Today is the day (reports the New York Post) that New York City mayor Bill de Blasio is going to start painting “Black Lives Matter” in huge letters on Fifth Avenue, right in front of Trump Tower. In case there is any doubt about the authorship of this idea, de Blasio himself is said to be planning to make a gloating appearance to publicize the stunt.
Once again, we have a case of people who profess to hate Donald Trump — for his inane tweeting and for other reasons — adopting exactly those tactics they keep saying they deplore. There is no purpose to this exercise (and it’s a waste of public money) except to annoy a president — whose support Bill de Blasio would love to get for a bailout to cover his massive budget gap and other kinds of funding. Like him or not, President Trump does exercise some power, perhaps even for four more years. Why go out of your way to be personally obnoxious to a fellow public official? This exercise makes de Blasio look even less mature than Trump. At least Trump doesn’t paint his tweets on Pennsylvania Avenue.
De Blasio tried to ride his self-imagined reputation for being Trump’s biggest headache to the White House, and we saw how far that got him. It does not serve New Yorkers for the mayor to adopt juvenile tactics in hopes of getting a rise out of the president.