After weeks of the NYPD union leadership, along with the entire New York right wing (Giuliani, all of talk radio, NY Post, etc. etc.) waging a full-blown jihad to "swiftboat" New York mayor Bill de Blasio over issues related to the Eric Garner grand jury, Black Lives Matter protests in the city and the murder of two NYPD officers, the story has all but disappeared from the headlines. Just a few short weeks ago, police officers were turning their backs on the mayor at funerals, engaging in an unofficial "work stoppage", the police union leader was declaring that the mayor had "blood on his hands", and the "crisis" was all over the front pages of the NYC media and even prominent nationally as well.
But the headlines have decidedly moved on. Reading the news lately, even the NYC media, it would be hard to tell that any of this had even happened. Just a few short weeks ago, every day Bill de Blasio was splashed all over the front pages of the NY Daily News and the NY Post, the city's two most prominent daily 'newspaper-ish' publications. Talk radio was spewing daily vitriol against the awful mayor. Prominent NY Republicans were all over television, radio and print denouncing the mayor. It became something of a mainstream consensus that the mayor was in deep political trouble. It was certainly the most extreme and loudest opposition he'd yet faced while in office.
De Blasio's response to this was to hold firm to his statements and positions, but also to remain calm, not respond in kind and keep the focus on the victims' families while his enemies screamed and hollered all over the media. At times he would denounce the police back-turning stunts, but mostly tried to stay above the fray. There was a widespread belief that he was being badly damaged and a lot of doubt about whether he'd be able to survive over the long term.
But things began to change when a Quinnipac poll appeared on January 15th.
This poll showed that it was actually the police who were taking a hit to their reputation, not Bill de Blasio. The NY public did not like the back turning stunts or the over-the-top rhetoric of much of the police leadership. The mayor's approval, on the other hand, hadn't budged. The most recent polling had his approval at around 49%, which is where it had been for many months before. It started becoming apparent that the mayor's opponents were actually doing damage to their own standing, while not really doing any damage to the mayor.
The tide begins to turn, and liberals start to think maybe de Blasio is winning this one:
But even then, a lot of the mainstream opinion, and even some opinion in the comments here on DK in the piece above, are committed to the notion that de Blasio is in trouble and that voters (white voters especially) have either left him or are about to leave him in droves. But the available data never supported this notion. And that is where the story pretty much ended.
The narrative changed, but instead of changing the narrative, the media mostly just stopped narrating. As soon as the data started coming in that looked like the preferred narrative of a struggling or doomed de Blasio was not going to be fulfilled, the headlines simply dropped it and moved on. Read the NY tabloids lately and you'd think the whole fiasco never happened. But the fallout has continued, even if nobody is paying attention to it.
A new poll of New Yorkers was released on February 10th, including de Blasio's approval:
The results? De Blasio's approval among New Yorkers now stands at 58%, almost 10 points higher than it was a month or two ago and higher than it's been since he was first inaugurated over a year ago. In short, de Blasio has come out of this confrontation gaining ground and in a better position than he was before it happened. Based on the current polling, de Blasio has increased his standing and appears on track to sail to re-election, while the right wing in New York has badly overplayed their hand, alienated some of the public, and have basically had to sit down and shut up, at least for a while.
Much of the media seems uninterested in writing the end of this story. They started dropping the story from the front pages as soon as it started looking like de Blasio was going to weather the storm and his enemies weren't going to take him down. But the story didn't end there. Not only did de Blasio weather the storm, he has come out of it with the wind at his back, while his enemies' ships are crashed on the rocks and taking on water.
This is some good news for the left to remember. The media isn't interested in reporting it, but we shouldn't let it be forgotten.