Eric Adams' election in hindsight

By kbog @ 2024-09-28T22:30 (+135)

Eric Adams won the NYC mayoralty in 2021 after a narrow Democratic primary. In the final primary runoff between Adams and Kathryn Garcia, Adams won by 42.9% to 42.2% (seven thousand ballots). 

Before the election, I disagreed with other EAs about the relative merits of Adams and Garcia. I wrote an analysis of the Democratic candidates. One of the heaviest factors in this analysis was fitness for office - looking at politically neutral factors like experience, education, and corruption. I noted that Adams had a pattern of political misbehavior, so I rated him poorly for fitness for office. And ultimately I gave Adams the lowest combined score out of all major candidates. Meanwhile, I rated Garcia the highest out of all major candidates.

Shortly before election day, my webpage caught the attention of a couple of NYC Effective Altruists who happened to be working for the Adams campaign. I was surprised to learn that Adams had EA support. We had a brief zoom call - I, the mentally ill NEET writing a political blog from my parents' basement on the other side of the country, versus the productive EA who was doing real work on the ground in her own city. 

The main factor for the two EAs' support for Adams was his commitment to animal rights. Of that we were in agreement - I too had noted that Adams supported animal rights, and gave him points accordingly. However, the two EAs who worked for Adams were more dedicated animal activists, whereas I have always had a more pluralist view of public policy, so while I did rate animal welfare highly (in fact I rated it the #2 most important issue, behind fitness for office), I still wasn't focused on it as strongly as they were. 

As I recall, the EAs who worked for Adams didn't give me anything to assuage my concerns about Adams' views on housing or other policy topics. They were matters of public record, anyway. The main point of contention was in evaluating Adams' fitness for office. They said they were pretty shocked to see me dismiss his character and merits so readily. According to them, who worked closely with him and knew him, he was a pretty good guy. We only had a brief conversation without going into details, but out of epistemic modesty, plus faith that there would be a positive influence from EAs being within his administration, I increased Adams' fitness for office score (I still gave him a low score, but it was higher than I'd given him previously).

I don't know what Adams has achieved for animal welfare in his tenure. But he won't be able to help animals when he's in prison. The FBI has indicted him for five counts of wire fraud and bribery, and Manifold gives him an 83% probability of felony conviction. Adams accusedly took bribes from the Turkish government in exchange for allowing the skyscraper which housed their consulate to open despite fire safety violations. Adams is also under investigation for allowing the Turkish government to fund his mayoral campaign. Other members of Adams' administration are under investigation for other law and ethics violations, and Adams is being sued for sexual assault.

The fire safety of the Turkish building was not the only reason that Turkey bribed Adams. They also pressured him to agree to stay silent about the Armenian Genocide, to which his staffer replied with an assurance that he would. Of course, it's possible that Adams would have stayed silent about the Armenian Genocide with or without the bribes. After all, he has a track record of philia for Turkey and Azerbaijan, two countries with strong racist tendencies against Armenians, one of whom (Azerbaijan) actually implemented their own, more modest genocide against the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh during Adams' mayoral term. Shortly before the last Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh fled in fear of Azeri persecution, Azerbaijan paid for two of Adams' staffers to visit Azerbaijan.

I kinda doubt that the EA community could have made a difference and won the election for Garcia even if we'd all tried; 0.7% of NYC is a still a lot. And for all we know, maybe the cause of animal rights has been significantly advanced by Adams' election, considering whatever he may have achieved before he (hopefully) gets removed from office in disgrace. But I don't care about the benefits for animals as much as I care about the nonsense he's brought to America's political system along with his shameless philia for genocidal dictatorships. I am personally Armenian, so I'm relatively miffed to see that a man supported by EA animal advocates took Turkish and Azeri bribes. But I think that no matter who you are, honorable EA behavior would be to steer clear of this type of politician, even if they are pro-animal-rights. And I feel like this level of moral debasedness and crookery should have been noticeable to people within his administration, but what do I know.

I don't know anything particular about the EAs who worked for Adams, I don't remember their names. Does anyone know if they're still around, if they've resigned in protest, or anything like that?

Edit: I want to clarify that I wouldn't necessarily begrudge someone for working in his administration in the past, if they had good EA reasons to do so. I know it can be tough to find a job, so do what you have to do even if your boss is kind of scummy. But working to get him elected, or staying aboard the ship after it becomes clear he's this level of crook, are things that would irk me.