It sounds like Shakespeare, and it’s often attributed to Jack Kennedy, or sometimes to Benito Mussolini’s son-in-law. But it probably was Tacitus, the first-century Roman historian and politician, who came up with the phrase that’s now passed down in English as this: “Success has many fathers, but failure is an orphan.”
That’s especially true in politics. So before we forget the midterm campaigns, let’s consider how New York Republicans, who are outnumbered 2-to-1 by enrolled Democrats, picked up four U.S. House seats and did better overall than their party had done in more than two decades. One issue, more than any other: crime. And there’s a lesson in that for people who care about politics.
Republicans won on crime because Democrats were afraid to stand firm on their views, so they orphaned the issue — that is, they not only failed to advocate for criminal justice reform, but also didn’t even defend what they had done, which actually made New Yorkers safer. That left Republicans free to shape a narrative of dangerous crime all about us, with uncaring liberals to blame.
The most potent campaign message in New York this year arose from a bail reform law passed by the state Legislature in 2019. It wasn’t an issue that came before Congress, so you wouldn’t think it could influence federal races. But it was the cornerstone of the race for governor by Republican Lee Zeldin, and it enabled Republicans to paint all Democrats, whether in Washington or Albany, as weak-kneed in confronting criminals.
Under the new law, New York ended cash bail for most misdemeanors and non-violent felonies, while keeping bail in place for major crimes and violent felonies. There’s a good argument for the new law: Cash bail enables people to essentially buy their way out of jail after they are charged with a crime. Since not everybody can raise bail money, it’s poor people — disproportionately, they’re people from minority groups — who often languish in a cell for months before trial, while folks with some assets go free. That’s inequitable on its face, but equity doesn’t resonate with voters the way safety does.
If you assume that most people who are charged are actually criminals, you might think it’s fine to lock people up after they’re arraigned. But we claim in America to assume that people are innocent, and thus deserving of freedom, until they are proven guilty. Pre-trial incarceration to limit that freedom ought to be a thoughtful exception, a decision reached by a judge only if it’s shown that the person charged is a threat to public safety or is likely to flee to avoid justice.
A generation ago, when I was a young reporter covering courts in the New York suburbs, I routinely watched people with means who were charged with crimes quickly go back home after posting bail — with money from a savings account, say, or a second mortgage, or a relative’s loan. But defendants who lived paycheck-to-paycheck would be locked up, often losing their jobs and impoverishing their families.
We are not, in fact, safer with those people behind bars awaiting trial. In fact, studies since New York’s law changed revealed no correlation between the bail changes and crime. That same reality has emerged everywhere that cash bail has been limited: Nowhere has it led to more crime. In fact, research reveals that keeping people in jail just because they can’t post bail has what’s known as a criminogenic effect— that is, it leads to more crime, rather than reduces it.
But that message doesn’t grab us like the rare story about somebody victimized by an offender who is out on bail — so it’s not easy to sell real justice reform. Sadly, in New York this year, nobody really tried.
The focus on crime by Republicans nationally seemingly made New York Democrats fearful, and eager to change the subject. So voters didn’t get a chance to really understand what their legislators had done.
It's not unusual for social change to come up hard against political reality. And even good people in politics who want to make society more fair may decide that they can’t face voters unless they soft-pedal their views. But if we want social justice — that is, if we think everyone ought to have the same economic, political and social rights and opportunities — then we can’t expect the task of making that happen to be the job of politicians alone.
You can’t expect champions to step forward without a sense that the rank-and-file are standing behind them. Leaders need to believe that doing the right thing won’t leave them standing alone to face a penalty at the polls.
So one message of the election, I’d say, is that we all need to be smarter in learning the facts of public affairs, and then bolder in our willingness to stand for what we believe. Quietly watching the political process play out is understandable in this era of terrifying hyper-partisanship, but not stepping forward in defense of truth ought to leave us a bit embarrassed. Old Tacitus, that ancient Roman phrase-maker, had something to say about that, too: “The brave and bold,” he said, “persist even against fortune; the timid and cowardly rush to despair through fear alone.”
Rex Smith, the co-host of The Media Project on WAMC, is the former editor of the Times Union of Albany and The Record in Troy. His weekly digital report, The Upstate American, is published by Substack."
The views expressed by commentators are solely those of the authors. They do not necessarily reflect the views of this station or its management.