Back in the age of dinosaurs (the 1960’s), I spend two years in school in New York City. I rode the subways, took buses, wandered around Penn Station and Grand Central Station. I felt relatively safe. I ate affordable lunches at the Automat and the various restaurants in and around Grand Central Station. Under John Lindsay, the city was relatively safe. I would not feel safe enough to do any of that now.
On Tuesday, Michael Goodwin at The New York Post posted an article about the upcoming election for Mayor of New York City and one of its former Mayors.
The article reports:
Whew, better late than never!
That was my first reaction to the news that President Trump intends to give Rudy Giuliani the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
The announcement followed the serious weekend car crash in New Hampshire that sent the 81-year-old Giuliani to the hospital.
Thankfully, his injuries, said to include a broken vertebrae, are not life-threatening and he has been released from the hospital.
A likely result is Trump’s presentation will focus almost exclusively on Giuliani’s greatest achievement: His stellar tenure as New York’s mayor.
Although he later served as Trump’s pugnacious lawyer during the disputed aftermath of the 2020 election, it was during Giuliani’s two terms as Gotham’s fearless leader that he proved he is fully worthy of America’s highest civilian honor.
The article notes the current condition of New York City:
Giuliani was succeeded by Michael Bloomberg, a fellow Republican whom Rudy endorsed, and their combined five terms over two decades ushered in a new Golden Age in Gotham.
The city was never better, a fact that has made the subsequent years of decline a bitter pill for many and a lesson in the power of leadership, and why elections matter.
Unfortunately, the city is once again consumed with doubts as a mayoral campaign offers little hope.
Indeed, the current crisis is driven home by the fact that Bill de Blasio, who succeeded Bloomberg, took the city backward for the better part of eight years.
And now de Blasio, known as Mayor Putz in my book, is endorsing socialist Zohran Mamdani, and claiming Mamdani has “the right ideas.”
In fact, Mamdani, an anti-cop socialist and an antisemite, has all the wrong ideas for New York.
His election would take the city in the wrong direction, to a version of the bad old days that Giuliani and Bloomberg overcame.
The article includes some well-deserved praise for both Rudy Giuliani and President Trump:
Ah, but that’s not to say that the Rudy model has vanished.
In fact, a certain president was a close witness to Giuliani’s operatic performance and the changes he brought about in his hometown.
Although Trump was never accused of being a shrinking violet in the business world, I’ve long believed that he was largely inspired by Rudy’s take-no-prisoners approach to politics, and realized it was a viable path for him to follow as he, too, crashed the political establishment.
Trump, of course, personalized that approach to twice capture the White House, surpassing Rudy and his own dreams of sitting in the Oval Office.
Even now, the similarities between the two men remain striking.
In both of his terms, Trump has been, like Rudy, a perpetual motion machine who rarely sleeps and is always ready for the next fight.
He, too, has an endless stream of big ideas in the works, waiting their turn in the limelight.
Both are New Yorkers to the core, and were born to lead.
Fortunately for the rest of us, they chose public service.
I hope New York City voters realize the danger they are in if they elect Zohran Mamdani.
