To say that New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio has done a poor job leading his city through the crisis that is the coronavirus pandemic would be an understatement. And somehow he just continues to get worse.

In a video posted to Twitter on Saturday, the Democrat encouraged New Yorkers to tattle on citizens who aren’t following social distancing guidelines by taking a picture of the alleged violation and texting it to city officials.



How do you report places that aren’t enforcing social distancing? It’s simple: just snap a photo and text it to 311-692. #AskMyMayor pic.twitter.com/WQdCcVf1Rl — Mayor Bill de Blasio (@NYCMayor) April 18, 2020

“Thank you to everyone who has done this the right way, but we still know there’s some people who need to get the message,” de Blasio said. “And that means sometimes making sure the enforcement is there to educate people and make clear we’ve got to have social distancing. So, now it is easier than ever — when you see a crowd, when you see a line that’s not distanced, when you see a supermarket that’s too crowded, anything, you can report it right away so we can get help there to fix the problem.”

It’s one thing to socially encourage fellow citizens to follow health officials’ guidelines and practice good hygiene. But that’s not what de Blasio is doing. He’s asking New Yorkers to shame each other and then tattle to the city’s government.

This idea is just as absurd as it is counterproductive. The magnitude of this public health crisis requires mutual respect and trust. We put our health in the hands of strangers every time we go to the grocery store, the park, or any other public space, which is why it’s important to follow health officials’ social distancing guidelines. But it is just as important to respect our neighbors enough to give them the benefit of the doubt. We are independent people with independent needs and experiences, united right now by the need to defeat the coronavirus. De Blasio would have New Yorkers abandon this united front and turn on each other.

The only person who ought to feel ashamed is de Blasio. He downplayed the risk of the virus in February, claimed it was not as contagious as experts were saying, and encouraged New Yorkers to go about life as usual multiple times. Then the virus hit New York City, and de Blasio realized he needed to shut things down. So he did, and not long after de Blasio flouted his own shelter-in-place order, sneaking to a public gym in Brooklyn when everyone had been asked to stay home.

There’s a reason de Blasio is America’s most unpopular mayor. He thinks too highly of himself and too little of the citizens he’s supposed to represent, as evidenced by his attempt to turn New York into a city of spies. New Yorkers deserve better than this, which is something everyone but de Blasio now seems to understand.