Still an Activist, Not Yet New York’s Mayor |
There are official acts that reveal more about what their author thinks an office is for than any speech could. The video released by the mayor of New York City on Friday evening, in the hour before Jewish New Yorkers lit their Shabbat candles, is such an act. It did not commemorate a historical event. It declared a catastrophe ongoing. It named the founding of Israel a continuing wrong, and it did so through the official account of City Hall, the seal of the office, the resources of the city.
The familiar complaint is that the mayor has mixed his personal convictions with his office. This misnames the failure. No one governs from a mind emptied of conviction. A mayor is permitted, even expected, to bring convictions to the office. He may be an activist on the questions the office was given to him to address. If he believes the city should be greener, he may campaign for it, marshal the budget toward it, use the seal and the bully pulpit to advance it. If he believes housing should be more affordable, or policing reformed, or schools rebuilt, he may pursue these as causes, not merely as files. New Yorkers elected him precisely because he held positions on such questions. The instruments of the office are designed to be used by someone who holds them.
But the instruments were given to him for the city. They were given to him to decide questions that fall within the city’s........