With the MTA fearing it will have to shut down whole subway lines, New York City itself facing tens of billions in red ink in the years ahead, shootings and homicides soaring, the city’s housing market collapsing and an ongoing pandemic that threatens to make Gotham suddenly a far less desirable place to live, Mayor Bill de Blasio took the time Thursday to … help paint a giant Black Lives Matter mural on the street outside Trump Tower.
What a fumbling fraud.
The stunt was somewhat original when DC Mayor Muriel Bowser did it near the White House a few weeks back. Copying it outside the president’s headquarters here is just a sad “me, too!”
It pretends to be an in-your-face to The Man — but de Blasio is The Man, too, occupying one of the most powerful elected offices in America. The only conceivable point here is to passive-aggressively accuse President Trump of racism.
The mayor is simultaneously (he says) still hoping for a bailout to the tune of several billion from the federal government led by the guy he’s so publicly insulting. But that’s almost the least of it.
Black lives are being ended daily now in this city, thanks to the crime wave. De Blasio plainly has no clue how to stop it, or at least no will to take the lead in reversing the tide.
And for his featured co-star in his painting stunt, he opts to invite the Rev. Al Sharpton — a lifelong purveyor of racial division who himself stands silent about the murder mayhem in the city’s black neighborhoods.
Most pathetic of all, none of this will win the mayor points with the people he’s desperate to please: They’re still mad at him for not defunding the NYPD, and even (mildly) defending it in the face of the recent riots.
It’s no wonder de Blasio is now heckled from the left and right: New Yorkers across the spectrum see that his every move is nothing more than a self-serving stunt.