Asking Not

As Mayor de Blasio prepares to jet off on a getaway to Italy, I would like to recommend a book for him to read on the plane: A Tale of Two Cities.

Of course, the mayor owes a debt of gratitude to Charles Dickens’ 1859 masterpiece, the title of which he appropriated to great effect during his campaign to encapsulate its overarching theme of taking on New York City’s plight of income inequality.

What de Blasio meant by “A Tale of Two Cities” was abundantly clear, even to those who had never read the book or only skimmed the Cliff’s Notes in school. New York has become—and, it should be noted, has always been—a city of haves and have-nots, where for the privileged few it is the best of times, while for the rest of us it is the worst of times.

Clearly the mayor doesn’t need to revisit the book as a reminder of the inequities between the classes. My reason for suggesting he do so is inspired by the novel’s denouement, in which Dickens movingly exemplifies one of the noblest traits vested in humanity, and one that de Blasio will have to harness if he is to succeed in his ambitious aim to narrow the city’s chasmic economic divide.

At the end of A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Darnay, the husband of the book’s heroine, Lucie Manette, is unjustly sentenced to death, his only crime the misfortune of having been born a 1-percenter. However, on the morning that he is to be taken to the guillotine, Sydney Carton, a vacuous lawyer who looks nearly identical to Darnay, redeems the meaninglessness of his life by orchestrating a ruse to take Darnay’s place on the scaffold—a final, profound expression of his unrequited love for Lucie.

Through Carton’s grand gesture, Dickens demonstrates a mighty virtue that has essentially disappeared from our political discourse: self-sacrifice.

In his inaugural address, President John F. Kennedy entreated the nation, “Ask not what your country can do for you—ask what you can do for your country.”

What politician today dares to ask the public for anything but their vote?

In New York City, as elsewhere, our elected officials are so desperate to stay on the good side of their constituents that their fundamental approach to politics and policy revolves around maintaining the charade that government can give the people everything they want while asking nothing in return.

It’s time our leaders were honest. The grave challenges Mayor de Blasio so rightly identified during his campaign are far too great for his or any administration to overcome if he does not channel the power of the people to help surmount them.

No New Yorker I know expects our sole responsibility as citizens to be showing up at the polls. Yet because that’s the only end to which our politicians ever try to engage us, a staggering percentage of us now shun even this most basic form of civic engagement as a cynical, pointless enterprise.

Mr. Mayor, we are a city of enormous talent, drive, ability, ingenuity and passion. We don’t need the government to coddle or infantilize us—to sell us on saccharine fantasies that shelter us from the hard reality that we all must contribute, like the fanciful notion that if only the richest New Yorkers paid a minuscule sliver more of their income in taxes, we would somehow be well on our way to a more just and equitable society.

Level with us. Enlist our support. Tap into our strength. It will not be a demonstration of weakness on your part but a stirring affirmation of your belief in the people you have worked so hard to represent. In these times of great struggle, all of us have grown well accustomed to making sacrifices for the good of our loved ones. Have the courage now to ask us to make sacrifices for the good of our beloved city. We will not let you down.

If you do, it will be a far, far better thing for you to do than you have ever done.