Elon Musk on the second inauguration of President Donald Trump on Jan. 20, 2025.
Photograph by Kenny Holston/The New York Occasions/AFP by way of Getty Photographs
Lillian Bonsignore, Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s decide to guide the Fireplace Division as its commissioner, brings greater than 30 years of expertise throughout the division’s Emergency Medical Companies (EMS) to the job. She went on to function Chief of EMS and her work within the restoration effort after 9/11 earned her nice accolades.
Although many in New York heralded her appointment, others weren’t so variety. Billionaire Elon Musk and Texas Senator Ted Cruz — two right-wing nationwide figures who don’t have any expertise in firefighting and have by no means run a fireplace division — questioned her expertise anyway. These self-righteous, self-appointed consultants in firefighting appear to suppose that as a result of Bonsignore by no means fought a fireplace, she is due to this fact not certified to be the fireplace commissioner.
The reality is, many hearth commissioners within the FDNY’s historical past weren’t former firefighters themselves. Actually, two of Bonsignore’s rapid and really profitable predecessors, Laura Kavanagh and Robert Tucker, had enterprise administrative and political backgrounds.
The hearth commissioner doesn’t battle fires; they’re accountable for overseeing the FDNY’s 17,000 staff, together with the 11,000 firefighters and officers who instantly reply to emergencies every single day, and maintaining town secure.
If the broadsides from Musk and Cruz weren’t unhealthy sufficient, a former Republican Congress member from upstate New York, Nan Hayworth, took a homophobic shot at Bonsignore’s sexuality in making an attempt to match her appointment to that of Kristin Crowley, a former Los Angeles hearth chief who, like Bonsignore, occurs to be lesbian.
“Worked out great for LA in January so why not,” Hayworth wrote, making a sarcastic reference to the lethal wildfires that struck there a 12 months in the past. The comment was as deplorable because it will get.
Ultimately, Mamdani’s alternative in Bonsignore was his to make. Time will inform whether or not Bonsignore can be as much as the duty, however her background with EMS — which, the brand new mayor famous, responds to greater than 70% of all calls to the FDNY — means that she is aware of what it takes to satisfy the division’s most simple mission: Saving New Yorkers’ lives.
As for the remarks from Musk, Cruz and Hayworth, they’re simply extra examples of the vile, counterproductive rhetoric that has consumed social media and politics generally. It’s one factor to voice real concern about one thing rooted in precise reality; it’s one other to ridicule somebody primarily based on their look or background.
Such ridicule ought to be rejected and shunned. New York doesn’t want the recommendation and consent of unserious individuals.
Within the new 12 months forward, allow us to all resolve to comply with two golden guidelines that our mother and father and guardians taught us:
1.) Do unto others as you’d have them do unto you.
2.) Should you’ve acquired nothing good to say about somebody, don’t say it in any respect.
Let’s comply with these guidelines and assist restore some honor and dignity not simply to social media and politics, however to our society as an entire.
