Kathy Hochul is doing her best to illustrate to New Yorkers that she lives in a left-wing information bubble and has no idea what is going on in her state. On Friday, she tried to make an issue of the state of “political discourse” and blame it for the attack on Nancy Pelosi’s husband, but she shot her own message in the foot by launching this argument on the radio show of a left-winger known for his own incendiary rhetoric. On Sunday, the floundering New York governor went on Al Sharpton’s MSNBC show to remind voters how unserious and unconcerned she is about crime, calling it a “conspiracy” for New Yorkers to believe that they are unsafe:
“These are master manipulators. They have this conspiracy going all across America trying to convince people in Democratic states that they’re not as safe. Well guess what? They’re also not only election deniers, they’re data deniers,” she told the show’s host, the Rev. Al Sharpton. “Safer places are the Democratic states,” she claimed. Murders were down by 14% in New York City compared with last year, but all other major crimes were up — including a 33% rise in robberies, police statistics show.
This is yet another example of elected Democrats being unable to tell the difference between getting the press to buy their media talking points and saying things that are actually believable to voters who have eyes and ears and can observe the world around them.
Worse, at a time of rising concern over antisemitism, the governor of New York is blessing Al Sharpton with her presence — something she has previously done by appearing on his show and speaking to his organization. Sharpton is as toxic a figure as exists in American public life. I have detailed at great length here and here Sharpton’s many sins, which include inciting murder, riot, and arson, leading a hoax rape accusation against innocent men, antisemitism, and tax evasion. As Joe Scarborough recited in a congressional resolution back in 2000:
Whereas the Reverend Al Sharpton has referred to members of the Jewish faith as ‘‘bloodsucking [J]ews’’, and ‘‘Jew bastards’’; Whereas the Reverend Al Sharpton has referred to members of the Jewish faith as ‘‘white interlopers’’ and ‘‘diamond merchants’’;… Whereas the Reverend Al Sharpton’s vicious verbal anti-Semitic attacks directed at members of the Jewish faith, and in particular, a Jewish landlord, arising from a simple landlord-tenant dispute with a black tenant, incited widespread violence, riots, and the murder of five innocent people; Whereas the Reverend Al Sharpton’s fierce demagoguery incited violence, riots, and murder in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn, New York, following the accidental death of a black pedestrian child hit by the motorcade of Orthodox Rabbi Menachem Schneerson; Whereas the Reverend Al Sharpton led a protest in the Crown Heights neighborhood and marched next to a protester with a sign that read, ‘‘The White Man is the Devil’’; Whereas the Reverend Al Sharpton has insulted members of the Jewish faith by challenging Jews to violence and stating to Jews to ‘‘pin down’’ their yarmulkes…
All of which is, one must assume, just fine by Kathy Hochul.