The de Blasios were the picture of a new, diverse city, a family that came with its own signature dance move, the вЂњsmackdown,вЂќ which involved looping your arm around your head, licking your palm, and thwacking it to the floor. It is hard to remember now, but in 2013, when de Blasio was first elected, his campaign became a cause. The eventual winner, Eric Adams, was supported by de Blasio even as he railed against the state of the city, describing a metropolis that had fallen into disorder and decay while the man in charge was asleep at the switch. This past year saw a mayoral campaign in which nearly every contender said they would not even accept his endorsement. In June, an NY1 poll showed that just 37 percent of voters approved of the job he is doing in New York. His presidential campaign lasted all of four months. Yet de Blasio remains remarkably unpopular. Just because you donвЂ™t like the guy and he isnвЂ™t one of us, at the end of the day it is actually okay.вЂќ вЂњThe Chardonnay is still flowing! The lawns are getting mowed! We are trying to build a better and fairer city.

вЂњI would go to these parties and I would have to tell people, вЂLook, everything is okay!вЂ™ вЂќ says Alicia Glen, a former Goldman Sachs executive who served five years as deputy mayor for housing and economic development. His mayoralty was always about more than one man, an experiment in progressive governance. For all of us who have spent the past eight years grumbling about de Blasio, which, to be clear, is all of us, we have gotten to live in a city that is as safe, prosperous, and fair as any most of us have ever known. The New York City budget under de Blasio has grown from $77 billion to more than $100 billion, not because he increased any taxes on the rich (he tried to, but Andrew Cuomo wouldnвЂ™t allow it) but because his tenure was defined by extraordinary economic growth - growth that has, arguably, lessened rather than widened the cityвЂ™s yawning inequality.

He raised wages, and businesses flooded into the city. He told rich people they could move away for all he cared, and more came. He had created early-childhood-education programs that served more than 100,000 children under 5 each year, given paid family leave and higher wages to city workers, added or preserved 165,000 units of affordable housing, granted greater access to health care for the poor, imposed fair-scheduling requirements for fast-food workers, and kept the annual increases on rent-regulated apartments to a minimum.Дe Blasio had won election twice, the first Democratic mayor to do so in 32 years, in the face of warnings that his election would herald a return to New YorkвЂ™s dark past: crime rising, followed by people leaving, followed by businesses leaving, followed by higher taxes to pay for their absence, followed by more people leaving. As backbenchers and prattling senators piled into the 2020 race for president, Bill de Blasio entered as the manager of the nationвЂ™s largest city, overseeing a police force the size of a small army, a school system that had more children in it than the entire population of seven different states, and the successful response to not one but two infectious-disease outbreaks.

Bill de blasio