Mayor de Blasio and Governor Cuomo haven't been able to agree on much of anything since the mayor took office. That disagreement over anything and everything dissolved for a moment today though, as Mayor de Blasio joined Andrew Cuomo in telling New Yorkers that maybe a Trump presidency won't be so bad and we've got plenty of infrastructure spending to look forward to.
"Yesterday I was clear about the area that we are prepared to work with President Trump for the good of the people of New York City" de Blasio said at a press conference this afternoon, before conjuring a version of Donald Trump only a milquetoast liberal could build.
"If President-elect Trump follows through on a vision of creating new jobs and rebuilding our infrastructure and follows through on a vision of ending trade deals that are bad for American workers and follows through on a vision that closes the carried interest loophole and a tax policy that will put resources back into the federal government to invest in our cities and our nation, we'll work with him and do everything to help him achieve those goals."
The mayor followed it up by noting that "there are areas of real concern if President Trump were to follow through on his platform, that there would be conflicts with the values of the vast majority of New Yorkers: for immigrants, any threat to deport people here in our city, any effort to undermine reproductive rights for women in New York and America, any effort to derail Obamacare and take away health insurance from so many people who've struggled to get it. These are all examples of where we will fight to protect the interests of New York City, and certainly as well in affordable housing, where it's crucial the federal government remain committed to the people of the city."
De Blasio chose to treat Trump as an unknown, suggesting that his campaign rhetoric might not match his actions, and that there's a reason for hope there. "With any new leader, everyone has to watch and see what we're gonna get. On a historical level, sometimes we get exactly what we expect and sometimes we get something very different. It's a lot easier to talk about some of the things he offered in his platform, but a lot of them will generate serious, serious opposition and become harder to achieve."
The mayor said he hopes Trump will "remember the people of New York City in the decisions that he makes," and also suggested that "there would be a hypocrisy in turning against the place he came from." And if there's one thing we know about Trump, it's that he would never do anything hypocritical.
"I do not fear at all the normalization of Donald Trump," the mayor said, while also emphasizing that the real X factor is who Donald Trump will be when he takes office. "We'd like him to succeed," de Blasio told the press, "I do believe President Obama is right that you're supposed to have a patriotic impulse to want to see the president succeed."
Does de Blasio really mean any of this, or did he just say it in the hopes that President Trump won’t nuke the city in a fit of pique?
That success, in the eyes of Cuomo and de Blasio, seems to be in a Trump the men created in their own minds who'll support Robert Moses-esque big builds in urban areas. The actual evidence we have on hand at the moment however, doesn't seem to suggest that's going to be the case.
