New York’s lack of leadership is turning the Empire State into the flop of the heap

Maybe Frank Sinatra’s famous ode is out of date.

Maybe it’s no longer true that if you can make it here, you can make it anywhere. 

What if New York, New York is now a second-rate town for losers? 

That’s not a jab at the Yankees and Mets, Giants and Jets, though it certainly applies.

The target is the abysmal quality of our political leadership. 

Could they make it anywhere else? 

Name another state that would want Kathy Hochul as its governor.

She and Mayor Adams made it here, but given the disastrous results they are delivering, who else would elect them? 

Or Attorney General Letitia James, who is fulfilling a campaign pledge to go after Donald Trump’s business.

The case is more persecution than prosecution and is a chilling warning to other investors and employers that your business is in peril if James doesn’t like your politics. 

New York has long had a superiority complex but there is little evidence we’re still at the top of the heap.

It’s time to ask if this is the best we can do — because it’s not good enough. 

Not by a long shot. 

The Empire State has become the Vampire State and the Big Apple is rotting to the core.

It is indisputable that we are suffering a marked decline in the quality of life, and the outward migration proves it. 

The mailbag is full of letters from former New Yorkers whose vagabond shoes carried them to happier, safer climes. 

The end is nigh 

No, the end is not here, but we are on a collision course with disaster.

And top officials appear overwhelmed. 

The culprit is a one-party system that is producing inferior talent.

Democrats control every power center in the city and state, and their political inbreeding is creating regressive policies that can’t keep up with the speed of change. 

The future is happening elsewhere and too many voters here are on automatic pilot.

If a candidate is running on the Democratic Party line, that’s good enough for four or even eight years. 

The crime crisis of recent vintage was the first proof of a breakdown in the routine checks and balances that two competing parties provide.

Almost without debate, one-party rule made it harder for judges to detain suspects, even those charged with violent crimes. 

Instead of commonsense pushback from moderates against the radical policies, which was the habit for generations when something veered too far off center, the radical left upped the ante, with many prosecutors joining the get-out-of-jail-free movement. 

The crime sprees were just a taste of what was to come.

The migrant crisis magnifies the sense of chaos.

It’s breaking the bank and the city ­itself. 

A reader tells me he saw one man giving another a haircut at lunchtime — on the sidewalk of East 47th Street.

If that were an isolated incident, it would be one thing. 

But it’s just another scene from the dystopian spillover at the nearby Roosevelt Hotel, the main intake center for the 10,000 migrants arriving monthly. 

We’re giving it away! 

If they can sleep on the sidewalks, as they are often forced to do, a street haircut seems like just another step toward Third Worldism. 

It’s been crystal clear for two years that the southern border must be secured so America can decide who gets in. 

Every country in the world has a vetting process.

But to get into the United States under Joe Biden, all you need do is walk across the border, surrender and tell agents you are claiming asylum. 

In most cases, that will get you an arrest receipt, a court date in six or seven years and a ride to the nearest charity.

There you’ll often get a phone, a bag of goodies and a bus or plane ticket to your city of choice. 

It’s no surprise New York is the top choice, especially when the city welcome wagon includes a bed, free food, health care and child care. 

This is madness, but because the open border is the policy of a Democratic president, Democrats everywhere have lost their courage to denounce it, even as it swamps their neighborhoods and sucks up taxpayer cash by the barrel. 

Hochul and Adams, after more than a year of refusing to blame the White House for the fiasco while demanding more money to manage it, finally took small steps in that direction recently when they or aides said border access had to be restricted. 

Then the blowback hit, and they instantly retreated to partisan safety and mushy language.

Their punishment from fellow Dems was to be accused of spewing “right-wing talking points,” and one lefty accused the mayor’s office of xenophobia. 

Imagine that: More than 6 million people illegally crossed the border in the last 30 months and are free to roam the country.

And if you dare suggest it’s time to pause, you hate immigrants. 

The message from the party’s high priests was clear: Thou shalt never agree with Republicans, even when they are right.

That’s sacrilege. 

It is both a mystery and a tragedy that this dogmatic certainty happened in polyglot New York, formerly famous for its perpetual disagreements.

Yet the mayor and governor, showing contrition, announced a new program Tuesday to pay for migrants to get legal services. 

Surrender for the ages 

So one day there are too many, and the next day we’ll pay to help them stay.

That’s a surrender for the ages. 

Although throwing another $38 million on the bonfire seems like small change against a total cost estimate of billions, the welcoming mat just got more plush, which will make New York the destination of even more border crossers. 

Adams, meanwhile, is escaping for a four-day visit to Central and South America, supposedly to learn more about the problem.

In fact, all he needs to know he can see for himself in any of the 200 shelters and hotels he opened for the new ­arrivals. 

Then again, it’s understandable he wants to get out of town.

Who doesn’t? 

Cannibal caucus is eating

An old LBJ joke needs an update. As told by Joseph Califano in his great book, “The Triumph & Tragedy of Lyndon Johnson,” the 36th president once said the difference between liberals and cannibals was that “cannibals only eat their enemies.”

It turns out the same can be said of the eight members of the GOP suicide squad who voted with Democrats to remove Kevin McCarthy as House speaker.

They created chaos about the party’s policy agenda and the impeachment inquiry of Joe Biden.

With friends like them, who needs enemies?

Definition of insanity

Reader Von Ahouse has figured out the problem, writing: “I find myself getting angry after reading the news lately, and, although I want to blame the politicians, I can’t. It’s like blaming sharks for attacks when you’re swimming in their ocean!” 

“I blame the voters. Are they ignorant of what is going on in government?”