Congressman Ritchie Torres (New York's 15th District) is happy to piss off the political establishment, even if he wears the same Democratic jersey as him. Because he believes “80% of New Yorkers agree with me'' on quality of life issues.
Earlier this month, Torres tweeted a leaked video of a vagrant on a Line 7 train.
“I'm angry at a public transit system that wastes $700 million a year by allowing mentally ill people to publicly urinate on the subway and evade fares,” Torres wrote to X, adding: In New York, we can do better than a broken system. ”
In more civilized times, a politician sharing a video of himself urinating might not seem like a big deal, but this subway rider, like Torres, was feeling some good old relief.
In the end, Paul speaks a simple truth. It means that our city, the world's largest city, has accepted a deplorable substandard condition of its subways and roads.
Those in power are willing to acknowledge and diagnose the disease without telling the patient that the symptoms are imagined.
“The lesson we learned from the last election is that the American people are not stupid, and gaslighting doesn't work,” Torres told me this week.
When it comes to his candid tweeting style, the purpose is to send a specific message.: “You don't have to accept what you can't accept.”
That means demanding cleaner and safer trains. Crackdown on fare evasion. And to reduce indiscriminate violence, we need to remove severely mentally ill people from the streets.
But it's also important to vote for new leaders who are pragmatic, not far-left interest groups.
“We are in the midst of a pendulum swing back to the center of rationality,” Torres said. “We Democrats can no longer afford to treat public safety and quality of life as a right-wing Republican position. This is truly a core function of government.”
After all, our great city has wasted nearly two decades of law and order by allowing what Mr. Torres calls a “perversion of compassion” to influence our policies. This is an approach that prioritizes criminals and violent mentally ill people over law-abiding citizens.
Torres, a former city councilman who was first elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 2020 and re-elected in November, has been on the national stage as a staunch defender of Israel in the wake of the October 7, 2023 massacre by Hamas. It went up to
“I want to bring the moral clarity that I have shown toward Israel to broader issues, such as public safety, because people are willing to say what they think, feel, and believe. Because there is a market for civil servants,” he said. .
In other words, a return to the Big Apple that once operated with grit and candor.
Treatment for Torres? new leadership. That means giving the boot to Kathy Hochul, whom he calls “a creature of a broken system.” He spoke out harshly about the governor, saying she was hindering Mayor Adams' efforts to keep New York safe.
“What we need now, more than ever, is something that challenges the status quo,” Torres told me.
Is the disruptor Mr. Torres himself, and has he already announced that he may run for mayor or governor? “That's possible,” he said.
The Bronx native has good points on all the tough issues. Most recently, news broke that the MTA, which loves to talk about poverty, is spending $1 million to study the psychology behind fare evasion, rather than simply enforcing fares.
“Fare violators are rational actors,” Torres said. “If you signal to fare violators that there are no consequences for breaking the law, they have a perverse incentive to break the law.
“If you change the incentives, you change the behavior.”
Regarding the mentally ill roaming our cities, Torres said that allowing them to “wander on the streets and subways of New York is an act of cruelty masquerading as mercy,” adding that Ramon was killed last month across Manhattan. He added that Rivera stabbed three innocent people to death several weeks after his death. The release from Rikers was “preventable.”
As for the recent Daniel Penny trial, the Marine Corps veteran was acquitted after he strangled Jordan Neely to death while protecting passengers on the F train., Torres believes the incident reveals how the “failure” of cities and nations is a “life-or-death matter.”
“Jordan Neely's death was not a 'modern-day lynching' as the far left claims. To me, it was the tragic result of a broken mental health system that endangers the health and safety of New Yorkers.” he said. “Jordan should not have been allowed to roam the subway. He should have been admitted to a mental health facility.”
Torres certainly sounds like he belongs in a senior position. If he continues to tell the truth, he will only endear himself to tired New Yorkers.
“We have the tools to stop the problem,” he said. “What's missing is political will.”
