Weekly Opinion Editorial
TRUMP & NYC!
by Steve Fair
As I
walked by Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue in NYC on Monday on my way to a business
meeting, I saw two NYC policeman with a police dog stationed outside the
building. There were a few tourists
taking their picture with Trump Tower in the background, but other than that,
little fanfare. President Trump is not
popular in his hometown. The day after
his inauguration in January, more than 400,000 people marched up Fifth Avenue
to protest his election. I saw a few anti-Trump
protestors and no pro- Trumpers. I never
saw a Make America Great Again baseball
cap being worn by anyone (they were for sale for tourists). So why do New Yorkers hate the Donald?
First Trump
is a capitalist and much of New York City has become a socialist state.
Capitalism is defined as an economic and political system in which a country's
trade and industry are controlled by private owners for profit, rather than by
the state. Trump believes that
capitalism works. He has built several
tall buildings in Manhattan and across the world. He has risked his own money to make money and
done it quite successfully. Socialism is defined as a political and
economic theory of social organization that advocates that the means of production,
distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community as a
whole. New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio is an avowed socialist. He recently
said, “I think people all
over this city, of every background, would like to have the city government be
able to determine which building goes where, how high it will be, who gets to
live in it, what the rent will be.” The Mayor went on to say: “I think what we have, in this city at least, are people who would love
to have the New Deal back, on one level. They’d love to have a very, very
powerful government, including a federal government, involved in directly
addressing their day-to-day reality.” De Blasio, a Democrat who will face
re-election November 7th, is right- many New Yorkers would love to
live in a nanny state.
Second, Trump’s brashness mirrors theirs. Often times, we are unaware of traits we have
that we don’t like until someone does what we do. That’s the issue with Trump and New
Yorkers. New Yorkers are candid, ‘in
your face,’ rude, crude and socially unacceptable- and proud of it. They like to brag about it, until one of
their own with a different world view does what they do. When New Yorkers see Trump, they see some of
themselves and they don’t like the view.
President Trump won only one precinct on
Manhattan Island. Hillary Clinton won
80% of the vote. New York City is not Trump country because the vast majority
of people living here live in an alternate reality. They want a president who
will provide something free for them and that is not Trump.
This is honestly kind of funny. So New Yorkers are proud of being rude, crude and socially unacceptable, but not when one of their own shows off in public? That's like saying Oklahomans are proud of their football teams, but not when they are out of the state. No, actually, most New Yorkers are not as brash or dishonest or rude as Donald Trump. They tend to view him as a boastful social climber, and frankly, not the businessman to end all businessmen. There are banks and businesses who now decline to do business with him because his reputation is just not that good.
ReplyDeleteIn case you did not notice, New York has lots of tall buildings -- buildings built by other New York capitalists. You did notice, did you not, that New York has been around for quite awhile? Maybe you are swooning at getting to vote for a businessman, but a lot of New Yorkers take a dim view of someone who has a reputation for stiffing his contractors and leaving others holding the bag. They really did not like the Trump University scam, either. Yes, he is rich; there are a lot of New Yorkers far richer than he is. Gee, do you think the bankers on Wall Street are socialists? The real estate developers? The construction companies? The hospitals? The Stock Exchange? All the ordinary businesses?
New York has had mayors since the 1600s, when it was New Amsterdam. So the current mayor is more of a socialist. The last two mayors were Michael Bloomberg and Rudy Giuliani; this is hardly a trend. Maybe you should have spent a little more time there.