"Mr. de Blasio, we left-liberals need to be humble. The grand traditions of democratic socialism in New York City are more than a myth, and fervently I hope that you will carry forward some of those ancient social democratic principles in a version suitably streamlined and corrected for our own era. But there is a left, and a left, and the differences between the one and the other ought to have become obvious ages ago. Adolfo Carríon is not going to win many votes, and yet, in his gibes against you, he has a point. Mr. de Blasio, you will be a better mayor if you recognize his point. You could be, indeed, a great mayor, if only you learned how to conjure the kind of idealism and civic altruism that Michael Bloomberg has never wanted to conjure—and if you learned, as well, how to guard against the ideological manias and arrogant cruelties that sometimes accompany a left-wing disposition. Only, your comments on the Sandinistas of the past make me skeptical."
Posted on: Wed, 02 Oct 2013 00:12:22 +0000
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