Democrats Need to Show They Can Be Trusted with Power by Fareed Zakaria

Political Crossfire Democrats Need to Show They Can Be Trusted with Power

By Fareed Zakaria

“Social media does not pick a candidate. People on Social Security pick a candidate,” said Eric Adams, who is likely to be the next mayor of New York City after taking a commanding lead in this week’s Democratic primary. Adams was making a point that Democrats should take seriously. The party’s progressive wing makes noise and gets attention, but voters prefer pragmatists to ideologues. As big cities see a resurgence in violent crime – homicides were up more than 30 percent last year and an additional 24 percent so far this year – and as places struggle to revive growth and employment, the focus on governance will only heighten.

Today, the Democratic Party has total control of just 18 state legislatures, compared with 30 for Republicans. Democrats spent tens of millions of dollars to flip the legislatures in Arizona, North Carolina, Florida and Texas. They failed everywhere, and they even managed to lose control of New Hampshire’s legislature. Since states oversee redistricting and voting laws, the 2022 midterms look very tough for the Democrats.

Part of the issue is Republican advantages – the overrepresentation of rural areas, for example – but Democratic failures have also played a role. Put bluntly, too many Democratic states have gotten bloated, mismanaged and corrupt. Take New York State. It has a budget nearly twice the size of Florida’s though it has roughly the same population. Its budget is just 12 percent smaller than California’s despite having half as many people. Can anyone explain why?

This increased spending does not always pay off. Steven Malanga of the City Journal cites an analysis by the financial website WalletHub comparing tax revenues with the quality of public services such as infrastructure, education and health care. New York has the eighth-highest tax rate but ranks 19th in quality of services. California is sixth-highest on taxes and 37th on public services. States such as New Jersey and Massachusetts – despite massive spending – have some of the worst infrastructure in the country.

Similarly, sky-high education spending in these states doesn’t always translate into better educational outcomes. As Ryan Fazio notes in the New York Post, New York spends nearly twice as much per pupil as the national average, and yet its fourth and eighth grade reading and math scores are no better.

Things have reached a tipping point. Around 14,000 businesses left California between 2009 and 2019. This seems to have gotten worse in the past few years with Tesla, Apple, Charles Schwab, Facebook, Oracle and Hewlett-Packard all announcing significant relocations to or expansions in Texas. In 2021, the topranked states for running a business according to chief executives were Texas, Florida, Tennessee, North Carolina and Indiana. The worst five were California, New York, Illinois, New Jersey and Washington. The pandemic has opened up horizons for companies that are now thinking more aggressively about relocations, remote workforces and flexible office approaches. All this bodes poorly for blue states.

It’s not just businesses that are leaving blue states; people are as well. For the first time on record, California’s population actually decreased last year. Illinois was one of the few states to see its population shrink over the past decade. As the Wall Street Journal observes, it can’t be the weather, since every other Midwestern state gained people over the same period. Meanwhile, Texas and Florida together swelled by more than 6 million people. All this translates into more political power. New York, California, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Michigan, West Virginia and Ohio will all lose congressional seats, while Texas, Florida, North Carolina, Montana, Colorado and Oregon will gain them. These shifts, plus redistricting, probably mean Democrats could lose the House even if they perform just as well in 2022 as they did in 2020.

Liberals don’t like to face squarely the issue of Democratic incompetence. New York, for example, handled the pandemic disastrously at the state and city level. As Ryan Cooper pointed out, New York State’s covid-19 deaths rose faster than any place on the planet at an equivalent point in their outbreaks. Its death rate per capita is nearly 60 percent higher than Florida’s. Yet New York’s leaders were feted as heroes. In an extensive investigation of Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo and Mayor Bill de Blasio, ProPublica paints a devastating picture of serious mistakes, including the overruling of experts, combined with cover-ups and denial – in other words, many of the same errors for which former president Donald Trump was rightly excoriated.

The Democratic Party wants more government, for many good causes and reasons. But to gain the trust of people, it needs to first face up to its failures and work harder to show that it can effectively manage the governments it already runs. President Biden is doing that at the federal level. At the local level, New York City would be a good place to start.

COVID-19 Vaccines: What You Need to Know

Jewish Orthodox Women’s Medical Association

MYTH #1

MYTH #2

MYTH #3

MYTH #4 I can get COVID from the vaccine.

The Science: The coronavirus vaccines cannot give you COVID-19 because they do not contain live SARS-CoV-2 virus.

MYTH #5

The vaccine changes your DNA.

The Science: Neither the mRNA nor DNA-based COVID-19 vaccines interact with, integrate into, or alter your DNA.

The COVID vaccine has not been tested enough to prove it is safe.

The Science: All vaccines receiving FDA emergency use authorization in the United States have been tested in preclinical, phase I, II and III trials to determine safety and efficacy with tens of thousands of participants. Since then, over 100 million doses of vaccine have been administered in the US and over 448 million doses worldwide.

The COVID vaccine causes infertility.

The Science: There is no factual or theoretical evidence that the COVID vaccine affects fertility.

MYTH #6

MYTH #7 I’m young and healthy, I don’t need the vaccine.

The Science: SARS-CoV-2 infection presents a health risk to everyone. Young people can get seriously ill and even die. Even after recovering from COVID-19, they can experience symptoms months after infection and are susceptible to other long-term effects.

If I had COVID, I do not need to get the vaccine.

The Science: The strength and length of natural immunity varies from person to person and cannot be predicted. New variants also make people more vulnerable to reinfection. Therefore, the CDC recommends people who had COVID-19 in the past to still get vaccinated.

My community has “herd immunity” so I don’t need to get the vaccine.

The Science: “Herd immunity” doesn’t protect every individual from getting COVID-19 and can drop when individuals start losing immunity or the community is exposed to a new variant.

For more information about COVID-19 and the COVID vaccine, check out JOWMA’s Preventative Health Podcast, available on all major podcast platforms. Or, call the JOWMA Preventative Health hotline at 929-4-GEZUNT.

All New Yorkers age 16 and above are now eligible to receive the vaccine. To find a vaccination site near you, visit: VaccineFinder.org

Jewish Orthodox Women’s Medical Association This content is for general educational purposes only and not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment about your particular condition. Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified health provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition.