<aside>
</aside>
Publication Date: June 8th, 2025
<aside> ‼️
From school boards to zoning boards, and planning boards, a small but zealous vanguard pushes policies that infantilize citizens, erode trust in institutions, and bend public life to ideological conformity.
</aside>
Hudson's new illiberalism wears a progressive mask, and a hat.
Once defenders of civil liberty, parts of the left have become its censor, replacing persuasion with purging and reason with re-education.
From school boards to zoning boards, and planning boards, a small but zealous vanguard pushes policies that infantilize citizens, erode trust in institutions, and bend public life to ideological conformity.
The target is not the right, but liberalism and success.
The backlash is building. A new slate of mayoral hopefuls is quietly taking shape, as voters grow weary of Kamal Johnson, the so-called Facebook Mayor, and Tom DePietro, his virtue-legislating deputy and de facto puppet master. Their administration, long coasting on slogans and posturing, now faces scrutiny for its neglect, opacity, and small-town cronyism. Whether November brings real change depends on whether the electorate, newly alert to the costs of performative politics, demands competence over theatrics.
Closer to home, a long-delayed bridge at Hudson’s waterfront may finally open. The pedestrian and car link could ease pressure on the overburdened rail and truck crossing, relieving both traffic and tempers. Small infrastructure, long ignored, may yet shape the city's public space more than any committee of ideologues.
Meanwhile, rumors swirl around Housing Justice Director Michelle Tullo, who has missed key housing meetings and disappeared from Union Street. The silence is conspicuous. So is the broader irony.
Mississippi, America’s poorest state, now outperforms New York and the City of Hudson in basic literacy and numeracy.
Perhaps phonics, raised expectations, and humility still matter more than funding administrators, hashtags, or consultant-crafted vision statements.
Sign up as Hudson Common Sense continues our investigation into New York's most hypocritical, historic, and hopeful city.
Later this summer, look out for our “Foil Files.” And please submit Guest Op-Eds—from European beaches, the Great Lakes in New York, Oakdale, or your bathtub.
What lessons can the City of Hudson learn from the rest of the state, and the world?
🔗 This story was originally posted on Our Instagram, where we grapple with these questions.
<aside> ✍🏻
Last edited/updated:
June 8th, 2025.
</aside>
<aside> 📢
Disagree with us? Great! Common Sense welcomes heterogenous opinions. Convince us, argue with us, disagree with us… but submit your Guest-Op Ed HERE.
</aside>
Art work and inspiration taken directly from The Economist, we are decades long premium subscribers and we do not monetize the art work but use it honorifically. See full Disclaimers, Ts and Cs.