Astorino is Unwilling to Denounce Racism and Bigotry

Rob Astorino is unwilling to denounce racism and bigotry. Since formally announcing his candidacy for the New York State Senate on June 25, a number of high-profile hate incidents have taken place in the 40th Senate District, which he hopes to serve. Not once did he voice any objection or disavowal; not once did he commiserate for the harmed communities.

Just as telling, not once did Astorino, who has used his campaign to focus on law and order issues above all else, suggest any kind of retribution to the perpetrators of these actions, all of which have been termed hate crimes.

But for Astorino, this is not new. As Westchester County Executive, he fought the federal government on affordable housing in segregated communities, interjecting racist dog whistles into his arguments. He was also noted for “ongoing civil rights noncompliance” because of his failure to champion racial and ethnic diversity across the county, as agreed upon in the housing settlement, and vigorously denying that housing discrimination based on race truly existed in the county, even agreeing at first that it did exist.

More recently, Astorino has served as a “Trump translator” and repeatedly defended the president’s “very fine people” comment on television in 2017 supporting the rioting white supremacists in Charlottesville (see video)—an eerie echoing of his own comments a year earlier when a swastika and the words “White Power” were discovered along the Bronx River Parkway bike path in White Plains. Back then, he equated the hate incident with protesters unhappy with Trump’s election, earning a well-deserved backlash of criticism.

“As Americans, we must condemn hate of any kind in this country, whether it is based on race, religion, ethnicity, gender or sexual identity,” said Mondaire Jones, the Democratic nominee for New York’s 17th Congressional District, which overlaps with the 40th Senate District. “At a time when our country desperately needs to reckon with its legacy of systemic racism, when hate incidents are occurring in our own backyard, Rob Astorino is complicit with his silence.”

When a Black Lives Matter banner was set on fire at the Quaker Friends Meeting House in New Castle on August 6, following two earlier incidents in which the banner was vandalized, Astorino said nothing.

A week later, a noose was spray-painted in front of a Chappaqua home in which a Black family had resided for 40 years, and Astorino said nothing.

By the end of August, there had been a spate of hate in New Castle—racist and anti-Semitic graffiti at the Chappaqua train station, plus the theft of a Black Lives Matter signs at the Presbyterian Church of Mount Kisco on Route 133 and a BLM banner at the First Congregational Church. Rob Astorino said nothing.

And when a man drove his truck with a sign on the side that said “F*** Black Lives” to a Black Lives Matter rally in Carmel on August 22, and then accosted people at the gathering before driving away in a reckless manner, Astorino said nothing. In fact, Astorino is on the record calling the young people who are organizing BLM rallies around the district “anarchists.”

During this “spate of hate” in the 40th Senate District, Astorino, a communications professional by trade, had plenty to say about New York City Mayor de Blasio, Governor Cuomo, law and order, “Albany’s misplaced priorities” and National Dog Day. He had nothing to say about any of the hate incidents that occurred in the district he is vying to represent.

And because his 2019 disclosure form shows that Astorino did consulting work for a controversial political business that was involved in anti-Semitic messaging, residents may wonder if he is intentionally aligning himself with racists and white supremacists.

“Rob Astorino’s quiet acceptance of hate incidents in our region, along with his polarizing and divisive fear mongering, indicates he is not morally fit for elected office,” said Peekskill Mayor Andre Rainey. “The fact is, Astorino needed to make a strong denunciation of Trump’s explicit support of racism in this country a long time ago. That he has not speaks volumes on his own character and values, as did his fight against fair housing in Westchester.”

Looking at Astorino’s 2017 steady defense on several TV news programs of President Trump’s “very fine people” comment about the rioting white supremacists in Charlottesville, it was obvious that the former county executive is okay with racist dog-whistles.

Meanwhile, Astorino’s support for law and order is merely a doubling down on the policies that have been shown to disproportionately impact communities of color.

Last month, when Trump laid out another racist dog whistle in the first presidential debate, signaling to the racist “Proud Boys” that they should “stand back and stand by,” there was not a peep of disgust or disavowal from Astorino. The self-proclaimed “Trump translator” was, again, complicit in his silence.