Governing in Prose

 The old phrase "campaign in poetry; govern in prose" got tossed around a lot back when Mamdani was running for mayor of New York City. 

Now, I guess we are getting a sense of what that means. 

The "poetry" was stuff like promising: there will be no more raids of homeless encampments that tear down indigent people's makeshift shelters and trash their meagre belongings. 

The "prose" is stuff like: actually, scratch that; there will be. 

And yes, the mayor reportedly has made various proposals to ensure that the encampment "sweeps" will be more humane this time around. 

People will be given more opportunities to leave voluntarily for a shelter, for instance—before city officials start destroying their possessions. 

But at the end of the day, the policy change still represents a reversal of a campaign promise and another means of criminalizing poverty. 

If Mamdani's campaign was indeed "poetry," then—it appears to have been poetry of the kind that Thomas Love Peacock satirized in Headlong Hall (with political turncoats like Southey and Wordsworth in mind): 

"[I]t suits the particular views of a poet, at one time to take the part of the people against their oppressors, and at another, to take the part of the oppressors, against the people."

To which the Tory editor Mr. MacLaurel replies: 

"Ye mun alloo, sir, that poetry is a sort of ware or commodity, that is brought into the public market wi' a' other descreptions of merchandise, an' that a mon is pairfectly justified in getting the best price he can for his article."

So too with campaign promises of a poetical nature. They are a species of merchandise used to advertise the candidate. 

Apparently no one expects them to have any bearing on what that candidate actually does once in office. 

As soon as they are there, the homeless sweeps can start up again. 

Behold the "majestic equality of the law," as Anatole France once called it—"which forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges."