New York City launched its “congestion pricing” scheme January 5. It’s a charge for entering midtown Manhattan, ostensibly designed to reduce “congestion” in the Big Apple while channeling money to the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, the entity that runs New York’s subways. Besides funding the subways, the idea is to push people to take mass transit in lieu of driving.

The idea was originally planned for last summer but diverted at the last minute by New York governor Kathy Hochul. Governor Hokum insisted she wanted to modify the program; the real likelihood was that dropping a new charge just before elections might not have redounded well to blue hopes, even in indigo New York. With elections safely gone, the plan could be trotted out and was fast-track approved by the lame duck Biden Administration, which also spun “congestion pricing” as a way of reducing climate change by disincentivizing driving.

What’s stood out to my attention, however, has been an op-ed by Slate writer Henry Grabar in the January 5 New York Times. The piece has had various mutated headlines, though its primary name is “The Future of the Democratic Party is Rolling Down Broadway.” The top webpage of the Times tags it as “Early This Morning, New York City Proved What the Democratic Party is Capable of.”

The gist of Grabar’s piece is that we should make congestion pricing work because it will provide a message of “equity, quality of life, and the fight against climate change.” The author insists congestion pricing can be proof that “that nation’s biggest, bluest cities have [not] become dysfunctional.” He sketches opportunities for messaging, like Governor Hochul announcing the “first billion” in fees alongside bus and subway riders or rapidly building pedestrian zones and biking paths in Manhattan.

What I find nonsensical about Grabar’s essay is a constant trope in the modern Democrat mind: that the Left’s problems are bad comms. If only they could find the magic communications bullet, then America’s veil would be torn away, looking through the big, bad Trumpian mirror darkly would end, and everything would be peace, joy, light, and unicorns. Democrats’ problems, in this mindset, are advertising: how to sell dumb policies. Never admitted is the idea that the thought might be irremediably dumb.

“Messaging-not-message” was the whole Kamala Harris campaign. America needed “vibes” and “joy,” not relief from inflation or predatory criminal aliens. If only Beyonce and Taylor Swift and Oprah delivered better, we could be continuing to spend money the country doesn’t have like drunken sailors.

That’s why the November 5 political post-mortems of the Left have been so sterile. They have consistently refused to consider whether the reason for not gaining control of the House, losing control of the Senate, and losing the Presidency (including in seven of seven swing states) was bad policies, not bad comms.

The reason for this denialism is, of course, that it would force Democrats to engage in ideological circumspection, an assessment of whether what its “progressive base” spins is what America wants to hear. But the truth is that Americans have seen that the lifestyle libertinism and economic globalism pushed by political movers and shakers have been toxic for the average American. 2016 was a wakeup call, but Democrats insisted on somnambulism. 2024 sealed their fate: when asked whether there was anything she would have done differently from Joe Biden, Kamala Harris could identify nothing. It was clear she and her party were intellectually braindead.

Grabar now hopes that, somehow, a mass tax imposed on people needing to get into Manhattan to conduct business can be sold because there will be greenways and more money for the subway, is more of the same intellectual brain death. No matter how lovely the pedestrian walkway, a guy on 59th Street can’t amble down to Houston Street to deliver a repaired computer. No matter how green the Hudson Greenway, somebody in Hell’s Kitchen doesn’t have the time for a lovely stroll to the East Village to meet clients.

New York is already facing growing vacancy rates as Democrats, in their lockdown-is-good-and-working-from-home-even-better mode have hollowed out office space in Manhattan. Hokum and company should have learned from 9/11 that New York is no longer where you “have” to “make it there” (to riff Old Blue Eyes Frank). Their message of telework and shutdown, together with high taxes and now inaccessibility, has had a communications message: that there are plenty of other cheaper, more readily accessible, business-friendly environments to which to relocate.

As for diverting money to the subway, well, yes, I can see that reducing “congestion,” too. Let’s get more people into the subway! It’ll cut back on New York’s congestion by pushing people off subway platforms, robbing them in subway stations, or occasionally immolating them. If a protective guy like Daniel Penny shows up, you can be sure New York’s bluest will prosecute him for engaging in defense of himself and others.

Of course, we have yet to hear from Hochul how she reconciles two contradictory prongs of the congestion plan. Because if it’s really supposed to reduce congestion (as opposed to fleecing more money from drivers), then if it works the revenues raised to support the subways will eventually decline. How, then, do New York’s leaders plan on funding the MTA? Or is the dirty little secret (about which we have to tweak the comms) that “equity” demands we make drivers pay to subsidize the subway and bus riders of New York. Some travelers clearly are more equal than others.

While congestion price advocates point to London and Stockholm as proof that the public acquiesces in fleecing schemes, they overlook three things. First of all, London and Stockholm play different roles in their countries than does New York. The Big Apple is not the primary act in the country. Second, Europeans tend to lean into socialist-driven schemes (especially if they can be painted green). There’s a reason tax rebellions started in America, not England. Third, you’re dealing with New Yorkers who, while they put up with a lot, do reach the saturation point where enough is enough. The fact that Donald Trump could assemble a rally in the Bronx suggests that saturation point may be closer than we think -- especially if Americans see an America getting great again versus a New York just getting pricier again.

That said, I must admit some degree of satisfaction that the Left still believes it’s just bad comms, not bad policies, that are responsible for their problems. As long as they keep that shtick up, it’ll be that much easier to turn even blue states purple and the rest varying shades of red.

Image: Joiseyshowaa