. My God, Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton got impeached and still worked hard! 

Eric Adams, like Trump and Truss and others, doesn't seem to get this. They think serving in high office is an excuse either to live the high life or execute ideological agendas -- not govern, not serve the public. And when things don't go their way, instead of sucking it up and getting to work, they WAAAAAHHHHH! 

The thing is, the public is much smarter than these folks. Trump lost the presidency (and hopefully will again), Truss was kicked out, and Adams looks like he'll lose next year.

The people want leaders and problem solvers -- not showboating, self-pitying egomaniacs. You chose this business, get it done.

Work@Home vs. Home@Work

The mayoralty of Eric Adams has been a rather odd affair so far. I won't go into all of it here but my main complaint is that Mr Adams seems to have no vision for, or direction that he wants to take, NYC.

But something that Adams talked about recently is intriguing and, if pursued seriously and smartly, could become a transformative policy, and an important legacy, of his time in office.

Long story short -- since the COVID-19 pandemic started three years ago, more people than ever are working from home. This has led to vast amounts of office space around the city laying empty, or mostly empty, at the very same time that the amount and cost of housing in NYC has reached crises levels. There are enormous skyscrapers and office buildings all over town that are basically shells while, at the same time, regular housing is scarcer than ever. 

So the solution is obvious and simple -- convert a lot of that empty office space that will probably never be occupied by into apartments are, as Adams indicates, into SROs. Such a policy would be a game change and transform not only housing policy in NYC but the entire economy. 

Such a policy would require huge changes in the zoning laws of the city -- simple solutions are very complex when actually implemented. But Adams should run with this, think it through, put together a comprehensive plan that consults with the governments of New York City, New York State, the Fed as well as labor union, business and real estate interests, and everyone who would stand to benefit for this. 

Part of what makes this city great is how we constantly reimagine it, constantly change it, and repurpose something old into something new. Such a housing plan would be a huge and important part of this great legacy. 

NYC Primary Wrap-Up

Well, it's over, or at least it's the beginning of the end. The final results of the NYC muncipal primaries were released yesterday, and now we know the winners. Here are the primary results for Mayor, Comptroller, Borough President, and City Council. (The current Public Advocate easily won back in June.)

Technically none of these "winners" have won anything yet -- they still need to triumph in the General Election in November. However, political reality being what it is, most of the Democratic primary winners in the Bronx, Manhattan, Queens and Brooklyn will win in the general as will most of the Republican primary winners in Staten Island. 

A few interesting observations: the Bronx will get its first female Borough President with Vanessa Gibson; former Congressman Vito Fosella, who left office in 2008 after being busted for DWI which lead to revelations that he had a secret second family, won the Staten Island GOP BP primary (the party of family values in all its glory); Brooklyn city councilman Brad Lander won the Democratic Comptroller primary which means that, if Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams (who won the Democratic Mayoral primary) wins in November, all three city-wide elected officials will be from Brooklyn. This will be an historic moment meaning, a real change in the political gravity of this town, since no one from Manhattan (or anywhere else) will hold city-wide office. 

And yes, the big news is that former cop and Brooklyn BP Eric Adams won the mayoral primary by a whisker -- something like 8,000 votes. I'd been pulling for Kathryn Garcia, and she came damn close, but here we are. Now Adams faces Guardian Angels founder Curtis Sliwa in the General Election -- two colorful, outrageous personalities competing to run the country's largest metropolis and police force.

I can't pretend to be too excited about this choice for mayor -- both candidates seem problematic to me for many reasons -- but obviously Adams is vastly preferable to Sliwa. In some ways this mayoral election will be the battle of the tough guys, a brawl of two men who have literally patrolled the streets of this city. In some ways, they have more in common than not. 

New York City is writing its next chapter. 

P.S. Two years ago I was at an event where Eric Adams gave a speech and he "invited" the office to join him "at City Hall when I'm your mayor." Looks like he was on to something. 

Adams vs. Sliwa?

Did you know that in less than a month the very fate of NYC is set to be decided?

There's a mayoral race, an extremely consequential mayoral race, going on right now but you'd hardly know it if you look at the news. 

Democrat Eric Adams, the Brooklyn Borough President, is running against Republican Curtis Sliwa, the radio host and founder of the vigilante Guardian Angels. The two of them are barely engaging, or attacking, each other. They're barely campaigning. Because everyone assumes Adams will win (including Adams), he's spending most of his time laying low, running out the clock, and raising money. Sliwa, meanwhile, with little money or support, is prowling around the city trying to win as many voters in person as possible. It's bizarre.

You might say, it's the mayor's race that isn't.

The media is paying it very little attention. There hasn't been a debate yet and there might not even be one since Adams isn't taking public funds for his campaign. Most candidates for high office seek to generate news to win votes. They seem to be doing the opposite. 

I can understand that, after last year's insane presidential election, a calm and low key NYC mayoral election is a welcome reprieve -- but it's a little strange, and more than a little scary, that the press and public seem indifferent to covering the race and the candidates that will guide this city for the next four years. 

And if the next mayor, whoever it is, turns out to be a disaster, we might look back at this time right before the election where the city showed and indifference to its fate -- and came to rue the day.

New York City will survice regardless, but can't we do better and pay a little more attention?

George Santos & Lester Chang: Flimflammers Are Why Nepo Babies Thrive

I really need to start an "ahead of his time" label for this blog because, once again, Mr NYC is ahead of his time -- specifically, this time, about nine months. In March, 2022 I wrote a blog post about Mayor Eric Adams and how his nascent mayoralty seemed to be all about flash over substance, about how he had no clear vision or policies for the city, about his associations with questionable characters, and, most of all, just about what a weirdo he is. 

Well, now, Vanity Fair has written an article about his first year in office and concludes much of the same thing as I did. Read it, then read my blog post from nine months earlier, and see if I wasn't ahead of the curve in this assessment of Mayor Adams.

That said, I will give him this -- Mayor Eric Adams is who he says he is, and his resume prior to being mayor was impressive -- more than two decades in the NYPD followed by service as a State Senator and a Brooklyn Borough President. He is, at least in NYC political terms, the real deal, l'article genuine -- even if we don't know where he really lives. To sum up Adams, he's a political heavyweight and a policy lightweight.

Even though there's a stench of dishonesty and sleaze around Eric Adams, he is who he says he is and worked really hard to get where he is -- literally over decades. 

Which, of course, brings us to George Santos, the new Congressman-elect from Northeast Queens (and Nassau County but who cares about that?) who's entire life -- his education, his resume, his finances, his religion, maybe even his sexual orientation, is completely bogus. How a complete charlatan like this could get elected in the New York area is well, if not completely, described by Steve Isreal who used to represent this district in Congress several years ago. His conclusion is that Santos got through due to complete and utter apathy by the NY political class, the media, and voters. This is obvious, not only in the case of Santos, but in the case of a recently elected Brooklyn assemblyman named Lester Chang who, it turns out, doesn't really live in the district. If his opponents and the media had done their homework before the election, they would have exposed all this and the voters would have known that frauds were running to represent them. But they didn't know, and now New York has these twin political messes to deal with. 

And it got me thinking. 

Recently New York magazine published a bunch of articles about "nepo babies" or people who have succeeded, in this case, in showbusiness largely because they have parents who were already in the business -- and had all of the connections and power needed to launch their kids' careers. Nepotism is as old as human history, of course, parents have always wanted to give their kids and family members every advantage to succeed -- power begets power, wealth begets wealth, opportunity begets opportunity. There's a reason why so much of human history has had hereditary monarchies and titles, why the legal concepts of inheritance and primogeniture exist, and so forth -- families want to keep their wealth and power intact for generations to come; they want, in a word, legacy. 

For example, the great director John Huston has been dead for over 35 years but his son, daughter and grandson all have big acting careers. The Huston name is still important in Hollywood today, even decades after the big man's death (and John Huston's father was an actor as well so there you go). 

The triumph of nepotism in America, of course, makes a mockery of the concept of "meritocracy", a cherished American notion that everyone who achieves success did so only through their hard work, and that nothing else matters. This is and always has been BS, of course -- hard work without connections is meaningless. Family support can be vital. But nepotism is powerful not only because powerful, wealthy, and highly-connected people can create great opportunities for their kids. It's also because people who come from such families have what you might call instant credibility, you can do an instant background check on them, you know who they are because you know who their parents and families are. You know the ecosystem, the environment they came out. Nepo babies are a brand, of sorts, a known quantity, and there's an almost instant comfort level with them because you know "their people."

That's why, decade after decade, people named Kennedy and Bush kept getting elected to political office. We know them, even if we don't really like them. 

And that is the huge barrier that people without such connections, without such family power, who are starting out in their careers, face. They're outsiders, unknown, almost bewildering creatures. Such career strivers, such outsiders trying to get inside, are often derisively called "climbers" or "gatecrashers" or "wannabes." They are held suspect until they prove themselves worthy. They have to prove themselves a lot, they have to be the best of the best of the best, they have to smart and crafty as hell, they have to be able to find and exploit every opportunity, they have to work really hard and have a lot of extra special luck to "make it" -- and, as soon as they do, such "self-made" people become "nepo parents" all their own.

George Santos and Lester Chang felt that they needed to lie and cheat in order to thrive. They are blatant climbers but they obviously didn't posses the superior skills, hard work, or clear opportunities to succeed honestly, to succeed on their own -- so they lied and cheated. They're flimflam men, and they are the kinds of people that scare what you might call the Establishment, the gatekeepers, the powers-that-be. The Establishment doesn't want criminals or liars or people they deem unworthy in their midst. So this is why nepotism  and "nepo babies" thrive -- better to go with who you know, better to stay in your comfort zone, better to give opportunities to the people are already "pre-approved." The Establishment doesn't want to let in someone who hasn't, in their view, demonstrated the superior abilities to earn membership in it -- but coming from the right family means you're there already. 

The Establishment doesn't lift the gate to just anyone who doesn't already have family on the other side of it. 

In many ways, I feel sorry for Santos and Chang -- they see what others have, namely money and power, and these guys want it to -- but they have neither the connections nor the skills nor the opportunities to get it on their own, they are unable to do the very hard work to get it, to prove that they're better than the nepo babies around them -- so they lie.

And compared to these guys and any other possible "flimflammers" in our midst, going with a nepo baby is a safe choice. 

Eric Adams on The New Yorker Radio Hour

Brooklyn Borough President and NYC Mayor-presumptive Eric Adams just did a long interview with David Remnick of The New Yorker on the magazine's radio show/podcast. In this interview, Adams refers to the city as "dysfunctional" and how he plans to make it functional.

It's the kind of high-flying rhetoric, the kind of Ialonecanfixit braggadocio that all aspiring chief executives in government promise when on the cusp of power. They yammer on about how "the system is broken" but some way, some how, with some magical powers that only they possess, some great wisdom and superior skill inherent within their person, are going to change decades, if not centuries, of government "dysfunction" and incompetence and make everything perfect -- or at least what their idea of perfect is.

Here's the dirty little secret: most of the government is functional. It provides more services, does more stuff, than anyone can possibly conceive -- and, like plumbers, does it so well that we don't notice unless there's a problem somewehre. The problem is that governments are big institutions, and all big institutions possess a level of inherent dysfunction, or at least strategic incoherence, because you have literally thousands, tens of thousands, even hundreds of thousands (like the NYC government) doing myriad things at once. It's impossible just to change of all that, easily, if at all. It's like trying to turn around an aircraft carrier -- but much, much harder.   

So good luck, Mr Adams. Assuming you're elected in November, we'll check in on how "functional" you've made the city in four years. 

Two Classy Brits Talk Eric Adams

Things haven't been going too great for NYC Mayor Eric Adams, in case you hadn't heard. In fact, the stench of his travails has wafted across the pond.

On the great Rest is Politics podcast from the UK, former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair sidekick Allistair Campbell and former UK Member of Parliament Rory Stewart discuss, and take listener questions about, political issues all over the world. Both men are brilliant, knowledgeable, and great broadcasters, and the podcast has become a worldwide hit.

On their latest episode they talk about the US-UK Special Relationship and they also talk Turkey -- the country that is. But for about five minutes, starting around the six minute mark, they talk about Eric Adams and the wierdness that is not only NYC politics but also all American urban politics.

It's a short segment but certainly worth a listen. When classy Brits start talking about what a weirdo you are, it can't be pleasant. 

UPDATE - OCTOBER 3, 2024: These classy Brits keep talking Eric Adams -- see below, starting at minute 4:07. 

Mayor Z Talks Snow

As NYC prepares for a big snowstorm this weekend, our new mayor is on the case!

This is the first big test of his mayoralty and no doubt the tabloids and the Republicans want him to fail -- so it's good to see Mayor Z is preparing, communicating, and ready to go as this storm hits. 

A month in, it's interesting to see what a quiet, competent, nose-to-the-grindstone leader he's been. It's a HUUUUGE relief from the chaos of Eric Adams.

And talking about our former, unmissed mayor, the great NYC journalist Erroll Louis has written an interesting article about how the full scale of corruption in the Adams administration is still unknown. Even though he was only in office for four years, he number of people who worked for Adams that got indicted, the number of sleazy deals and activities, is breathtaking. It remind me of Nixon -- even years, decades after he resigned in disgrace, documents and tapes kept coming out revealing he was even worse that we knew. I'm sure the same is true of Eric Adams. 

Mayor Adams: Should He Stay or Should He Go?

New York State Governor Hochul has the power to remove NYC Mayor Eric Adams from office. 

Will she do it? 

Adams is deeply compromised because the Trump "Justice" Department is ordering the dropping of Adams' corruption charges but the actual Federal prosecutors on the case are refusing to do so. Resignation is following resignation -- a rolling Constitutional Crises. 

This is an NYC version of the 1973 Watergate "Saturday Night Massacre."

Growing up in decades right after Watergate, I assumed that something like this could never happen again. That America would never elect a bad, corrupt president again. But we did -- twice -- and it's even worse than fifty-something years ago. 

And it's taking NYC with it!  

The Eric Adams Saga Takes Another Bizarre Turn

Whoever said "May you live in interesting times" was an asshole.

Actually, it was/is an old Japanese proverb and was in fact meant as a curse. The flip side to that is another Japanese proverb that states "May you have a boring life" and that was meant as a blessing.

As I get older, I see the wisdom in both sayings. 

Here in NYC, we're living in the "interesting times" of Mayor Eric Adams -- the criminal who runs the city. Only now he's technically not a criminal any more -- the corruption charges against him were dropped -- with prejudice, meaning they can't be brought against him again -- and now Adams says he's running for re-election as an Independent.

I hope to heck he loses but who knows? These days the vox populi est imbecile. 

Then again, in the 19th century there was Fernando Wood, in the 20th century there was Jimmy Walker -- so now, in the 21st century, we have Eric Adams. 

Still, the whole thing is rotten and weird and depressing. New York City deserves so much better than this.

The Talented Mr. Adams

If, as predicted, Eric Adams wins the NYC mayoralty tomorrow, it will be the culmination of a lifetime ambition that took this son of Brooklyn from the NYPD, to the State Senate, to the Brooklyn Borough President's office, and now, we presume, to Gracie Mansion. 

And yet, in this long march to the top, the man himself remains elusive, a bit of an enigma, a living question mark. Who is he exactly, what's he all about? He seems to be whatever you want him to be -- or not. 

Whatever he is, whoever he is, without question, Eric Adams is a talented power player.

He has used his knowledge of the city and innate political skills to rise and rise -- and, tomorrow, he will either realize his ultimate goal of becoming the next mayor (and the only second black one in NYC history) or he will be dramatically upset and it will all come to nothing (plus we'll be saddled with the bizarre Curtis Sliwa as mayor, an until-now unthinkable and scary proposition).

Then we'll see just how talented Mr. Adams really is.  

Wag the (Ex) Mayor

The sleaze of former Mayor Eric Adams, cleaning up the trail of slime he left behind from his four years in City Hall, is apparently something that Mayor Z's administration is doing, to varied success.

In his last days in office, Adams moved around a lot of his cronies in his administration to obscure city jobs so that he could continue to have a toehold in city government. The new mayor is trying to find and fire as many of them as possible but it's not always that clear cut. Just a reminder of the disaster we got rid of as mayor, and how lucky we are to have someone like Mayor Z in charge now.

But don't worry, Adams is fine -- he just became a citizen of Albania because, ya' know, that's not weird.

In the 1997 classic movie Wag the Dog the president's advisors create a fake war with Albania to help distract from a scandal and win an election. In this case, 30 years later, a very real scandalous mayor is actually going to Albanian and becoming a citizen! Wag the Mayor I guess. Dear God. 

Please, Mr. Adams, please stay there!

Adams Indicted

So it finally happened, even faster than I imagined. Eric Adams is the first NYC mayor to be indicted while in office.

For more on the complete bizarre saga of NYC 21st-century version of Mayor Jimmy Walker, go here. 

And here's what might happen next. 

As always, Mr NYC pointed out the oddness and possible criminality of Mayor Adams well before most of the media -- once again, Mr NYC being ahead of his time. 

Mr NYC Ahead of His Time

As the legal inferno involving Mayor Eric Adams continues to burn, some NYC scribes are rememebering other mayors from times gone by that also got into trouble.

The two mayors mostly commonly remembered for getting into big trouble are Jimmy Walker and William O'Dwyer, both of whom resigned in 1932 and 1950, respectively, and then fled the country. Also there was Fernando Wood, the 19th mayor who was vastly more corrupt than either Adams, Walker or O'Dywer -- and never got into trouble at all.

I recently came upon a few articles (here, here and here) about these men, comparing their stories to the predicament that Eric Adams finds himself in (sadly two of these articles are behind a paywall).

But Mr NYC, yours truly, was blogging about these naughty mayors long ago, before any of this meshugas (read about them here and here) -- and remember, Mr NYC is always ahead of his time.

Adams Out

For the first time since -- when? -- a NYC mayor has quit his reelection campaign. 

Mayor Eric Adams has said that he won't continue his quixotic bid for a second term. Drenched in scandal, incompetence and unpopularity, he's bowing to the obvious and envitable.

Seriously, it makes no difference. Not only was he not going to win but his remaining support is so infinitesimal that it's not going to improve any other candidates support at all. Also, his name will still be on the ballot -- so people can still vote for him if they want. Oy vey.

Like his entire mayoralty, Adams dropping out is a sad joke. He's destined to be a forgotten failed mayor like Abe Beame or Vincent Impelliteri -- someone who was given the chance to make the city better and failed completely. 

Eric Adams, We Hardly Knew Ye

As the bizarre spectacle of Eric Adams' time as mayor comes to its ignominous end, The Daily Show did us a big favor of putting together several of his most memorable moments.

Goodbye Eric Adams, we hardly knew yet -- and hope we'll never hear from or see you ever again. 

Moody NYC

The New York Times recently published a big article about ... how people are feeling.

About how they feel about NYC and their lives in it.

The "paper of record" wanted to gauge the "mood" of a city of 8.8 million people by speaking to a number of folks you could literally count on your hands and, from their anecdotes, come to a striking broad-based conclusion about the "mood" of all the residents of the nation's biggest metropolis. (Oh, they spoke to people in each of the five boroughs so I guess that makes it more "broad-based.")

The "mood" appears to be that everyone is freaking out about crime, everything is terrible, and no one can afford to live here. This attitude is so completely at odds with the reality of the evidence and facts on the ground -- crime remains at historic lows and more people live here than ever before -- that I'm stumped at the most respected paper in the city and country passing this off as journalism.

This kind of journalism is weird -- you never saw it before until the age of the Internet and social media. But perhaps there is something in the air in NYC that's making everything feel a little ... off.

Take, for example, our wacky mayor.

It turns out that he has a secret office in Brooklyn, right across the bridge from City Hall in Manhattan. This is honestly no big deal, mayor's have had hideout offices before (heck, Nixon famously didn't work in the Oval Office but in a little one off the Old Executive Office Building), but for some reason Mayor Adams kept it a secret for reasons that make no sense at all. Adams does a lot of weird things like hiring ethically dubious people, insulting low-skilled workers, lying about being a vegan, not being clear about where he lives, reiterating that crime is at historic highs when it's NOT ... and now this.

Adams is just a very weird dude and the city must be feeling very weird to have elected him. When you're the mayor of New York City, you are one of the most covered and criticized public officials in the country but the reality of this part of the job seems to have caught him entirely be surprise. He's secretive and ellusive and, honestly, I have no problem with wanting to maintain your privacy but, well, when you decide you want to be the mayor this isn't really going to be possible. But don't tell him that. 

So the mood in NYC right now is, in my humble opinion, contradictory -- people hate it here but more people than ever want to live here, the mayor doesn't want the press to cover him but wants to be seen everywhere, and day is night, up is down, and left is right.

So, honestly, my mood, the mood of this particular New Yorker, is confused and exhausted.