Dianne Morales Mayoral Campaign Self-Cannibalizes

As the Dianne Morales mayoral campaign collapses less than a month before primary day, it's a reminder that the revolution can't get around to eating its own children if it eats itself before getting off the ground.

The saga began last Tuesday, when Morales, a 53-year-old nonprofit executive running as the leftmost candidate in a crowded Democratic field, missed an Al Sharpton-hosted mayoral forum for what she called a "Family emergency." Turns out the "Family" was her campaign staff, though "Emergency" was the right word.

Morales's statement did not go over well with her newly unionized staff, as a senior Queens organizer wrote on Twitter that a "Morales mayoral administration, would be one that would actively seek to do the direct opposite, of the platform Morales exclaims" and another called on her to "Terminate her campaign and pay her staff," charging her with not being a "f--ing progressive." On Friday, a few dozen remaining staffers and volunteers marched on the campaign office.

To dutiful snaps and nods from colleagues, a staffer listed as among the union's demands "Equal pay across the board," "a new leadership structure that is co-created with the leaders of this campaign," and "Severance for folks who might not want to continue with this campaign anymore." Yet they still want Morales to win: a union spokeswoman told City and State's Jeff Coltin that they're ready to get back to work once their demands are met.

The situation is beyond parody, but it represents a fitting end for a flagging campaign that dressed up the ideological obsessions of a tiny minority as the genuine expression of a critical mass of New Yorkers.

Morales used the propagandistic boilerplate developed on elite college campuses and borrowed by socially conscious white-collar workers to advance positions woefully unpopular among the "Marginalized communities" she claimed to represent-referring, for example, to the "So-called rise in crime" while making the case for de-policing.

"We were hired to uplift the leadership of Black, brown and queer New Yorkers. Of immigrants, of undocumented folk, of working-class folk. To fight for worker power and worker justice. We are doing the work that we were hired to do." Like candidate, like staff.

https://www.city-journal.org/dianne-morales-mayoral-campaign-self-cannibalizes?wallit_nosession=1