A year ago, mayoral candidate Eric Adams declared war on socialism.

At a fundraiser in Douglaston, a pretty waterfront neighborhood and one of the fanciest parts of Queens, cohosted by a Republican city councilman, Adams said, “I’m running against a movement.” Shifting, as he often does, to the oddly dissociated and grandiose third person, the candidate continued, “All across the country, the DSA socialists are mobilizing to stop Eric Adams.” DSA had not endorsed any candidate against Adams in that primary, so the comments might have seemed gratuitous, but they were not. Adams was building an anti-left coalition — real estate interests (including landlords like himself), rich people, Republican voters, and ordinary New Yorkers nervous that criminal-justice reforms would worsen violent crime — to oppose the growing socialist movement in New York City. As Ross Barkan, reporting these comments at the time, observed, with no strong left candidate unifying progressive organizations and voters, Adams was able to deploy the race card against the Left, arguing, for example, that stronger tenant protections were racist because black landlords could suffer.

Shortly after his Douglaston remarks, Adams went on Bill Maher and continued to fixate on socialism, insisting, “This is not a socialist county, let’s be clear on that.”