There’s been national discussion about the growing rift between the NYPD and Mayor Bill de Blasio following the assassinations of two police officers there earlier this month.
This sort of crisis was easy to predict at around this time last year, and the context for this crime won’t be obvious to you unless you also understand at least some of the economic background to it, also, in the same way that it’s not possible to properly understand the collapse of NYC in the 1970s (“Ford to City… Drop Dead”) you also have to know why the town could not afford to maintain its own security anymore.
The economic backdrop is that there is not enough money for the city to maintain the same growth in payments to the police force while still maintaining all the pensioners and other government functions. Something must give, and the police would rather use their positions as the weapons of the state to preserve its own revenues against its competitors (those competitors arguably represented by de Blasio — teachers’ unions, welfare bums, corporate barons who need tax credits, etc.).
The police force has lost legitimacy among the liberal opinion-forming classes and the poor Black communities that commit a disproportionate amount of crime within the city itself.
Simultaneously, a civilian authority that has no enforcement capacity is no longer a sovereign government, except perhaps in the minds of men.
Either the Federal government would need to liquidate the rebellious police force, or some combination of the rebels and local gangsters would step in to fill the sovereign void. Alternatively, the rebels could form a new civilian government that is closer to their liking.
Chuckle it up if you think that can’t happen in the US, but there’s a reason why former mayors and police executives are making the rounds-about TV shows making a case for that in different words, paying publicists to place “…growing calls for the mayor to resign…” into the pens of dozens of journalists at the same time.
Civilian government exists only at the permission of the most capable, unitary group of fighting-men. Legal rhetoric is just chatter without the force to support it.
Fighting-men are not magically bound to civilian political authority. America may like to pretend that it is a history-free zone, but this would not exactly be the first time that a weak executive has been deposed when he discovered that words have no force by themselves.
These particular police have the problem that they have limited legitimacy, or rather, divided legitimacy: the civilian authority, in an attempt to satisfy the mobs (in this case, actual mobs of protesters), promises that it can bring its soldiers under tighter control while still executing the vast body of laws that the state has beholden itself to.
The dilemma there is that what the civilians have promised isn’t possible, even if it truly desired make that happen.
I can’t say that I feel too broken up that a Communist mayor is in risk of losing his sovereign position over America’s premier city, but as with most power struggles, the fight itself is not likely to resolve the underlying issues that the city must tangle with to maintain anything resembling its current position.
C’mon, how is this post not titled “Coup York State of Mind”?
Goddamnit. That would have been NY Post worthy.
TBH I thought the title was a typo. I thought you meant to call it “Coup York State of Mind”.
I see you’ve changed it. Nevermind…
I think what happened was that I thought of the headline… put on the Billy Joel song… forgot that I thought of the headline… then garbled it when I actually wrote it.
The police are a fighting force of sorts, and NYPD probably better equipped and trained than most. But they are no match for actual US military troops, even of the sort reserved for discretionary use by state governors.
It would probably not come to that, but it would be interesting if it escalated even to the threatening level.
US MIL/ARNG vs NYPD – Since these are the same people, from same families that could make family reunions a bit awkward, not to mention the next drill.
What makes you think that either the National Guard or even the Federal Forces are going to intervene, especially since the NYPD are merely getting out of the tax collection business for a treacherous govt that has gotten 2 of them murdered?
Why would they do it even if the NYPD were storming City Hall shooting, and why would those here object if they did?
Does this mean we are headed for a Weimar America soon?
That is a serious question actually, America seems to be headed in a somewhat similar direction to post monarchist Germany, or post Socialist Russia.
The two officers were non-white and they were murdered by a non-white. Race war.
What if the evil occupying army is not the NYPD and its supporters? What if it’s all the NAMs (or as I prefer NEESAMs – Non East Asian or South Asian Minorities) and their leaders like Shark Ton and DeBlasio are the evil force that lacks legitimacy? What is the true civilian population uses the NYPD to hold the line? And yes, I’m aware of J Derby’s argument “If enough of them move to your land, it becomes theirs”.
BTW, I’m a big fan. I realize that may have sounded harsh (haven’t been sleeping well). I just think that there is a possibility that reality may be the opposite of what you’ve said.
I’m accustomed to harsher, so no, didn’t bug me.
De B enjoys legitimacy with the opinion forming classes and the SWPLs… probably much less with some of the others. Maybe you misunderstand how liberal the city really is.
Good Point. I was thinking in the larger context of the region and the United States.
How many gunmen and soldiers do the opinion forming classes have?
BTW this isn’t a pensions dispute, nor is it local as you imply in your analysis. What’s at issue that’s worth killing for is the Plenary Police powers in America, held locally and not by USG -and what the SJW are openly saying they want – A Federal Police force.
Police Unions and Municipal governments don’t kill over pensions. Nor does Al Sharpton have the juice to get NYPD killed and walk the Streets.
This has been a National Level movement for some time, it’s more than slightly Manhattan Myopic to miss that.
Behind the scenes Holder has been running all over the country 2 years investigating, suing and getting letters of consent from local departments.
On Dec 1st Obama held his Community Organizer National Leftist Super SJW Heroes meeting in the White House. On Dec 21st Liu and Ramos were killed.
It’s not about New York, sorry it’s about America.
And when Blue turned their backs Tectonic Plates shifted under Power’s feet.
Buy Blue ribbons, bands and assorted accessories I advise, if Amazon and the rest haven’t sold out again.
When Tectonic Plates shift, Earthquake happen.
And …you’re missing it. It’s started.
With Bill Bratton as our long-awaited American Sulla.