Progressives in name and deed

There has been much fine reporting on the New York City mayoral campaign so far, both here and in other traditional and web-only news sources, but we head into tomorrow’s first official mayoral debate with the question of the meaning of what actually makes a candidate “progressive” largely unexplored.

That is a critical gap. Dianne Morales, Scott Stringer and Maya Wiley — both by self-description and campaign-coverage shorthand — are said to occupy the “progressive lane.” (Shaun Donovan is sometimes placed here, too.) But how progressive are they really, both in relation to each other and in relation to their more “moderate” competitors?

Rather than relying on simple litmus tests about policing or education policies, among my own starting points are some simple ideas. To be progressive is to: (1) have a vision of a unified New York (with an accompanying set of policies) that speak to moving us towards fairness, opportunity, respect and dignity for all; (2) abandon old-style politics of turf and tribe; (3) recognize that there are basic values and concerns shared across geography, race and other “identity” categories; (4) resist the urge to romanticize those in need (there is nothing romantic about being poor); and (5) demand a more ambitious and reliable city government.

In order to delve into some of these issues, the Anti-Discrimination Center has posted a challenging, heterodox and multi-issue mayoral candidate questionnaire. We think that this probing instrument — if candidates respond — will yield useful guidance for voters.

Thus far, for example, some candidates have treated the academic element of schooling as not much more than a footnote. There is nothing progressive about that. If you’re a parent, you want to be able to do your work and know that your child is getting an excellent education in traditional academic terms, learning math, English, science, history and other basics. You want to know whether candidates think “it is important to assess students academically in preparation for placement, remediation and enrichment for the 2021-22 school year.”

All the candidates say that they are interested in building more affordable housing, but how many are able to imagine the city using the market in a new way: having the city itself acquire and develop mixed-income housing in strong-market neighborhoods “where cross-subsidy would be raised by selling condominium units at market rate and where the balance of units were held by the city for affordable rental occupancy”?

A progressive has to be able to envisage things that have never been while at the same time not denying the reality that exists today. It does not take away from important work done by city hospitals to acknowledge that those with a choice seldom choose those hospitals. Is it too ambitious to “create a pilot program to turn a public hospital into a flagship hospital with in-patient and out-patient services as good or better than New York-Presbyterian”?

To be progressive is to push sometimes for the unpopular. That is why candidates should “identify something you’ve told New Yorkers during this campaign despite your expecting that many would not want to hear you identify that problem or offer that prescription.”

To be progressive is to have government — to use Kathryn Garcia’s trademark phrase — “get s—t done.” That means that talking about the importance of what used to be called vocational and technical education is fine, but the practical bottom line is which candidates “commit to tying any tax abatements to be given to companies for locating to or remaining in New York City to their agreement to hire graduates of NYC high-school vocational and technical programs.”

Our questionnaire does pose some less-fraught inquiries (like which is your favorite Rhiannon Giddens song). Mostly, though, the questions are ones that get down to whether candidates really want us to live in a genuinely progressive city. Our very first question is one of those: “Do you agree that all our neighborhoods should belong to all of us, regardless of the New Yorker’s neighborhood of origin, and regardless of the neighborhood into which that New Yorker might want to relocate?”

In the next four years, New York is going to face enormous challenges, some almost as startling as when the pandemic struck us 15 months ago. Many jobs, for example, may be permanently gone. The radically conservative U.S. Supreme Court might strike down rent regulation or inclusionary zoning. Candidates who today trot out a stock answer regardless of the question (“more tourism!” or “community control!”) are, like Republicans on autopilot always calling for tax cuts for the wealthy, unlikely to be up to the task.

A truly progressive response, by contrast, cares less about the company an idea keeps (“who has proposed or supported it?” or “is this part of left-wing scripture?”), and more about the merits: will the idea solve a problem to the benefit of New Yorkers yearning for a city that works for all of us?

Let’s see what kind of answers we get.