Against Sado-Progressivism

The New Center: A Wednesday Newsletter From Sohrab Ahmari

“So this is the subway system they want to goad us into?” That was my wife’s question in the wake of the latest New York City subway horror, captured in footage of straphangers cowering inside an A train while shots ring out as two men struggle over a pistol while a woman stabs one of them. By “goading,” my wife was referring to the new $15 daily congestion charge soon to be imposed on anyone driving a car south of 60^th Street in Manhattan. The measure makes no accommodation for families like ours, who live just below 60^th Street but have to travel north regularly to get our kids to school and athletics.

That combination—the congestion charge, plus an increasingly lawless underground—is the most glaring example of what I’ve started calling sado-progressivism.