Polarizing Alvin Bragg
Polarizing Alvin Bragg
How a contentious primary prepared Alvin Bragg to navigate the narratives of his first few weeks in office
If you have enjoyed the Substack series so far, I am currently looking for a job doing progressive political work. My biggest strengths are organizing, researching and writing - but I promise you, I am a quick study. Please reach out to me if you, or someone you know, has any available opportunities. Thank you for your time, I hope you enjoy this latest piece.
“Growing up in Harlem in the 1980s, I saw every side of the criminal justice system from a young age. Before I was 21 years old, I had a gun pointed at me six times: three by police officers and three by people who were not police officers. I had a knife to my neck, a semi-automatic gun to my head, and a homicide victim on my doorstep. In my adult life, I have posted bail for family, answered the knock of the warrant squad on my door in the early morning, and watched the challenges of a loved one who was living with me after returning from incarceration. Late last year, during a stretch of multiple shootings within three blocks of my home, I had perhaps the most sobering experience of my life: seeing ––through the eyes of my children–– the aftermath of a shooting directly in front of our home, as we walked together past yellow crime scene tape, seemingly countless shell casings, and a gun, just to get home.”
The first days of 2022 in New York City included great political fanfare.
Eric Adams, fresh off being sworn in under the bright lights of Times Square, continued to amass headlines, both positive and negative - buoyed by his clear contrast to Bill de Blasio’s malaise, knack for providing viral quotes, and a press corp eager for transition.
The city council, boasting thirty-five new members, had coalesced around Adrienne Adams to lead the body forward amidst this new era, on the back of a contentious Speaker’s Race that exposed divisions between the Mayor and organized labor.
Coupled with a changing of the guard in the Comptroller’s office and four newly minted borough presidents, there was no shortage of greetings and goodbyes amongst the City’s political class over the past few weeks.
Amidst this sea change, Manhattan’s new District Attorney, Alvin Bragg, unnassumingly took office at One Hogan Place in Lower Manhattan, mere steps from City Hall.
The ascendance of Bragg, the borough’s first ever Black DA, was largely overshadowed by many other races on the June Primary ballot. In contrast to the bitter 2019 faceoff between Melinda Katz and Tiffany Cabán, which dominated and defined that summer, the Manhattan DA’s contest, confined to one borough amidst a riveting Mayoral primary, did not garner the same degree of attention.
Unlike Eric Adams, Bragg does not generate ‘round the clock quotes, nor does he appear to crave such media attention. However, his little semblance of anonymity would evaporate come Monday, January 3rd.
In a memo distributed to all staff with the subject line, “Day One Policies and Procedures”, Bragg outlined changes to the office’s prosecutorial policy, effective immediately. The memo itself, which totals ten pages, asserted that the DA’s office would no longer prosecute certain crimes, including:
Marijuana Misdemeanors (selling more than three ounces of weed)
Fare Evasion (turnstile hopping)
Resisting arrest (without an underlying charge)
Prostitution (“does not include any felonies, or coercive practices regularly performed by those who traffic in the sex trade or related crimes such as money laundering.”)
Obscenity and Adultery
Editor’s Note: Cy Vance Jr. the previous DA, already stopped prosecuting both prostitution and fare evasion
These policy changes, among others, oftentimes include caveats.
For instance, the memo also states that trespassing will no longer be prosecuted, but further details that charges could be brought if “the trespass is a family offense pursuant to CPL § 530.11, accompanies any charge of Stalking in the Fourth Degree under PL § 120.45, or is approved by an ECAB supervisor.” Furthermore, Bragg’s Office clearly reserved the right to still prosecute if such charges are “part of an accusatory instrument containing at least one felony count.”
The premise of such changes, Bragg stated, was to reduce pretrial incarceration, limit youth in adult court, all while focusing on accountability, diversion, alternatives to incarceration, and supporting those reentering communities.
“These policy changes not only will, in and of themselves, make us safer; they also will free up prosecutorial resources to focus on violent crime.”
Bragg, who also promised to cap determine, or non-life, sentences at twenty years, nor seek sentences of life without parole (absent exceptional circumstances) deserved to have his first acts in reforming the DA’s office received with nuanced discussion. Instead, he became a political lightning rod overnight.
Predictably and ever so swiftly, conservative media, police unions, and Republican politicians came out in full force against Bragg.
Long Island Congressman Lee Zeldin, the frontrunner to win the Republican Gubernatorial nomination - appearing alongside Councilmembers Joe Borelli, Inna Vernikov, and Joann Ariola - called on Governor Kathy Hochul to remove Bragg from office. Republican Mayoral candidate Curtis Sliwa, in addition to the Detectives’ Endowment Association, which represents thousands of active and retired members of the NYPD, did the same, with the latter even sending a letter directly to the Governor.
Eric Adams, who won the Mayoralty in part because of his tough on crime rhetoric, appears to be on a collision course with Bragg. Yet, Adams may not have to get his own hands dirty, given his de-facto allyship with The New York Post, the City’s tabloid newspaper, as the two share many of the same narratives on crime. Since the release of the memo, The Post has tagged Bragg in fifty-five stories over a two-week span, almost all of which paint him in a negative light.
Other allies of the Mayor, including new Police Commissioner, Keechant Sewell, the first woman to lead the NYPD, have expressed dismay with Bragg. Five days after Bragg’s memo, Sewell emailed 36,000 members of the police department, stating, “I have studied these policies and I am very concerned about the implications to your safety as police officers, the safety of the public and justice for the victims.” While Sewell and Bragg have appeared to smooth things over since then, such tension is worth monitoring.
Adams himself has chosen to sit back, praising Bragg as a “great prosecutor” while keeping any conversations with him private. The Mayor may be intent to bide his time with Bragg, who could potentially serve as a scapegoat if Adams fails to deliver the reductions in crime he promised. Such a narrative could easily be deployed at a later date, at the behest of the Mayor’s allies, to further insulate Adams from criticism.
Public attempts to undermine Bragg’s wide appeal severely underestimate the forces behind his rise to the DA’s office. While Manhattan is often defined by its glitz and glamor, the borough is home to some of the most pervasive income inequality in the entire country, often along racial lines.
As we will come to find, Manhattan’s Black voters, many of whom also voted for Eric Adams, ultimately made the difference in cementing Bragg’s close victory.
Born and raised on Harlem’s Striver’s Row, Bragg graduated cum laude from Harvard University before receiving his J.D. (Juris Doctor) from Harvard Law School. He parlayed this experience into working in the State Attorney General’s office, as chief of litigations and investigations for the New York City Council, and as an assistant U.S. Attorney for New York’s Southern District.
He announced his candidacy for Manhattan DA quite early, in June of 2019, intent to primary the incumbent, Cyrus Vance Jr. Yet, with the Manhattan DA’s office receiving a slew of bad press, coupled with growing rumors that Vance would not seek re-election, change seemed to be afoot, as seven other candidates declared their intention to seek the office over the next year.
After playing “will he or won't he” for several months, Vance made his decision official in March of 2021: he would not run again. With Vance gone, the field was clear for a newcomer, as every candidate on the ballot, besides Dan Quart, had never held elected office before.
Bragg, a member of the Board of Directors for the Legal Aid Society, who had represented the families of Ramarley Graham and Eric Garner, both Black men killed by NYPD officers, in civil litigation against the City, quickly established himself as one of four candidates with strong progressive bona fides, as he emphasized racial-based disparities in the criminal justice system and alternatives to incarceration throughout the campaign.
In a crowded field, other candidates like State Assemblymember Dan Quart, Public Defender Eliza Orlins, and Civil Rights lawyer Tahanie Aboushi stood out for their decarceral policies, which gave them all a strong claim to the race’s progressive mantle.
To help the public get a sense for the eight candidates' various ideological and policy differences, Five Boro Defenders, a coalition of the City’s public defenders, analyzed the campaign policies of all the candidates and their subsequent plans to implement such changes to the DA’s office.
Per Gotham Gazette:
“The new analysis from Five Boro Defenders was conducted through the group's decarceral lens and based on criteria that would seek to shrink the role of both prosecutors and prisons in the criminal justice system. The eight candidates were ranked based on how "harmful" they would be to the communities represented by public defenders -- typically low-income New Yorkers, disproportionately people of color, and often already involved in the criminal legal system -- and how ready they appear to accomplish their stated platforms.”
While the report detailed that Bragg, Aboushi, Orlins and Quart were all significantly more progressive than the rest of the field, the coalition found Orlins and Quart as the “least harmful and most effective”, highlighting them as the most left-leaning candidates in the race.
Despite receiving high marks for his understanding of criminal courts and commitment to stopping the prosecution of “broken windows” offenses, the coalition dinged Bragg for not pledging to reduce the DA’s budget and “buying into the criminal justice system”.
Such information bears repeating given Bragg’s first two weeks in the District Attorney’s office, as during the campaign, despite being considered amongst the race’s progressive candidate cohort, Bragg was not considered the most leftist candidate. To many on the Left, Bragg’s career working in prosecutorial roles engendered skepticism, as neither Quart, Orlins, or Aboushi had ever served in such a capacity.
The competition in the race’s left lane led to a highly competitive invisible primary, particularly for the support of the city’s large labor unions, left nonprofits, and progressive elected officials.
Aboushi, a close ally of Cynthia Nixon, did quite well, scoring the endorsement of the Working Families Party, Senator Bernie Sanders, Public Advocate Jumaane Williams, Congressmembers Jamaal Bowman and Rashida Tlaib, in addition to members of the State Legislature, like Yuh-Line Niou, Jessica Ramos, and Gustavo Rivera. While NYC-DSA declined to make an endorsement in the race, several of their most high profile elected officials, like Jabari Brisport, Marcela Mitaynes, and Zohran Mamdani, all backed Aboushi’s campaign. DC37, the City’s largest public employees union, did the same.
Editor’s Note: The Manhattan Chapter of the Working Families Party voted to endorse Orlins, but was overruled by party higher ups. The WFP has repeatedly faced criticism for an opaque endorsement process, most notably after the party endorsed Elizabeth Warren over Bernie Sanders in 2020, and again when endorsing Amit Bagga over Julie Won in Council District 26.
Spurned by WFP, Orlins struggled to coalesce institutional support, despite receiving the highest number of individual donors in the race. Meanwhile, Quart, an East Side elected official for a decade, won more localized support, winning the backing of fellow Manhattan politicians, like Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney, State Senator Jose Serrano, and City Councilmembers Diana Ayala and Carmen De La Rosa, in addition to Queens progressives Ron Kim and John Liu.
The depth of Bragg’s appeal, amongst progressives and liberals, and across the borough’s many economic and geographical divides, was evidenced through his array of endorsements. One could say he had a little something for everybody, and it’s what ultimately helped decide the race.
A lifelong Harlemite, Bragg drew strength from the neighborhood establishment, like former congressman Charles Rangel, former NAACP President Hazel Dukes, and Assemblymembers Inez Dickens and Al Taylor. Additionally, Harlem’s Democratic Clubs (Tioga Carver, Martin Luther King Jr, Harlem Progressive), a longtime source of political concentration within the City’s predominantly Black neighborhoods, backed him uniformly. On Manhattan’s West Side, one of the most vote-rich areas in the entire City, Bragg was boosted by the support of Congressman Jerry Nadler, a notorious power broker in the area. Rounding out his coalition across the ideological spectrum, Bragg was endorsed by progressive criminal justice reformers like Zephyr Teachout, Preet Bharara, Janos Marton, and the Exonerated Five.
Bragg’s strength was punctuated by his support from organized labor, as he won over heavyweights like 1199 SEIU and 32BJ, in addition to RWDSU and the United Federation of Teachers.
Borne out by his endorsements, Bragg’s path to victory relied upon his ability to win the support of both white liberals in the borough’s wealthier enclaves and Black voters Uptown. Out of the four progressive candidates, Bragg was best positioned to do well with Black and Hispanic voters throughout Harlem, Washington Heights and Inwood.
In lieu of ranked choice voting, as the primary wore on, pressure began mounting amongst the four progressive candidates to band together and coalesce around one candidate, so as to avoid splitting the vote. This urgency was only heightened as Tali Farhadian Weinstein, whom Five Borough Defenders labeled as “especially dangerous”, started to gain significant traction with donors, the media, and in the race’s sparse polling.
Editor’s Note: I vividly remember Zephyr Teachout and Cynthia Nixon having a contentious disagreement about this issue on Twitter. I looked back, and the interaction appears to have been deleted. Does anyone else remember this?
Despite branding herself as a progressive, Farhadian Weinstein, former general counsel to Brooklyn DA Eric Gonzalez, was anything but. Per reporting from Akela Lacy of The Intercept, Farhadian Weinstein was the only candidate in the field who opposed decriminalizing sex work and was in favor of allowing judges to assess public safety risk when setting bail, a position not only to the right of Vance, but also in conflict with New York State’s landmark 2019 bail reform law.
What further troubling progressives was the source of Farhadian Weinstein’s fundraising. Governed by the significantly more lenient state campaign finance laws, where the maximum individual contribution was a staggering $37,829 - as opposed to the city’s far more reasonable $5,100 maximum - Farhadian Weinstein outraised her opponents at a breakneck pace, with over eighty-percent of her donations coming in increments greater than $2,000 a piece. A review of donations by Gothamist/WNYC revealed that many of Weinstein’s top donors were preeminent figures amongst the city’s business and real estate class, many of whom had ties to her husband, Boaz Weinstein, the founder of the multibillion dollar hedge fund, Saba Capital Management.
Such proximity to Wall Street, given the oversight and power of the DA’s office, troubled many, who argued that Farhadian Weinstein could not objectively prosecute white collar crimes if such interests bankrolled her campaign.
“The problem with Farhadian Weinstein raising so much from Wall Street is that the Manhattan DA is the preeminent investigator, along with the US Attorney for the Southern District of New York, of white-collar crime in America. Tax evasion, money laundering, and real estate cases of national and global import all fall under the purview of the Manhattan office.” (Ross Barkan in Jacobin)
Fundraising at a breakneck pace, Farhadian Weinstein lapped the competition heading into the race’s final months, more than doubling up Bragg, who had the second highest fundraising total.
While polling was infrequent, it became increasingly clear in April and May that Farhadian Weinstein had strong momentum. Bolstered by an ample warchest, an endorsement from Hillary Clinton, and the support of U.S representatives Adrianno Espaillat, Ritchie Torres, and Nydia Velázquez, Farhadian Weinstein quickly emerged as the race’s frontrunner.
The New York Post and New York Daily News quickly followed suit, with their editorial boards endorsing her as well. While both newspapers singled out Bragg as Weinstein’s most formidable competition, The Post quickly dismissed him as a radical while the Daily News ultimately went in another direction, citing his “stated balance” between “a proud prosecutor [and] an unabashed reformer” for “too often giving way to ill-considered commitments.”
While Bragg tactfully layered institutional and grassroots support, he still needed to halt Farhadian Weinstein’s momentum. In a low information primary dwarfed by the spectacle of the Mayor’s race, Farhadian Weinstein’s ability to significantly outspend Bragg promised to be an even greater advantage. Such a financial deficit left Bragg fewer options to breakthrough to voters, but earned media remained his best bet.
On May 27th, that moment would come.
The New York Times, the world’s most famous newspaper, is also capable of swinging thousands of votes right at home in the City’s Democratic primaries, especially amongst the paper’s base of white liberals, frequently associated with Manhattan’s Upper West Side and Brooklyn’s Park Slope. While the Editorial Board’s sway over national primaries is far less pronounced, their impact locally cannot be understated. This was never more evident than in 2021.
The Times endorsements helped power Kathryn Garcia, a largely unknown ex-Sanitation Commissioner languishing in the polls, to a razor thin second place finish in the contentious Mayoral primary, and Brad Lander, a city councilman who had also struggled in early polling, to a compelling victory in the Comptroller’s race. Both Garcia and Lander benefited heavily from The Times' strong readership base in Manhattan’s more affluent neighborhoods, which gave both candidates the inside track in some of the highest turnout Assembly Districts in the City.
Yet, what might be overlooked today is how their endorsement affected the Manhattan District Attorney’s race. In the final piece of his endorsement puzzle, The New York Times resoundingly endorsed Alvin Bragg, choosing to not even mention any other candidate.
The Editorial Board praised Bragg for planning to “restructure the office to stop using it to criminalize poverty and focus more intensely on prosecuting violent gun crimes, sexual assault cases and corruption” while also “expand[ing] programs that offer alternatives to incarceration and establish a robust police integrity unit that will report directly to him”. Throughout their piece, the board referenced how Bragg effectively juggled progressive reforms with prosecutorial experience without resorting to “political extremes”.
“Mr. Bragg is committed to reasonable reforms to improve both policing and prosecutions and will put the work in to see them through to a safer New York. Manhattan needs a leader dedicated to keeping the public safe without returning to the overly punitive practices deployed for so many years.” (The New York Times)
After The Times endorsement, Bragg, and his campaign received a significant boost in name recognition and notoriety, essential ingredients for gaining headway amidst a crowded ballot. Given the paper’s vast circulation, the endorsement would not only directly translate to votes, but prove to be an adept counter to Farhadian Weinstein’s large dollar fundraising.
Down the stretch, the tide began to turn in Bragg’s favor. In one of the only public polls in the race, Data for Progress, a progressive think tank, showed Bragg and Farhadian Weinstein neck and neck down the stretch, both tied at 26% in mid-June, mere weeks until the election. While the poll had a rather large margin of error - 5% - it was generally indicative of the direction the race was trending.
However, Farhadian Weinstein would not go quietly; sensing her lead was slipping, she went on the offensive. Between May 20th and June 7th, Farhadian Weinstein gave four contributions to her own campaign, which totalled $8.2 million dollars - a staggering amount that exceeded the total amount raised by all seven other candidates combined. In total, Farhadian Weinstein’s fundraising eclipsed “about $10 million more than any other candidate in the race.”
With her vast warchest, Farhadian Weinstein took aim at both Bragg and Quart, running a series of mailers and digital ads under the headline “Alvin Bragg and Dan Quart will NOT put women’s safety first.” The attack ad, which highlighted a questionnaire pledge from both Bragg and Quart to dismiss “cross complaints” if neither party wants to go forward with the case.
Editor’s Note: While Farhadian Weinstein only singled out Bragg and Quart, all three of Tahanie Aboushi, Diana Florence, and Eliza Orlins also pledged to dismiss such complaints.
Furthermore, the mailer highlighted an out-of-context quote from the Daily News endorsement of Farhadian Weinstein. In a lengthy paragraph, the Daily News editorial board stated their opposition to Bragg’s pledge to review all cases in the 30-year career of ADA Linda Fairstein, former head of Manhattan’s sex crimes unit, best known as the prosecutor in the Central Park Five case.
Here is the excerpt with context, and the quote highlighted:
“He has pledged to review all cases in the 30-year career of ADA Linda Fairstein. Fairstein’s actions in the Central Park Five case are fair game and have been pored over endlessly. But no credible claim has yet been made that thousands of sex-crimes convictions she led or oversaw are rotten. Marshaling a small army to reopen them all would be folly, and unfair to rape victims to boot.” (New York Daily News)
However, in Farhadian Weinstein’s mailer, such crucial context was left out, as the quote, brandished front and center, merely said “Bragg’s policies are unfair to rape victims”.
The ad, which circulated throughout the borough and was echoed on television, received widespread criticism, as many critics connected the ad’s racial undertones.
Jared Trujillo, policy counsel at the ACLU, said the ad, “weaponizes racist tropes used to demonize Black boys and men from Emmett Till to the Christian Cooper.” While activist Marissa Hoechstetter told Gothamist that Farhadian Weinstein was “using survivors as pawns in this negative campaign against other qualified people.” Both compared the ad to the infamous Wille Horton campaign ad run by George W. Bush against Michael Dukakis in the 1988 Presidential election.
This marked the final flashpoint in a race that had turned increasingly bitter.
Heading into Election Day, many races, including the Mayoral primary, would not be decided that evening, as the implementation of Ranked Choice Voting ensured a few extra weeks of drama at the Board of Elections, as many candidates waited painstakingly to cross the 50% threshold and attain a majority.
However, the Manhattan DA’s race not only promised to be quite close, but the victor, barring a recount, would likely be known that evening, as a simple plurality would suffice. Regardless, the result would potentially be the most consequential of the June primary, as District Attorney’s have near unilateral authority and are rarely primaried, thus oftentimes holding office for decades.
Editor’s Note: An underrated advantage of Farhadian Weinstein’s large fundraising was her campaign’s ability to have paid canvassers at nearly every polling site throughout the borough. Given the election did not receive attention on par with the Mayor’s Race, sometimes a palm card in the hand of a voter, or not, could ultimately make all the difference.
On Election Night, Alvin Bragg pulled out a close victory, narrowly edging Tali Farhadian Weinstein, 85,720 votes (34.21%) to 76,892 (30.68%) - a margin of 8,828 - enough to avoid a recount.
Bragg’s raw vote totals in Manhattan were impressive, as he exceeded every Mayoral candidate, including the borough’s darling, Kathryn Garcia.
Running on a criminal justice narrative that in many aspects countered the one put forth by Eric Adams, Bragg outperformed the future Mayor handily in Manhattan, winning 85,720 votes to Adams’ 48,978.
In a coalition that strongly resembled Bill de Blasio’s commanding 2013 victory, Bragg united many of the borough’s white liberals in neighborhoods like Greenwich Village and the Upper West Side, with Black voters throughout Central Harlem. Bragg’s strength throughout the borough, across racial and class lines, was evident.
In Assembly District 70, the borough’s only predominantly Black AD (46% Black, 28% Hispanic), which includes Central Harlem and Manhattanville, Bragg captured 38.5% of the vote. In neighboring AD 71 (25% Black, 48% Hispanic), which includes Sugar Hill and Hamilton Heights, Bragg won 32.6% of the vote.
Census tract data available here shows that in the northern portion of Central Harlem, between 134th and 155th street, an area that is 59.8% Black, 23% Hispanic and largely ungentrified, Bragg only lost a single election district. Many of these same voters also strongly supported Eric Adams.
Farhadian Weinstein ran strongest on the Upper East Side, where she resides, winning her biggest margins in the neighborhood’s two Assembly Districts (73 and 76). Amidst some of the City’s wealthiest enclaves, Farhadian Weinstein won every election district between 3rd Avenue and Central Park from 59th street to 84th street on Manhattan’s East Side. However, she also displayed considerable strength with the borough’s Hispanic voters, doing well in East Harlem, Washington Heights, and Inwood.
All told, the four progressive candidates: Bragg, Aboushi, Orlins and Quart, exceeded fifty percent - 52.19% exactly - if their totals were merged together. Aboushi, running on an unabashed decarceral platform, placed third in the race at large, performing best with Black and Hispanic voters uptown.
It is quite noteworthy that Liz Crotty, who ran firmly to the right of Farhadian Weinstein and unabashedly occupied the “law and order” lane, with endorsements from the PBA and former police commissioner Ray Kelly, received just 4.57% of the vote.
Once Bragg was deemed victorious, there was no hysteria or backlash akin to anything seen over the past two weeks. In November, Bragg coasted to victory against nominal opposition.
If he, and his campaign promises, presented such a clear and present danger to the City, why was there no well-funded challenge from the right, or even from the center?
This begs the question, why all the outrage now?
Republicans have cynically tried to use Bragg as a wedge issue amongst Democrats, especially ahead of the 2022 midterms. While most Democrats might not explicitly agree with the right-wing framing of such attacks, off the back of a poor showing throughout New York State this past November, many will likely distance themselves from Bragg, given that self-preservation and re-election often rule the day.
Much of this also has to do with the narrative inside City Democratic politics. Mayor Eric Adams has staked much of his reputation on lowering the crime rate. If he fails to meaningfully alter the trajectory, many will demand answers.
Adams himself is known to rarely back away from a fight, and has often used his lived experience and identity to rebuff many legitimate concerns raised by observers. Nowhere was this more evident than when Adams, who stated his intent to reinstate solitary confinement at Rikers Island, chastised the incoming City Council for penning a letter against such a measure: "I wore a bulletproof vest for 22 years and protected the people of this city. When you do that, then you have the right to question me..."
However, Adams cannot deploy such a playbook against Bragg, who has often, like the Mayor, spoken of his own harrowing run-ins with both law enforcements and neighborhood gangs growing up in Harlem.
Yet, such nuance may not matter. For now, Adams will likely sit back while Bragg takes the heat. In today’s pervasive, “if it bleeds, it leads” coverage, Adams, and his press allies, especially the New York Post, can help craft the narrative they choose. Much of this is out of Bragg’s control, as his efforts as a progressive prosecutor, may be scapegoated.
If crime goes down, Adams will be the reason, and he shall reap the positive press for delivering on his promise. If crime goes up, Bragg will be blamed for handcuffing the Mayor’s agenda. One could say he is being set up to fail, despite merely introducing the very reforms he championed on his way to victory in the primary.
Already, it appears support for Bragg is wavering amongst his least ardent voters.
In a twist of irony, The New York Times comment section, underneath an article about Bragg’s memo, became a symphony of hysteria about said policy changes. The irony being, many of those complaining about Bragg, probably voted for him during the primary, likely because of The Times endorsement.
If this fever pitch, reinforced by the press, continues, things could get ugly for the new DA.
However, there is always cause for optimism, because as quickly as one narrative develops, another one can supersede it.
The same forces that have tried, but failed, to tear down the State’s landmark bail reform law are now trying to supplant Bragg, yet both are here to stay. Amidst a full-blown crisis on Rikers Island, Bragg’s efforts to significantly reduce pretrial incarceration - under Vance, Manhattan “accounted for more than 30 percent of those who were held at the Rikers” - will be viewed admirably, if not now, then in the future.
For progressives and criminal justice reformers, these ever-changing, precarious dynamics will test the movement’s bandwidth at every turn.
If you have enjoyed the Substack series so far, I am currently looking for a job doing progressive political work. My biggest strengths are organizing, researching and writing - but I promise you, I am a quick study. Please reach out to me if you, or someone you know, has any available opportunities. Thank you for your time, I hope you enjoy this latest piece.
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