WEBVTT - The Staten Island Problem - Part 5: Revenge of the Forgotten Borough 0:00:15.920 --> 0:00:28.680 Pushkambe Election Night, New York City, nineteen ninety three Staten Island. 0:00:28.400 --> 0:00:30.360 Cables first time and that is hooking up all the 0:00:30.400 --> 0:00:32.280 headquarters live via Tell. 0:00:32.600 --> 0:00:36.200 That is Staten Island Cable's host Frank Sepola. Remember Frank, 0:00:36.680 --> 0:00:39.959 former assistant press secretary for the Staten Island Borough President, 0:00:40.120 --> 0:00:42.200 the one who got yelled at in those sham meetings 0:00:42.280 --> 0:00:45.240 late into the night. He got a new job which 0:00:45.280 --> 0:00:48.000 gave him a front row seat to the big vote. 0:00:48.120 --> 0:00:52.000 Markie live here on Channel seventy seven from Secession headquarters 0:00:52.000 --> 0:00:55.120 at the Island Chateau, Channel seventy seven bringing you that live. 0:00:57.760 --> 0:01:01.120 The end of the campaign had been crazy. Staten Island 0:01:01.120 --> 0:01:03.880 Borough President Guy Maul and Airy drove around the island 0:01:03.920 --> 0:01:07.600 in something called the Freedom of Us talking Secession. Staten 0:01:07.600 --> 0:01:10.040 Island politicians worked the rush hour a fair is to 0:01:10.039 --> 0:01:13.040 try and gin up more votes to secede, and on 0:01:13.120 --> 0:01:16.039 election night it looked like it had all paid off. 0:01:17.360 --> 0:01:20.080 We go to Monica to Clerico at the Island Chateau 0:01:20.120 --> 0:01:21.160 with the latest results. 0:01:21.240 --> 0:01:23.159 Monica, there's a new. 0:01:23.080 --> 0:01:23.800 Total coming in. 0:01:26.160 --> 0:01:30.080 Well, there you have it, Flank, that sixty six percent 0:01:30.240 --> 0:01:30.799 is the total. 0:01:30.840 --> 0:01:31.120 Now. 0:01:31.800 --> 0:01:34.800 The atmosphere here is it's like a party. 0:01:35.360 --> 0:01:36.679 The numbers were huge. 0:01:37.880 --> 0:01:40.479 You know, it's funny ten years ago when Senator Markey 0:01:40.560 --> 0:01:43.120 first introduced the word secession, if people thought of it 0:01:43.160 --> 0:01:43.759 as a joke. 0:01:44.039 --> 0:01:47.119 Absolutely, we know very well that this is no joke. 0:01:48.240 --> 0:01:52.120 It was a landslide. People were celebrating all over the island. 0:01:53.160 --> 0:01:56.719 State Senator John Marky gave a victory speech. He was 0:01:56.760 --> 0:01:58.680 the chief sponsor on the bill to secede in the 0:01:58.720 --> 0:01:59.240 first place. 0:02:00.760 --> 0:02:03.080 Do you realize as a city that can plan for 0:02:03.160 --> 0:02:05.480 its own and doesn't have to say may I, may 0:02:05.520 --> 0:02:06.880 I do this and may I do that? 0:02:07.840 --> 0:02:13.160 Are you going to people on the island voted almost 0:02:13.200 --> 0:02:15.320 two to one in favor of secession. 0:02:16.320 --> 0:02:17.880 Javane Borrow, I don't know. 0:02:18.000 --> 0:02:19.760 I think we just might get rid of that nickname. 0:02:23.400 --> 0:02:26.280 Dan Singletary. Was there that artists who had found on 0:02:26.320 --> 0:02:28.880 those old tapes passionately arguing for secession. 0:02:29.920 --> 0:02:32.240 Dan, Obviously your efforts have not been in vain. 0:02:32.600 --> 0:02:35.359 Did you ever expect to see such political fervor as 0:02:35.360 --> 0:02:36.280 you've seen tonight? 0:02:36.440 --> 0:02:38.520 This was one of the most wonderful nights I think for. 0:02:38.520 --> 0:02:40.960 Stephane Island, for the New York City, and for New 0:02:41.040 --> 0:02:41.560 York State. 0:02:43.360 --> 0:02:50.720 It was decisive, or so they thought. As many of 0:02:50.760 --> 0:02:56.160 you listening already know, Staten Island wasn't going anywhere. It 0:02:56.200 --> 0:02:59.840 would remain part of New York City. Somewhere in the 0:02:59.880 --> 0:03:05.240 back of his mind, Singletary knew that too. When did 0:03:05.240 --> 0:03:06.000 you realize that? 0:03:06.360 --> 0:03:07.960 Well, I was getting done pretty close to the. 0:03:08.760 --> 0:03:10.440 Towards the end of this problem. Since you're like, this 0:03:10.560 --> 0:03:13.840 might actually not happened. 0:03:13.680 --> 0:03:16.240 I said, but it had to do something. And I said, 0:03:16.240 --> 0:03:18.440 you know, if we got something out of this was 0:03:18.440 --> 0:03:19.440 better than what we were. 0:03:21.360 --> 0:03:24.160 The vote was a referendum. It was Staten Island saying 0:03:24.320 --> 0:03:27.640 we want to leave, but the New York State government 0:03:27.800 --> 0:03:31.040 was going to have the final say. And the next year, 0:03:31.400 --> 0:03:35.760 when the referendum came before the State Assembly, the speaker 0:03:35.840 --> 0:03:38.840 just killed it. It was dead in the water. 0:03:40.640 --> 0:03:44.560 I hoped that it might be possible, but I know 0:03:44.680 --> 0:03:48.960 the probability of all that is so difficult. 0:03:52.800 --> 0:03:58.400 Someone else had to have known where all this was going, too, Guymullinary. 0:03:58.560 --> 0:04:00.560 This was supposed to be the biggest night in his 0:04:00.680 --> 0:04:05.160 borough's history, and yet he was nowhere to be found 0:04:05.320 --> 0:04:10.360 on the island. Instead, he was in Manhattan with his 0:04:10.440 --> 0:04:16.359 good friend Rudolph Giuliani, who was at that moment being 0:04:16.400 --> 0:04:32.160 elected mayor of New York City. When I started this series, 0:04:32.440 --> 0:04:34.680 I told you that this story would amount to a 0:04:34.720 --> 0:04:39.159 big argument about where our country finds itself today. There's 0:04:39.200 --> 0:04:41.360 an old way of thinking about time that I love 0:04:41.560 --> 0:04:44.560 from the Middle Ages. The idea is that time doesn't 0:04:44.640 --> 0:04:47.840 just go horizontally where today is closest to tomorrow, but 0:04:48.240 --> 0:04:52.720 also vertically, that certain days are closer to all their 0:04:52.760 --> 0:04:57.720 earlier incarnations. Christmas this year is nearer to Christmas last 0:04:57.800 --> 0:05:00.800 year than it is to December twenty sixth. It's like 0:05:00.800 --> 0:05:02.040 a wormhole. 0:05:03.280 --> 0:05:03.400 In. 0:05:03.440 --> 0:05:06.120 What I'm proposing is that when voters went to the 0:05:06.160 --> 0:05:10.000 polls on November two, nineteen ninety three, to a elect 0:05:10.040 --> 0:05:12.320 a mayor and decide whether or not to break New 0:05:12.400 --> 0:05:15.040 York City up and send Staten Island off on its own, 0:05:16.000 --> 0:05:20.200 that day was very close to election Day twenty sixteen, 0:05:21.400 --> 0:05:24.200 that the era we are living in now has everything 0:05:24.200 --> 0:05:27.640 to do with that moment. Then that, as a historian 0:05:27.680 --> 0:05:31.160 told me when I began, all this America really does 0:05:31.200 --> 0:05:36.200 happen first in New York City, and the America happening 0:05:36.240 --> 0:05:39.360 now is something you could see first in the Staten 0:05:39.400 --> 0:05:44.159 Island Secession movement, and even more critically, in the man 0:05:44.240 --> 0:05:49.360 that movement gave us New York City Mayor, Rudy Giuliani. 0:05:52.280 --> 0:05:56.400 I'm Ben Mattahaffrey. This is the Staten Island problem. Our 0:05:56.440 --> 0:06:11.760 final episode Revenge of the Forgotten Borough. Okay, so let's rewind. 0:06:12.040 --> 0:06:14.240 I want to focus in on the time leading up 0:06:14.280 --> 0:06:17.200 to that nineteen ninety three election because I realized that 0:06:17.280 --> 0:06:20.960 Rudy Giuliani and Staten Island Secession were being driven by 0:06:20.960 --> 0:06:24.360 the same engine, and I wanted to understand what that 0:06:24.440 --> 0:06:25.039 engine was. 0:06:25.960 --> 0:06:28.120 The practice of politics in this city stinks. 0:06:28.400 --> 0:06:29.080 I mean it is. 0:06:29.320 --> 0:06:33.320 It is an old fashioned way of practicing politics. 0:06:33.960 --> 0:06:36.880 America. First met Rudy Giuliani as a crusader who took 0:06:36.880 --> 0:06:39.960 on the mob. As US Attorney for the Southern District 0:06:40.000 --> 0:06:43.279 of New York. He went after corruption everywhere on Wall 0:06:43.280 --> 0:06:45.960 Street and especially in New York City government. 0:06:46.320 --> 0:06:51.240 Crooked politicians and crooked bosses of political organizations that are 0:06:51.280 --> 0:06:54.239 running counties that are in dire need of honest, decent 0:06:54.240 --> 0:06:56.760 people running those counties who are raping those counties for 0:06:56.840 --> 0:06:57.680 their own advantage. 0:06:58.840 --> 0:07:01.680 And one of the very first people encouraging Giuliani to 0:07:01.720 --> 0:07:05.680 consider running for a higher office was Staten Island's borough president, 0:07:06.040 --> 0:07:07.000 Guy mulin Aiy. 0:07:08.160 --> 0:07:11.400 I think that they had a special kind of relationship 0:07:11.480 --> 0:07:16.360 with friendship. It went beyond friendship. It was like extended family. 0:07:17.440 --> 0:07:20.880 Randy Mastro worked with Giuliani in the US Attorney's office 0:07:21.040 --> 0:07:24.000 and later as his first deputy mayor, and he witnessed 0:07:24.040 --> 0:07:26.520 Mollinari's relationship with Giuliani firsthand. 0:07:27.080 --> 0:07:32.560 A lot of similarities and backgrounds. Italian Americans, working class 0:07:32.560 --> 0:07:35.760 family backgrounds shared a lot of the same values. 0:07:38.080 --> 0:07:41.880 Giuliani was born in Brooklyn. He was a very serious child. 0:07:42.360 --> 0:07:44.640 He would sit on his front stoop and read while 0:07:44.640 --> 0:07:47.960 the other kids played stickball. He started the opera club 0:07:47.960 --> 0:07:51.280 in high school. He wanted to be a priest. His 0:07:51.360 --> 0:07:55.600 college girlfriend remembered quote he liked to say, Rudolph William 0:07:55.680 --> 0:08:00.040 Louis Giuliani the third the first Italian Catholic president of 0:08:00.080 --> 0:08:05.920 the United States. Mollinary was with Giuliani from the very beginning. 0:08:06.400 --> 0:08:09.280 The day Giuliani announced his first mayoral run in nineteen 0:08:09.320 --> 0:08:12.360 eighty nine, it was Mollinary who went to all five 0:08:12.400 --> 0:08:16.240 boroughs with him, making introductions. Part of what they shared 0:08:16.680 --> 0:08:19.680 was an outer borough view of the city. Both were 0:08:19.680 --> 0:08:22.680 familiar with the politics of white people living on the periphery, 0:08:23.800 --> 0:08:26.400 and while some Staten Islanders were trying to leave the 0:08:26.440 --> 0:08:30.840 city entirely, Mollinary was looking for someone who could remake 0:08:30.880 --> 0:08:32.400 it in Staten Island's image. 0:08:33.720 --> 0:08:37.960 I think that there was definitely a sense in both 0:08:38.000 --> 0:08:40.520 their parts about being fair to every borough, and that 0:08:40.600 --> 0:08:44.200 Manhattan had probably been favored by many prior mayors. 0:08:45.839 --> 0:08:49.080 David Dinkins beat Giuliani during the mayoral election of nineteen 0:08:49.120 --> 0:08:52.360 eighty nine and became the city's first black mayor. But 0:08:52.439 --> 0:08:54.800 that election had been a warning sign to liberals in 0:08:54.839 --> 0:08:59.359 New York. Giuliani had lost by the slimmest margin of 0:08:59.400 --> 0:09:04.079 any mayoral race since nineteen oh five. His supporters were angry. 0:09:04.920 --> 0:09:06.640 They demanded a recount. 0:09:10.959 --> 0:09:12.759 Please relax and just listen. 0:09:14.000 --> 0:09:14.679 He will be. 0:09:18.920 --> 0:09:21.040 Wait, There's plenty of time. 0:09:23.640 --> 0:09:25.720 The first political campaign I covered in New York City 0:09:25.800 --> 0:09:29.800 was Rudy Giuliani's second run from very successful run, and 0:09:30.400 --> 0:09:33.080 I went with him on a to Staten Island. 0:09:33.160 --> 0:09:37.840 What oh yeah. Malcolm Gladwell, reporter covering New York for 0:09:37.880 --> 0:09:41.079 The Washington Post back then, who somehow waited until our 0:09:41.120 --> 0:09:43.559 final episode to reveal to me that he had met 0:09:43.559 --> 0:09:46.320 Giuliani and gone to Staten Island with him. In nineteen 0:09:46.400 --> 0:09:49.120 ninety three, he wrote about it in an article called 0:09:49.280 --> 0:09:51.239 Rudy Giuliani's Whispered Revolt. 0:09:52.319 --> 0:09:55.320 I spent the day on a We started in the morning, 0:09:55.359 --> 0:09:57.280 we took the you know, got in the cavalcade, we 0:09:57.280 --> 0:09:59.640 went over the bridge, and I ended up came back 0:09:59.719 --> 0:10:01.439 late at night, and he did, you know, he did 0:10:01.439 --> 0:10:04.760 events all throughout the day, and it was very clear 0:10:04.800 --> 0:10:08.400 that like these were his people, even though he's a 0:10:08.800 --> 0:10:11.240 form me, he's Flatbush, he's not, you know, he's an Italian, 0:10:11.319 --> 0:10:14.120 but they were. It's the italianness, and it's a sense 0:10:14.160 --> 0:10:14.720 of grievance. 0:10:14.800 --> 0:10:17.000 It's it's the people who resent Manhattan. 0:10:16.679 --> 0:10:21.439 Resent Manhattan. And the kind of and also his close affiliation. 0:10:21.559 --> 0:10:22.320 With the police. 0:10:22.520 --> 0:10:24.880 It's such a kind of cop guy, and that is 0:10:25.079 --> 0:10:26.959 that set down as Cop Central. 0:10:27.959 --> 0:10:30.800 Giuliani spoke to exactly the kind of person who might 0:10:30.839 --> 0:10:33.600 want to secede from New York. He promised to do 0:10:33.679 --> 0:10:36.239 whatever it took to put New York City to order again. 0:10:36.679 --> 0:10:39.640 He would be Bruce Wayne to New York's Gotham as 0:10:39.800 --> 0:10:42.880 US attorney. He seemed to love, to publicly shame his 0:10:42.959 --> 0:10:47.079 victims with these dramatic purp walks. His message was that 0:10:47.120 --> 0:10:50.760 all the other mayors had been too tolerant. He promised 0:10:50.760 --> 0:10:53.520 a kind of illiberalism, zero tolerance. 0:10:54.880 --> 0:10:56.760 But the thing about Rudy is that Rudy is not 0:10:56.880 --> 0:11:02.960 fun right, He's not genteel, He's not sophisticated in the 0:11:03.000 --> 0:11:06.959 way that some of these other characters are. There's something 0:11:07.079 --> 0:11:11.439 angry and kind of mean and kind of course about him. 0:11:11.760 --> 0:11:14.960 And coming into the New York City political scene for 0:11:15.000 --> 0:11:18.240 the first time, he realizes he has to He realized 0:11:18.319 --> 0:11:20.399 is not going to he's himself at that point. It's 0:11:20.439 --> 0:11:23.199 not going to fly. It's too much of a departure. 0:11:23.559 --> 0:11:26.400 So he has to kind of play it down, play 0:11:26.439 --> 0:11:29.600 down his true essential roodiness. 0:11:31.479 --> 0:11:33.559 For a few years now, I've had a question about 0:11:33.599 --> 0:11:36.840 that true essential roudiness. Is he the same guy now 0:11:36.880 --> 0:11:39.559 as he was then? People used to think of him 0:11:39.599 --> 0:11:42.439 as America's mayor, the guy we depended on during nine 0:11:42.439 --> 0:11:44.759 to eleven, or the guy who cleaned up New York City. 0:11:45.160 --> 0:11:48.640 They don't recognize that guy in Rudy today, standing in 0:11:48.679 --> 0:11:52.759 the parking lot. Four seasons total landscaping, spreading lies about 0:11:52.760 --> 0:11:56.879 stolen elections. That's why I'm so interested in understanding the 0:11:56.920 --> 0:12:01.800 Giuliani of long ago, because I think that actually he's 0:12:01.839 --> 0:12:05.559 always been the same Rudy, And there's a specific moment 0:12:05.880 --> 0:12:08.360 back in the nineties when you could see it clearly. 0:12:11.839 --> 0:12:14.879 One morning, a year before the ninety three election, Rudy 0:12:14.880 --> 0:12:18.160 Giuliani and Guy Mullinery met up for a very faithful day. 0:12:19.760 --> 0:12:23.160 The police union had organized a protest. They were angry 0:12:23.199 --> 0:12:25.800 about a series of riots where they felt Mayor Dinkins 0:12:25.839 --> 0:12:29.719 had betrayed them Washington Heights and Crown Heights. They were 0:12:29.760 --> 0:12:31.840 angry that he had a big plan to put more 0:12:31.880 --> 0:12:36.040 civilian oversight on the police. So they gathered outside a 0:12:36.079 --> 0:12:38.439 place where they knew they'd get some attention. 0:12:40.040 --> 0:12:41.840 It was a show, of course, on the steps of 0:12:41.880 --> 0:12:45.600 New York City Hall. Ten thousand off duty cops banded 0:12:45.599 --> 0:12:48.920 together in protest, set up and angry with a city 0:12:48.959 --> 0:12:50.559 they claim doesn't back them up. 0:12:52.079 --> 0:12:55.160 There were ten thousand off duty cops. Many were drunk, 0:12:55.359 --> 0:12:58.160 and things started getting out of hand. They began to 0:12:58.199 --> 0:13:08.319 climb on cars, chanting Dinkins must go. They held signs 0:13:08.319 --> 0:13:11.200 with racist caricatures of Dinkins with huge lips and a 0:13:11.239 --> 0:13:15.800 gigantic Afro, calling him a washroom attendant. They intimidated a 0:13:15.839 --> 0:13:19.120 black councilwoman as she tried to cross the street. People 0:13:19.239 --> 0:13:23.600 hurled racial epithets. Then they charged up the steps of 0:13:23.679 --> 0:13:27.400 City Hall. A reporter told CBS what he'd seen. 0:13:28.479 --> 0:13:31.520 They climbed the very steps of government and felt comfortable 0:13:31.520 --> 0:13:34.719 to call the mayor of the city a nigger. It's outrageous. 0:13:35.520 --> 0:13:37.840 If David Duke had a police department, it would look 0:13:38.079 --> 0:13:41.400 and sound like this group of people who assaulted our senses. 0:13:45.520 --> 0:13:46.960 I was in city Hall at the time. 0:13:47.000 --> 0:13:47.839 The mayor wasn't. 0:13:48.839 --> 0:13:52.319 First deputy mayor at the time, Norman Stizel. Dinkins was 0:13:52.359 --> 0:13:57.000 actually uptown at a funeral, and so you're the highest 0:13:57.079 --> 0:13:58.360 ranking person at city. 0:13:58.120 --> 0:13:59.800 Hall, yes, I was. 0:14:00.040 --> 0:14:03.000 They decided to basically they were thinking about storming city Hall. 0:14:04.199 --> 0:14:07.559 Police inside told Steizel they had an evacuation plan through 0:14:07.599 --> 0:14:13.279 an unused stable in the back. At some point in 0:14:13.319 --> 0:14:17.520 all this, Rudy Giuliani arrived at City Hall. The head 0:14:17.520 --> 0:14:19.639 of the police union asked him to try to calm 0:14:19.680 --> 0:14:23.239 things down. He said, he led a small group out 0:14:23.239 --> 0:14:25.800 of the main area and over to a protest outside 0:14:25.840 --> 0:14:28.200 the plaza where there was a stage on a truck bed. 0:14:29.320 --> 0:14:33.119 Guy Moulin Airy had already spoken there. Giuliani got up. 0:14:33.960 --> 0:14:36.759 He'd seen the out of control rage and hate at 0:14:36.760 --> 0:14:41.400 Dinkins and had a choice calm things down or feed 0:14:41.400 --> 0:14:43.920 the fire. He chose the latter. 0:14:44.960 --> 0:14:48.240 The raven the burrale of the Police Department of the 0:14:48.280 --> 0:14:51.440 City of New York is so low with one raven 0:14:51.520 --> 0:14:53.800 and one raven alone Ramon. 0:14:57.560 --> 0:15:00.080 He said the move to increase oversight on the cops 0:15:00.239 --> 0:15:04.600 was just quote to protect David Dinkins's political ass. He 0:15:04.640 --> 0:15:10.680 said Dinkins's policies were quote bullshit. Steizele still inside City 0:15:10.720 --> 0:15:11.840 Hall heard. 0:15:11.640 --> 0:15:17.920 Everything, and there's no question on my mind that that's 0:15:17.960 --> 0:15:18.760 what he talked about. 0:15:18.760 --> 0:15:19.960 When he got up on the stage. 0:15:20.160 --> 0:15:20.840 You could hear him. 0:15:20.880 --> 0:15:25.520 It was, you know, right outside where we were, so. 0:15:25.800 --> 0:15:27.760 I don't know, you felt he was inciting, Well, there 0:15:27.800 --> 0:15:28.720 was no question about it. 0:15:28.840 --> 0:15:34.960 Yeah. 0:15:35.040 --> 0:15:37.759 The rioters veered away from City Hall and blocked traffic 0:15:37.800 --> 0:15:42.160 on the Brooklyn Bridge. Instead, they threatened drivers. One rider 0:15:42.239 --> 0:15:45.239 kicked a New York Times reporter in the stomach. Another 0:15:45.280 --> 0:15:47.479 group of cops found a car with older black people 0:15:47.479 --> 0:15:51.239 inside and began to shove it back and forth. Dinkins 0:15:51.680 --> 0:15:52.920 was outraged. 0:15:53.280 --> 0:15:54.520 For Rudy Giuliani to. 0:15:56.239 --> 0:15:56.800 Urge them on. 0:15:56.960 --> 0:16:00.440 As it were, he demonstrates an irresponsibility on his behalf. 0:16:06.160 --> 0:16:08.560 I started having this weird feeling as I work on 0:16:08.600 --> 0:16:11.840 this series that I've think of as the flicker. Like 0:16:11.960 --> 0:16:14.760 when I'm riding the subway listening to Wu Tang. The 0:16:14.840 --> 0:16:19.160 cars have less graffiti, but they're basically the same tim cans, 0:16:19.200 --> 0:16:22.440 and sometimes something shifts and I feel like I'm looking 0:16:22.479 --> 0:16:25.960 at the world thirty years ago. The same thing happened 0:16:26.000 --> 0:16:28.360 when I watched what little tape remains of the riot. 0:16:29.040 --> 0:16:32.519 Something flickers and suddenly I feel like I'm looking at 0:16:32.520 --> 0:16:37.280 the twenty twenties. After the break, I want to take 0:16:37.320 --> 0:16:40.240 you to a rural part of Wisconsin that helped me 0:16:40.320 --> 0:16:59.999 understand why. Sometime in the year two thousand and seven, 0:17:00.200 --> 0:17:03.680 a political scientist living in Wisconsin decided to leave the 0:17:03.680 --> 0:17:06.960 city of Madison and start driving around the state. 0:17:08.240 --> 0:17:11.080 I knew that if I wanted understand how people make 0:17:11.120 --> 0:17:13.080 sense of politics, the best way to do that is 0:17:13.120 --> 0:17:14.200 to listen to them. 0:17:14.560 --> 0:17:18.119 Catherine Kramer, professor at the University of Wisconsin. 0:17:18.920 --> 0:17:23.040 There's something going on in these rural communities. That's very 0:17:23.080 --> 0:17:25.080 similar all across the state. 0:17:30.200 --> 0:17:34.200 She started hanging out at gas stations, athletic clubs, diners, 0:17:34.840 --> 0:17:37.600 any place she could find a civic association outside one 0:17:37.640 --> 0:17:41.240 of the big cities. She realized that she kept hearing 0:17:41.320 --> 0:17:47.879 the same conversation in all of them. 0:17:46.120 --> 0:17:51.080 Like a simmering emotion, right, it's different from anger, and 0:17:51.120 --> 0:17:54.359 that it's just kind of this we might say, like 0:17:54.880 --> 0:17:59.000 a chip on your shoulder, a sense of like these 0:17:59.040 --> 0:18:00.720 people pissed me off. I'm trying to make you a 0:18:00.840 --> 0:18:03.280 nicer way of saying, but like those people piss me off, 0:18:03.400 --> 0:18:06.400 and they just don't understand me. Those people don't respect me. 0:18:06.760 --> 0:18:11.080 This sense of I'm not getting my fair share in 0:18:11.240 --> 0:18:13.000 like three important respects. 0:18:14.240 --> 0:18:17.680 Those three respects, Kramer says, our money, the feeling that 0:18:17.720 --> 0:18:20.760 all the jobs and resources are somewhere else, namely the 0:18:20.800 --> 0:18:24.960 citi's power, the idea that all the decisions are also 0:18:25.080 --> 0:18:30.520 made in the cities. And finally, respect, also something cities 0:18:30.560 --> 0:18:35.240 get more of than rural places. Together, this all adds 0:18:35.320 --> 0:18:38.080 up to a feeling resentment. 0:18:40.120 --> 0:18:42.880 It's not that they just don't understand us, they don't care, 0:18:43.640 --> 0:18:46.480 and they don't like us like they think we're not 0:18:46.720 --> 0:18:50.320 worth listening to because they think we're uneducated and backward 0:18:50.440 --> 0:18:53.240 and sexist and homophobic and what have you. 0:18:54.200 --> 0:18:58.440 This feeling has always existed, country focating city folk, city 0:18:58.520 --> 0:19:02.240 folk thinking country folk are backwards. But what Kramer found 0:19:02.520 --> 0:19:05.120 is you could put numbers to it, and it had 0:19:05.120 --> 0:19:08.960 gotten a whole lot more intense starting in the nineteen seventies. 0:19:09.720 --> 0:19:13.160 And it wasn't just rural urban It was about anything 0:19:13.240 --> 0:19:15.920 on the periphery of the big cities, which were only 0:19:15.920 --> 0:19:16.520 getting bigger. 0:19:17.600 --> 0:19:22.680 These sentiments show up in so many places and parts 0:19:22.720 --> 0:19:29.240 of our population, right that sense of low boiling resentment 0:19:29.320 --> 0:19:35.200 towards the people in charge, like who doesn't feel that? 0:19:35.360 --> 0:19:35.840 Right now? 0:19:38.320 --> 0:19:42.040 Secession was the manifestation of that same feeling, and it 0:19:42.120 --> 0:19:46.680 expressed itself in two ways. A vote for secession and 0:19:46.720 --> 0:19:51.359 a vote for Giuliani on election night after they'd lost. 0:19:52.000 --> 0:19:54.240 That had been very clear to the Dincoin's campaign. 0:19:55.760 --> 0:19:58.720 What defeated us was the succession issue on the ballot 0:19:58.760 --> 0:20:02.440 at Stanton Island, which stimulated churn out there way out 0:20:02.440 --> 0:20:04.040 of proportion. Would exp roal trentot. 0:20:05.400 --> 0:20:07.800 So many people had come out to vote for secession 0:20:07.800 --> 0:20:10.600 on Staten Island way more more than had voted in 0:20:10.680 --> 0:20:13.840 nineteen eighty nine. In eighty two percent of the people 0:20:13.880 --> 0:20:18.080 on Staten Island voted for Giuliani. The vote from the 0:20:18.120 --> 0:20:21.000 forgotten borough is a big part of how we got 0:20:21.000 --> 0:20:24.320 Mayor Giuliani, the first Republican mayor of New York City 0:20:24.320 --> 0:20:27.520 in decades, taking the stage at the New York Hilt 0:20:27.600 --> 0:20:29.000 him I'm. 0:20:28.840 --> 0:20:32.760 Standing before you as the next mayor of New York City. 0:20:38.360 --> 0:20:42.640 The next day, Dinkins's chief political officer said, quote, the 0:20:42.720 --> 0:20:45.399 only surprise, as far as I am concerned, was the 0:20:45.440 --> 0:20:48.480 size of the Staten Island numbers. You can show what 0:20:48.520 --> 0:20:51.600 I consider minor increases for Rudy across the board, but 0:20:51.680 --> 0:20:55.240 not major ones. If you fit Staten Island into the mix, 0:20:55.960 --> 0:21:02.400 there is the difference. Staten Island was part of a 0:21:02.480 --> 0:21:05.680 movement of people saying we don't believe the sum is 0:21:05.680 --> 0:21:07.720 greater than the parts, and we'd like to go our 0:21:07.760 --> 0:21:10.800 own way. Actually, it was the most outer borough of 0:21:10.840 --> 0:21:13.119 the outer boroughs saying they wanted to be the center, 0:21:13.560 --> 0:21:17.600 not the periphery. For some it was absolutely about race, 0:21:17.680 --> 0:21:21.960 but it was also about respect, about geography. It was 0:21:22.000 --> 0:21:24.680 about not wanting to be the dump anymore, and they 0:21:24.680 --> 0:21:28.680 started a movement that changed their reality by electing a 0:21:28.760 --> 0:21:32.280 leader who was outer Borough himself, who understood what it 0:21:32.320 --> 0:21:35.000 meant to be on the periphery and both hate and 0:21:35.080 --> 0:21:40.320 need the center. Giuliani made the ferry free. He invested 0:21:40.360 --> 0:21:43.280 almost half a billion dollars in the Staten Island waterfront. 0:21:44.040 --> 0:21:46.159 He got them that baseball park I used to go 0:21:46.200 --> 0:21:48.040 to in the summers when I just moved to New 0:21:48.120 --> 0:21:51.480 York City. But the biggest thing he gave them is 0:21:51.520 --> 0:21:54.800 that he and Guy Mullinery managed to close the dump. 0:21:55.960 --> 0:21:58.920 On March twenty second, two thousand and one, the last 0:21:58.960 --> 0:22:03.480 barge of trash sailed out for fresh kills. Giuliani stood 0:22:03.480 --> 0:22:07.200 on his porch and saluted as it passed. The dump was, 0:22:07.240 --> 0:22:10.240 at that point the largest man made object on earth. 0:22:11.320 --> 0:22:13.760 The process of Staten Island bearing the burden of the 0:22:13.760 --> 0:22:17.680 rest of the city's garbage was inequitable, and now it's 0:22:17.720 --> 0:22:19.840 over for good. 0:22:20.640 --> 0:22:23.080 For the rest of the city, particularly it's black and 0:22:23.120 --> 0:22:26.520 brown residents, the results were more mixed. There was a 0:22:26.600 --> 0:22:30.000 viciousness to his efforts to clean up the city. Homeless 0:22:30.040 --> 0:22:33.840 people were denied shelter or forced to pay. Giuliani often 0:22:33.880 --> 0:22:36.880 refused to meet with black leaders. Cops were sent out 0:22:36.920 --> 0:22:40.760 to quote empty the streets. Executives at the local public 0:22:40.880 --> 0:22:43.720 radio station said that at some point they heard Juliani 0:22:43.800 --> 0:22:46.160 say that his goal was to get poor people to 0:22:46.240 --> 0:22:51.880 leave New York. Today we call that self deporting. Frank Sapola, 0:22:52.000 --> 0:22:54.680 the cable news guy, remembers you couldn't challenge him on 0:22:54.720 --> 0:22:55.159 any of it. 0:22:56.720 --> 0:22:59.800 I had screaming arguments with him at press conference because 0:22:59.840 --> 0:23:01.760 I would ask a question and he would say, Ah, 0:23:01.800 --> 0:23:02.880 that's a stupid question. 0:23:03.080 --> 0:23:05.480 I said, according to who I'm asking the question, and 0:23:05.520 --> 0:23:06.600 I wasn't the only one. 0:23:06.640 --> 0:23:08.680 He would just look at reporters and say, you're an idiot. 0:23:08.720 --> 0:23:10.880 That's a stupid I'm not going to answer that stupid question. 0:23:13.520 --> 0:23:16.440 And there was another New Yorker, I'm guessing you're familiar with, 0:23:17.000 --> 0:23:20.400 who grew up in the outer boroughs too, and thought, 0:23:20.680 --> 0:23:23.359 this is what a great leader looks like. 0:23:24.720 --> 0:23:29.360 Donald Trump announcing tonight the formation tomorrow of a committee 0:23:29.360 --> 0:23:31.840 to look into the possibility of his running for the 0:23:31.880 --> 0:23:34.000 presidency of the United States. 0:23:35.800 --> 0:23:38.280 This is a clip from Larry King Live in nineteen 0:23:38.320 --> 0:23:41.000 ninety nine, one of the first times Trump flirts with 0:23:41.080 --> 0:23:45.240 running for president. That year, Hillary Clinton was gearing up 0:23:45.280 --> 0:23:49.080 for her race against Giuliani from New York Senator, what 0:23:49.080 --> 0:23:49.320 do you. 0:23:49.320 --> 0:23:51.760 Make of the Hillary Julian here. I know you're a 0:23:51.760 --> 0:23:52.920 big fan of Juliani. 0:23:53.040 --> 0:23:54.840 I am, and I like her very much. But I 0:23:54.880 --> 0:23:56.800 think Rudy and as I said before, he's been the 0:23:56.840 --> 0:23:59.680 greatest mayor in the history of the city of Mire 0:23:59.760 --> 0:24:01.840 and people maybe some people don't like him and some 0:24:01.880 --> 0:24:04.520 people love him totally. I happen to be in love 0:24:04.640 --> 0:24:07.000