HANGING A HARD LEFT
Dem Socialists’ plan to build a council caucus
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s Democratic Socialist brigade wants to turn New York City far left — and they are working from the ground up.
The Democratic Socialists of America-NYC is pushing to put up or back a slate of City Council candidates who, if elected, would create a “socialist caucus.”
The overwhelmingly Democratic council is vulnerable next year to the left-of-left push, with 35 out of 51 council seats up for grabs due to term limits. Only 16 council members can run for re-election.
The strategy is detailed in a 13page “tasks and perspectives” strategic planning document that will be reviewed by DSA members this week.
A litmus test for candidates to obtain the DSA endorsement is a pledge to “defund” the NYPD — slashing the police budget by $3 billion, or 50 percent.
“This campaign will be a key issue in the 2021 election cycle. NYC-DSA has already committed to making the call to defund [the NYPD] a central matter in its City Council endorsements and the socialist caucus it aims to build in advance of the 2022 budget,” the DSA steering committee plan says.
The DSA document complains that the already liberal council and Mayor de Blasio this year “merely moved [NYPD] money around” when they adopted the current budget following protests over the police-involved deaths of unarmed black men, including George Floyd in Minneapolis.
The savings from the police cuts could be used to prevent the layoffs of teachers, EMTs and firefighters or fund youth and socialservice programs to attack the root causes of crime, the DSA said.
DSA member Ocasio-Cortez has become the face of the Democratic socialist movement in Congress and a national voice on the far left in American politics following her stunning victory over veteran Rep. Joe Crowley in 2018. The upset also forced Crowley to resign as chairman of the Queens Democratic Party.
The DSA said it intends to exploit the misery caused by the coronavirus pandemic to woo support for its agenda.
Among the strategies laid out in the document:
■ Confront Gov. Cuomo and push the state Legislature to tax the rich to help fund the Green New Deal and New York Health Act — legislation that would create a government-run, singlepayer health-insurance system, and to prevent state cuts in public services.
“In the face of an austerity budget, many of our campaigns will lend their weight to a demand on the state government to tax the rich, putting us directly in the cross hairs of Andrew Cuomo. We welcome his hatred. Remaining
resolute now is the time to expand the public sector, to provide social housing, public power [energy/ utility suppliers],” the plan says.
■ Use the COVID-19-related housing crisis to “cancel” rent, thus squeezing landlords out of revenue and forcing them to give up their properties and “exit the market” — and have the state acquire the properties and convert them to public housing.
The DSA’s housing agenda also includes “undermining” the realestate industry’s already diminished clout in the Democraticrun state Legislature.
■ DSA-backed candidates won five Democratic primaries for state legislative seats in June, with four of its insurgents ousting incumbents.
The document says incumbents’ “fear of being primaried” should make them more “accountable” or amenable to backing DSA priorities.
■ Increase the DSA presence in three of the city’s largest public employee unions — District Council 37, the United Federation of Teachers and the NYS Nurses’ Association.
■ Establish deeper ties to the city’s working-class, minority neighborhoods.
Meanwhile, other leftist groups and unions are joining forces to try to exert influence in the City Council.
Politico reported that the powerful SEIU 1199 health-care workers union has formed an alliance with the political wings of activist groups Make the Road New York and Community Voices Heard to endorse a slate of council candidates.
It was unclear whether the DSA and that alliance will back the same candidates in the council Democratic primaries that will be held in June 2021.