I. The Manufactured Drama of Political Policing

Today, The New York Times published a feature that perfectly captured the city’s moral confusion about law enforcement. Under the headline “The N.Y.P.D. Prepares for Mayor Mamdani and a New Era in Public Safety,” the paper framed the police department’s reaction to the incoming administration as if it were the reaction of a political party out of power—an institution bracing for ideological exile.

The piece quoted officers musing about how to “work with” the new mayor, union heads discussing access and influence, and reporters describing the mood of the rank-and-file like they were chronicling the transition of an electoral base, not the conduct of a municipal agency. What went unacknowledged was the constitutional absurdity of the framing itself: the New York City Police Department is not a political faction. It is not an electorate to be courted, nor a constituency whose “feelings” about a mayor determine public policy.

To treat it as such is to invert the premise of democratic policing. The police, as an instrument of the people, do not get to have political opinions about civilian leadership. Their job is not to agree with policy—it is to execute it lawfully, without fear or favor.

And yet, the Times article treated officer sentiment as the relevant political story. That inversion—where the police become a political interest group rather than a neutral arm of state authority—isn’t just bad journalism. It reflects a deeper and more dangerous trend: the institutional politicization of policing itself.

II. The Constitutional and Charter Framework for Civilian Control

New York City’s governance model leaves no ambiguity about where the police fit within democratic structure. The City Charter vests executive power in the mayor, who appoints the police commissioner. The commissioner exercises authority over the department, subject to mayoral oversight and City Council legislation. Nowhere in that framework does the NYPD exist as a semi-autonomous political entity entitled to lobby for or against policy.

This architecture was intentional. The American system of law enforcement was designed around civilian supremacy—the principle that armed state power remains under the control of elected officials, who in turn remain accountable to the public. The separation between police authority and political ideology is what prevents a municipal police force from becoming an armed political organization.

When the press or political class begins to treat the police as a stakeholder to be “won over,” the boundary between governance and coercion erodes. It is not the mayor’s job to placate the police. It is the police department’s legal duty to follow the lawful directives of civilian government.

That isn’t a matter of tone or diplomacy—it’s the law. The department’s powers exist solely by delegation. The moment the NYPD acts as if it possesses an independent political mandate, it stops being a professional force and begins behaving like a self-appointed political actor.

III. How the NYPD Became Its Own Political Class

The seeds of that politicization were planted decades ago. Historically, policing in New York operated under a patronage model, where political machines treated police jobs as favors to be distributed. The early reforms of the twentieth century sought to professionalize the force and insulate it from overt party control. But the pendulum has since swung too far in the opposite direction: the NYPD has become a political class unto itself.

Through its unions—the Police Benevolent Association, the Detectives’ Endowment Association, the Sergeants Benevolent Association, and others—the department now operates as one of the most powerful lobbying entities in the city. It influences elections, intimidates political critics, and mobilizes public sentiment through fear and nostalgia.

When officers turned their backs on Mayor Bill de Blasio at a funeral, it wasn’t a spontaneous act of grief. It was political theater, a public declaration that the department considered itself an autonomous force entitled to judge its civilian overseers. That moment should have triggered a citywide reckoning. Instead, it became a cultural flashpoint in which the department’s political identity was reinforced rather than restrained.

The internal culture of the NYPD now mirrors that of a bureaucracy invested in its own preservation. Promotions, special units, and overtime systems create their own economic hierarchies. Press leaks and union statements operate like campaign communications. The department issues public narratives not to inform but to shape policy debate.

That self-referential ecosystem—half paramilitary, half political club—has blurred the line between lawful enforcement and self-interested advocacy.

IV. Media Complicity and the “Constituency Myth”

The press bears significant responsibility for normalizing this inversion. For decades, major outlets have covered the NYPD as though it were both subject and source of political legitimacy. Reporters routinely seek the department’s “reaction” to policy changes, as if the agency’s consent were required for democratic governance to function.

The Times piece followed the same template: unnamed officers “skeptical” of the new mayor, union presidents weighing in on “how to work with” him, political strategists assessing whether he can “win over” the rank-and-file. This is the constituency myth—the idea that police, as a collective, form a distinct political bloc whose approval is necessary for order.

The myth works in two directions. It flatters the police by granting them political standing they do not constitutionally possess, and it pressures mayors into seeking their approval rather than their compliance. It also undermines civilian oversight bodies like the Civilian Complaint Review Board and the Department of Investigation, which are painted as “anti-police” simply for enforcing accountability.

In this way, media framing becomes a form of institutional reinforcement. The more the press treats the NYPD as a political constituency, the more the department behaves like one. The result is a public culture where lawful oversight is portrayed as persecution, and criticism of police conduct is treated as a political offense rather than a democratic right.

V. The Real Crisis: Performance Without Accountability

The obsession with political optics has masked a deeper operational decline. As I have written elsewhere, the NYPD’s crisis is not about morale — it’s about power without performance: the widening gap between the department’s vast budgetary authority and its measurable results. Despite record funding, rank inflation, and relentless public-relations campaigns, meaningful public-safety outcomes have stagnated.

When politics replaces performance, metrics become malleable. Arrest quotas are disguised as “productivity goals.” Resource allocation follows headlines rather than need. Investigative discretion is used to reward loyalty and punish dissent. These are not signs of a professional agency—they are the behaviors of an organization that perceives itself as politically sovereign.

In a healthy system, civilian leadership defines goals and metrics; the police implement them. But in New York, the equation has been reversed: the NYPD dictates terms and the city adjusts its politics around them. Commissioners come and go, but the internal political culture endures—a self-governing bureaucracy that measures success by internal satisfaction rather than public trust.

VI. The Danger of Ideological Capture

The gravest danger in all of this is not partisan alignment but ideological capture—the point at which police power becomes contingent upon political sympathy. A department that sees itself as an ideological actor begins deciding which laws to enforce, which policies to resist, and which leaders to undermine. That is how constitutional order erodes.

History offers the warning. In every system where armed state power began to self-politicize—from post-Reconstruction constabularies to Cold War security states—the consequence was the same: selective enforcement, institutional impunity, and erosion of civilian legitimacy.

The rule of law depends on the neutrality of its enforcers. The NYPD’s oath is not to a mayor, a union, or a political ideology—it is to the Constitution and the people of New York. When officers speak publicly about whether they “like” or “trust” a mayor, they are not engaging in civic dialogue; they are breaching the principle of administrative neutrality.

This does not mean officers cannot hold personal political beliefs. It means that those beliefs have no operational relevance. The department’s duty is functional, not philosophical. The day the NYPD becomes an ideological actor is the day it ceases to be a legitimate law-enforcement agency.

VII. The Political Vacuum That Enables It

The NYPD’s politicization has thrived not just through media complicity but through political cowardice. City Hall and Albany alike have treated the department as too dangerous to confront. Oversight commissions are underfunded, disciplinary reform is perpetually delayed, and budgetary scrutiny is evaded through accounting tricks and federal grants.

The consequence is what political scientists call agency drift—when a bureaucracy begins to define its own mission independently of its legal mandate. In practice, this means the NYPD now functions as a semi-autonomous power center with its own internal politics, its own external press strategy, and its own veto power over reform.

Every administration since the Giuliani era has indulged this drift for short-term political stability. Mayors treat the department like a partner rather than a subordinate. Commissioners, appointed to impose control, end up protecting the agency from it. The political class has mistaken appeasement for management.

VIII. Civilian Oversight Is Not a Negotiation

The corrective begins with remembering that civilian control is not a courtesy—it is a legal command. The NYPD does not “negotiate” whether to obey civilian oversight any more than the judiciary negotiates whether to follow the Constitution.

The City Charter grants the mayor authority to reorganize, discipline, and direct the police commissioner. The Administrative Code establishes the Civilian Complaint Review Board and Inspector General. Their existence is not conditional upon police consent.

If officers or unions reject those boundaries, the response should not be dialogue but discipline. A police officer’s public defiance of civilian authority is not protected speech—it is insubordination. And when insubordination becomes institutionalized, it ceases to be a personnel issue and becomes a constitutional one.

This is the point too many politicians and editorial boards avoid: the NYPD is not a peer of the mayor. It is not an interest group to be appeased. It is an agency of government entrusted with lethal authority, operating only through the legal legitimacy conferred by civilian power.

IX. The Media’s Role in Restoring Perspective

If the press wishes to perform a public service, it must stop covering the police as though they are a political party with veto power over governance. Reporting on officer morale or union reactions may serve curiosity, but it should not define public understanding of law enforcement.

Every story that quotes an officer’s “frustration” with civilian oversight should include the reminder that police morale is not a measure of public policy success. The public’s safety, rights, and trust—not the department’s comfort—are the proper metrics.

When the Times gives column inches to the idea that the NYPD must be “won over,” it is not informing the public; it is training it to accept subordination. The department does not need to be won over—it needs to comply. That is what makes policing democratic rather than authoritarian.

X. Reclaiming the Public Mandate

The path forward requires more than administrative reform. It requires a moral reorientation—a collective acknowledgment that law enforcement cannot coexist with self-politicization.

The police have one mandate: to enforce the law as directed by democratically accountable leaders. They are not the law itself. The moment they act as if they are, democracy becomes performance art, and public safety becomes hostage to internal politics.

This is not an abstract concern. Every instance of selective enforcement, retaliatory investigation, or coordinated media manipulation is a breach of the social contract between the public and those empowered to protect it.

The Times may continue to print stories about how officers “feel” about new leadership. But feelings are irrelevant to function. The real story—the only story that matters—is whether the NYPD can remember that its legitimacy comes not from popularity or power, but from obedience to civilian law.

The department’s oath is not a slogan; it is a covenant. And in a democracy, that covenant runs in one direction—from the police to the people, not the other way around.

XI. Conclusion: The Line Between Governance and Power

In Solow v. W.R. Grace & Co., the Court of Appeals warned that “mechanistic application” of ethical rules must not undermine justice. The same principle applies to institutions: no amount of procedural respect can justify structural defiance.

New York’s challenge is not to reform policing’s image—it is to restore policing’s purpose. The NYPD cannot serve two masters: public safety and self-preservation. It must choose one.

The political class must stop negotiating with an agency that was never meant to bargain. The media must stop covering a bureaucracy as if it were a ballot line. And the public must stop mistaking institutional swagger for legitimacy.

The NYPD is not a political party. It is the armed extension of public trust. Its power exists only so long as it remains apolitical, accountable, and subordinate to civilian authority. The day we forget that, the badge becomes something it was never meant to be—a political weapon, rather than a shield of law.