BOSTON – When the administration of Boston Mayor Michelle Wu confirmed sent a list of aggressive con artists to the Boston police, critics compared it to President Richard Nixon’s list of infamous enemies.
But is this criticism justified? Let’s put this statement to the test.
From disrupted mayoral events to altercations at city hall, it’s been a difficult environment for Wu and the security detail protecting her, with some of the same people involved in incidents over and over again. Among his offensive behaviors, according to Wu: “Screaming at my family, being out of the house for months, following my children and me as I walk them to school, committing violence against police officers who are part of our team of detail”.
So, after the mayor’s particularly intense harassment during last year’s Dorchester Day Parade, a Wu aide sent a list of frequent harassers to the police. Was this inappropriate or unusual, as Wu’s critics point out?
“This happens all the time,” noted Bill Forry, editor and publisher of the Dorchester Reporter newspaper, who witnessed the parade and wrote a scathing editorial denouncing the trolls. “The mayor’s security team has a job to do, and that’s to protect her and her family. I think they have the right to do that.”
And what about the claim that the list resembles Nixon’s list of enemies in the 1970s?
“I certainly wasn’t there at the time, and I don’t have any sense that there’s any political relevance,” Wu said.
You’re right, there isn’t.
“The whole attempt to classify this as Nixonian, that comes with all kinds of connotations about going after your political enemies, taxing their taxes or essentially making them enemies of the state,” Forry said.
Perhaps the suspect in the recent one Modern pastry shoot in the North End, who is on the list, will now claim to be a victim of Nixonian persecution.
If there has been political persecution here, it has been of the mayoress by her tormentors. Some have made the rounds in the right-wing media echo chamber selling their grievances about pandemic policies; others are now jumping into city council races. One could say that Wu has been too restrained in her responses.
But “Nixonian”?
Only in some parallel fantasy universe.
Jon Keller
