A USSR-born Brooklyn pol born recently dissed his constituents, declaring he and fellow comrades who fled to the United States are more cultured than homegrown Americans.<\/p>\n
State Assemblyman Michael Novakhov, a one-time Sen. Bernie Sanders-loving Dem <\/a>who flipped GOP to run for office in his mostly red southern Brooklyn district, made the claim in a Feb. 18 Facebook rant <\/a>about vandals ripping down lights his office used taxpayer money to install along a walking bridge connecting Sheepshead Bay to Manhattan Beach.<\/p>\n \u201cWe, the descendants of the USSR, consider ourselves a little more cultured than the residents of the country we came to,\u201d he wrote, according to a Facebook translation from Russian to English on the assemblyman\u2019s page.<\/p>\n \u201cWe go to theaters and classical music concerts. We take care of the humanitarian education of our children, but at the same time, we remove the traffic lights from the bridge,\u201d added Novakhov.<\/p>\n Soviet Union-born Assemblyman Michael Novakhov (R-Brooklyn) dissed his constituents last week, declaring he and fellow comrades who fled to the United States are more cultured than homegrown Americans. Michael Novakhov\/ Facebook<\/p>\n \u201cWe have to accept the fact that our area lacks household culture, although each individual considers himself an intelligent and cultured person.\u201d<\/p>\n Novakhov insisted Friday the Facebook translation is wrong and that he \u201cabsolutely\u201d doesn\u2019t feel USSR-born immigrants are more cultured than other Americans.<\/p>\n But Joey Cohen-Saben,<\/a> a moderate Democrat running to unseat Novakhov in the 45th\u00a0Assembly District that also includes portions of Gravesend and Brighton Beach, said he\u2019s not buying it and believes the remarks show Novakhov doesn\u2019t have the pulse of the neighborhoods he reps.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen common sense left the building, Novakhov held the door,\u201d said Cohen-Saben, who narrowly lost the 2024 race to Novakhov by a percentage point.<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cAnd just when you think it can\u2019t get worse, he demeans and degrades his own constituents as inferior and uncultured if they\u2019re not from the former USSR. It\u2019s a disgrace to the office he holds.\u201d<\/p>\n Novakhov\u2019s own personal Instagram page features him prominently wearing a tongue-in-cheek\u00a0Communist \u201cparty\u201d sweater\u00a0featuring images of Karl Marx, Mao Zedong, Vladimir Lenin and Joseph Stalin holding balloons.<\/p>\n Novakhov ranted on Facebook about vandals ripping down lights his office used taxpayer money to install along a city-owned walking bridge connecting Sheepshead Bay to Manhattan Beach. Michael Novakhov\/ Facebook<\/p>\n Novakhov called Cohen-Saben \u201cdesperate,\u201d claiming his opponent is trying to \u201cspread lies\u201d to win over voters.<\/p>\n Novakhov was a loyal Democrat and frequent lefty campaign donor \u2014 whose contributions include $170 in 2016 to socialist Sen. Sanders of Vermont \u2014 before crossing party lines and successfully running to unseat then-Democratic incumbent Steven Cymbrowitz in 2022.<\/p>\n \u201cWe, the descendants of the USSR, consider ourselves a little more cultured than the residents of the country we came to,\u201d Novakhov said on Facebook. Michael Novakhov\/ Facebook<\/p>\n Novakhov has a history of palling around with prominent NYC socialists like Brooklyn Councilman Chi\u00a0Oss\u00e9\u00a0and has often\u00a0liked and reposted social media remarks from ex-comptroller Brad Lander, another socialist, and Manhattan\u2019s soft-on-crime District Attorney Alvin Bragg, The Post reported in 2023.<\/a><\/p>\n And Novakhov\u2019s own personal Instagram page features him prominently wearing a tongue-in-cheek\u00a0Communist \u201cparty\u201d sweater\u00a0featuring images of Karl Marx, Mao Zedong, Vladimir Lenin and Joseph Stalin holding balloons.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A USSR-born Brooklyn pol born recently dissed his constituents, declaring he and fellow comrades who fled to the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":156159,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[98,100,99,12246,17,75,57,9,24,17566,63,87,8193,41815,58],"class_list":["post-156158","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-brooklyn","tag-brooklyn","tag-brooklyn-headlines","tag-brooklyn-news","tag-communism","tag-culture","tag-manhattan","tag-metro","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-new-york-state-assembly","tag-nyc","tag-politics","tag-sheepshead-bay","tag-soviet-union","tag-us-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156158","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=156158"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156158\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/156159"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=156158"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=156158"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=156158"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}