Seems like New Yorkers in media, politics and voting booths are distancing themselves from the same thing Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has declared war upon: "wokeism." Known by a few names, this dominant strain of progressive thought is from New England, not New York. Reviewing a podcast by "heterodox" thinkers from the city, a change in tone from the New York Times, and the politics of Eric Adams, I argue New Yorkers just can't get in line the way Yankees can.
Here is the podcast I cite: https://youtu.be/x0O6CSMcbPE
New York Times article quoted: Asian Americans, Shifting Right - The New York Times (nytimes.com)
Seems like New Yorkers in media, politics and voting booths are distancing themselves from the same thing Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has declared war upon: "wokeism." Known by a few names, this dominant strain of progressive thought is from New England, not New York. Reviewing a podcast by "heterodox" thinkers from the city, a change in tone from the New York Times, and the politics of Eric Adams, I argue New Yorkers just can't get in line the way Yankees can.
Here is the podcast I cite: https://youtu.be/x0O6CSMcbPE
New York Times article quoted: Asian Americans, Shifting Right - The New York Times (nytimes.com)
The other day, I was listening to a great podcast with a few figures, I think the modern term for them is “heterodox” folks, contrarians, libertarians, the like. The host was Coleman Hughes who I really admire, a philosopher by background, a writer by trade from New York City and is a very critical thinker. And I mean that in the sense that he breaks down arguments, not that he criticizes people.
And among his guests was David Bernstein, who founded the Jewish Institute for Liberal Values, and recently wrote a book with a provocative title called “Woke Anti-Semitism.” That title is a riff on an earlier book by John McWhorter called “Woke Racism.” The interesting thing, although you can see where the conversation was going, which was specifically about Ron DeSantis war on woke in Florida, is that none of these people around the table were what you would consider conservative in a Republican sense.
Other guests included Kmele Foster and Cloe Valdry. Foster endorsed the Libertarian candidate for President in 2020 for an example of how outside the box these folks are. And it's worth noting that the oft-cited McWhorter did not appear on Fox News to promote his book -- when Fox News, a national news outlet, would've been very happy to feature a black intellectual critiquing the anti-racist movement. Instead McWhorter characterized his book as a critique of one part of the left from another part of the left.
Perhaps the one thing that these heterodox thinkers have in common is that they disagreed to one degree or another with the most strident form of liberal thought that the equity, the anti-racism, what critics call “woke,” and this is key, they're willing to say so very publicly. How can they do this without being canceled another modern term? Well, they have a superpower called Being a New Yorker.
Welcome to the Compass of Power. I'm Adam Wilson. I'd like to put the place in politics, and today we're gonna talk about New York City. And as always, these are just my views. I am just shooting the breeze and like to think about these things.
Coleman Hughes, the host of the podcast I listened to, like Mc Water, is a Black man affiliated with Columbia University in New York. Hughes attended McWhorter teaches there. Bernstein is a Jewish New Yorker, and happy to identify as such.
As listeners to this podcast know I am, if not heterodox in my thinking, then unorthodox, can we still be unorthodox? Specifically, I tried to boil political debates down to where people are coming from. Literally. In this episode, we're not gonna debate what is logical or illogical about being woke or anti-racist.
What we're going to talk about is why we would be seeing resistance to that dominant strain of Democratic thinking and one of the largest, most important democratic cities in the country. The short answer is New Yorkers are not Puritans, culturally speaking, even though they butt right up against Massachusetts, the original Puritan colony people in the old Dutch colony of New Amsterdam think a little too freely to understand the rigid conformity. That is a hallmark of Puritan culture. Bernstein said as much.
Now what I don't do, and to me this is one of the major delineating factors. I don't claim that my, that, that my argument is beyond scrutiny. I don't believe because I'm Jewish and I've experienced anti-Semitism. I have some, I have some monopoly on wisdom about anti-Semitism. I I believe that I have, you know, if you want to hear me out on it, you hear me out on it. And, and I'll make my arguments. But it's just one data point and it, and it could easily be that there's other data points that you should listen to or other people's lived experience that you should listen to. So I think that's one, that's one thing that separates sort of the i the brand of identity politics We're dealing with now, sort of quote unquote identity politics, which is a claim of authority. It's it's a standpoint claim. It's that my lived experience qualifies me to define this for the rest of society. That's a very, very aggressive claim.
New York City acts as a kind of immune system for virulent group. Think in the United States, this can be good. They didn't like prohibition, they didn't like McCarthyism. They didn't even go along with the Iraq war when it was the only city successfully attacked on nine 11. And the Iraq War this week is 20 years old, if you can believe it. But New York City also didn't get on board with abolitionism or the whole war for independence against the British thing. So it's not that New Yorkers have superior instincts, they just act differently than other liberals in the US Today, NYC is acting as a kind of throttle on the way of thinking that has wholly consumed the northeast and the left coast. New Amster Amsterdam was founded on trade first, and we should always remember that unlike Massachusetts or which was founded to become the city on the Hill, an ideal religiously founded New World, new Amster Dam was established by the Dutch for trade and profit.
They believe very strongly that limiting speech or religion interfered with that higher goal. Prophet. Take a look at the articles of surrender drafted by the Colony Dutch leaders in 1664 when the Dutch took, when the British took over the very conditions of taking over. Manhattan included the precursors to our own Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights. Now, just to be clear, I'm not nut picking here and holding up that very niche set of podcasters of the heterodox folks as if they represented all of New York. Here's a few more things that I noticed that got me thinking along this line that maybe New York City is not all in with d e i or anti-racism or whatever we want to call it. Lester Chang, a military veteran and a Republican beat, a democratic incumbent for a Brooklyn based seat in the New York State Assembly.
He said he won because of community concern about crime. His victory was a data point in a New York Times story about the shift in the Asian American vote towards Republicans. That included some interesting maps including showing the governor's races in Brooklyn's Chinatowns, where you see a 30 point swing from 2018 to 2022. Apparently this is the Sunset Park area, and it went from being plus 15 Democrat in some areas to plus 15 Republican in at least a couple blocks. The New York Times explains this shift basically by ruling out the same points that Ron DeSantis has been making in Florida in his war on woke. This is a quote here, okay, nationally, the right word drift of Asian Americans is connected to a new class divide in American politics. The Democratic Party, especially its liberal wing, has increasingly come to reflect the views of college educated professionals.
The trend has long been evident among white working class voters, and many liberal analysts have claimed that it mostly reflects racial bigotry, but recent developments have weakened that argument. Class appears to be an important factor as well. Since 2018, more Asian and Latino voters have supported Republicans and these voters appear to be disproportionately working class and quote, they have some other figures that I thought were really fascinating, just this is national on Asian American votes. And it shows that while they were 74% democratic in 2004, they had dropped by 10 points in 2022 to 64%. And what's interesting is that we kind of zoom out of New York in this explainer piece. Here's another quote. The Pew Research Center has conducted a detailed analysis of the electorate and categorized about 8% of voters as belonging to the progressive left. This group spans all races, but is disproportionately white and upper income.
The progressive left has an outsize impact, partly because of its strong presence in institutions with access to political megaphones like advocacy groups, universities, media organizations, and Hollywood. To recap, the New York Times is saying Asian Americans are voting for Republicans in greater numbers because they're working class people worried about real world issues like crime, and the Democrats are led by college educated elites in Hollywood and universities. That is essentially the entire g o p case against the quote unquote woke Democrats coming from the New York Times. Of course, that summary was provided in an article trying to give context to a racially focused story. And, and essentially, I got the vibe was a warning Democrats about the losses amongst Asian, Asian Americans. So maybe one reason that we didn't hear a lot of complaints about taking that view or rolling out essentially the Republican case against Democrats as if they were data points, and I would argue they are data points, but you know, I would, you would think that would come in for criticism.
Part of it is that it's, it's couched in looking at a racial minority in the United States, but it also comes after the times refused to fire anyone after more than 200 contributors working with glad accused them of bigotry for reporting on the questionable medical science behind some transgender treatments in the face of other recent controversial verses, the so-called national paper record has parted ways with other writers. They have capitulated to complaints. However in a February 16th letter from executive editor Joseph Kahn, an opinion editor Kathleen Kingsbury, they basically said this was a critique from an advocacy group and that it was a difficult issue. And they understand the critique, however they called the specific pieces singled out, which we're talking about how well grounded the science is when we were talking about treatment for transgender people. They called it important, deeply reported and sensitively written, and they ended not with a like, sorry, or they've gotta go, but we do not welcome and we will not tolerate participation by times journalists and protests organized by advocacy groups or attacks on colleagues on social media and other public forums.
Interesting, right? So the New York Times seems to have taken a turn. If we want to push it a little further, I would say that if, if there was a face to this sort of New York version of liberalism that is distinct from the northeast or left coast version of liberalism, that phase is Eric Adams. He is the mayor of New York City, took office in 2022. Before that, he was the first black person elected Brooklyn Burrow president. And before that, he represented Brooklyn in the New York State Senate from 2006 to 2013. And before that, he was a police officer in the city for 20 years, retiring as a captain, and he got his start in Brooklyn. And I think he was actually arrested by the city police as a young man. He ran a tough on crime campaign and that got a lot of notice on his first day as mayor.
He called 9 1 1 after seeing a street fight on his way to work. You know he was okay with stop and frisk, the controversial policy by New York Police after he was against it in the state Senate. He's was more okay with it running as mayor than he was when he was elected to the state Senate. He supported free community college. He protested after the 2012 shooting death of Trayvon Martin in Florida. He's a supporter of meatless Mondays in schools, and he was recorded calling white people crackers. So he is definitely not a conservative, but he's also not a progressive progressive. He supported solitary confinement of prisoners. He's a supporter of Israel. He carved out an exemption to covid vaccination requirements, apparently to appease a local NBA player. And he criticized remote work as staying home in your pajamas. So Eric Adams doesn't quite fit our mold of what we would think of as like standard democratic views or standard Republican views, but what he is is a New Yorker.
He embodies a unique form of politics, basically only found in New York. And New York, despite being on the national scale, very liberal has produced some of our most prominent Republicans, including former Mayor Rudy Giuliani, and who can forget former President Donald Trump. The key here is that free exchange of ideas and talking very loudly about your ideas is a hallmark of New York culture. And it is a value that seems to extend to all sides of their political dynamic. And I would say all sides because within New York City, you're not really talking about a a polarized electorate in the sense that like I think Adams, once you won the Democratic nomination, got like over 60% of the vote. The Republican Party is not a particularly potent force within the city, although they do come up with some powerful national conservative leaders. The point here is that this unique form of politics that you find only in New York City is clearly starting to separate itself from the dominant line of liberalism in the United States, which is that which is what is found in those areas of the country that were founded by the Puritans.
It includes the whole Northeast and extending out towards like Michigan and Wisconsin, and it includes the the west coast, on the coast places of San Francisco, Seattle, Portland, that kind of area. And it will be very interesting to see whether this daylight, you're starting to see, at least I am arguing, that you're starting to see between the New York version of liberalism and the north, the New England version of liberalism will get brighter if there'll be more of a separation, or are we going to see them come back together in some more moderate version? We've talked before about an emerging southern liberalism that's very important to Democrats if they hope to be successful in a nation where more and more people live in this south. Anyway, that's my thoughts for today. We'll keep it short. Thanks for listening. Tell your friends, tell your family about this show if you're enjoying it. I think that it is a, it's its own docs. It's uni docs in its thought. All right, thanks.