307 Make NYC Affordable Again? Yes the Election of Zohran Mamdani Matters
I mean something of a misnomer-when was it ever affordable?
But this election is important for a host of reasons-certainly not the least of these being that his victory in the NYC Democratic primary and so the likely next NYC Mayor is a significant rebuke of Trumpism as Muslim with a very Muslim sounding name who was born in Uganda.
I say this right off the bat as there are many pundits eager to tell you it doesn’t matter. Matt Yglesias dismisses it-claiming Cuomo blew it through mere tactical errors.
I mean spoken like a true technocrat.
I would argue this is the fallacy of regionalism as it’s a defeatist strategy for the Democrats. I definitely believe the Democrats have made too much of regional differences in recent years which is ironic as in principle they have an agenda that should be popular nationally. And I’d argue that the main problems people feel is pretty unified across the various states-Trump’s plutocratic fascism.
Mamdani appears to be someone eager to punch back against Trump’s authoritarian assault-he seems idea to push back against the vicious assault by ICE and Friends on immigrants seeing as he himself is an immigrant-who again is a Muslim from Uganda. Certainly his approach on immigration will be a very welcome change from Eric Adam’s complicity with Trump’s assault on immigrants.
We’re hearing some talk about the business community freaking out… they’re WORRIED, TERRIFIED in fact:
Zohran Mamdani has NYC’s business community “terrified”
New York City business leaders woke up to the outcome they least expected Wednesday morning — young, popular socialist Zohran Mamdani cruising to apparent victory in the New York City Democratic mayoral primary.
No question this is a huge upset which is one of the many reasons Mamdani’s win is so earth shaking-despite the attempts of folks like Yglesias to make it prosaic. Mamdani was in single digits THIS YEAR, he was still down eight points just a few weeks ago and maybe 1 out of 32 polls had him winning the first round.
Why it matters: There’s a reason Kathryn Wylde, long the voice of the city’s business community, said this week that leaders were “terrified” of Mamdani’s rise.
- For Wall Street, it’s not just about Mamdani — some fear a broader rise of socialism could destabilize markets and the economy.
.Zohran Mamdani is a worry for Wall Street, NYC’s business community
I mean as opposed to what? More so than Trump’s pointless trade war?
Zoom out: Bradley Tusk, CEO of Tusk Ventures and former campaign manager for Michael Bloomberg’s 2009 mayoral race, said investors need to watch for a rise of “demagogues” on either side of the political spectrum.
- “If you have a super high profile socialist mayor creating all types of new government entitlements, taxes, you know, big anti-capitalism sort of campaign…that reverberates everywhere and that generally puts pressure on markets,” Tusk told Axios.
Either side. Does he think Trump’s a demagogue? You wonder if his real anxiety isn’t demagogues per se but progressive economic policies.
What they’re saying: Jim Bianco, president and macro strategist at Bianco Research, wrote “it appears that NYC is electing to commit suicide by Mayor” in a post on X.
- One well-known investor deleted an X post suggesting Mamdani’s win was a nightmare for billionaire investors, name-checking the Bloombergs, Ackmans, and Loebs of the world.
The intrigue: “Wall Street South,” the movement of financial firms to Florida from New York, was already gaining traction, particularly after Ken Griffin relocated Citadel’s headquarters to Miami.
But that’s just it. Prosperous for who? Most regular people can’t afford NYC today so could the fact that he at least has a plan to make it affordable-whatever the exact details-be part of his appeal?
Per CNN Businesses have “mixed feelings” about the fact he’s the likely next NYC Mayor.
New York City is one of the most expensive cities in the world to live in, a fact that guided many New Yorkers’ votes in Tuesday’s mayoral primary election.
Like his fellow candidates, Zohran Mamdani has put affordability at the forefront of his campaign. But his ideas, which include rent freezes for households living in rent-stabilized units, free buses and city-run subsidized grocery stores, have made him stand out.”
New York City is closer to electing a democratic socialist mayor. Businesses have mixed feelings
Your mileage may vary with his various proposals. Personally of all of them I probably would have the most questions on how a city run grocery store would work. But the fact that the idea violate Neoclassical economic orthodoxy probably wouldn’t impress many of those who voted for him on Tuesday-after all we’ve been following Neoclassical economic orthodoxy the last getting on 50 years-how’s that been going for us? Well we’ve been in what I like to call a long term low wage epidemic and a 60% supermajority of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck.
And OTOH corporate price gouging is a thing-as I discussed in Chapter Sometimes the Bad Guys Win (usually?)-I believe Kamala Harris made a major mistake in dropping talk of it because her brother in law-Tony West the CEO of Uber-said she shouldn’t be so mean to corporate America.
No doubt many will try to raise panic about Mamdani’s “socialist agenda” and focus on those proposals which seem most outlandish-like a city run grocery store. And no doubt concerns will be raised about the idea and I’m not even sure myself exactly HOW that would work but again for tends of millions of Americans we’re already living in a dystopian hellscape between Trump’s authoritarian assault on our democracy and the long run reality of what some would call “neoliberalism”-I might prefer to call it Reaganism
The very interesting Marxist writer Daphne Lawless-Remain in Hell Without Despair-points out that what the Left calls “Neoliberalism” is a mixed bag-there are positive and negative aspects or more specifically progressive as well as reactionary aspects. While Trump has arguably gotten some political mileage by attacking Neolieralism in Office he’s used his power to destroy the good parts of it-so called “Wokeism” which in reality we now clearly see is simply basic civil rights. while strengthening the disastrous parts.
FN: What is not appreciated is that White women have been the leading beneficiaries of affirmative action and “woke” policies.
End FN
Indeed while I appreciate his focus on lowering the cost of living-a truly Herculean task in New York City the most expensive city in the world-I’d like to also see some policies which raise the wage though obviously lowering the cost of living and raising wages are hardly unrelated.
Critics say his proposals could backfire.”
Again for many Americans things have been backfiring for a long time the last 50 years of Neoliberalism cum Reaganism has backfired.
Former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers, who served under former President Bill Clinton, said in a post on X Wednesday morning that he was “profoundly alarmed” about the future of the Democratic party and the country by Mamdani’s political stances, including his “Trotskyite economic policies.”
Great adventures in overstatement.
He said he hopes Mamdani, “who showed great ability to learn and adapt during his campaign, will continue to evolve,” including by reassuring New Yorkers of his commitment to a “market economy as an American ideal.”
The market economy itself is hardly threatened-you can have a market economy in a world where bus rides are free; even the idea of a city run supermarket-assuming it happens which is far from certain even in the likely case Mamdani is NYC’s next Mayor-hardly means the end of the market economy-he’s hardly talking about seizing the means of production. He’s not even talking about seizing private grocery stores simply adding a government one to compete alongside them-the hope is to bring down prices.
And does Larry Summers see Mamdani as a bigger threat than Donald Trump? About the same?! Just by reading his words here you’d never know. What is clear is that people are tired of the status quo-it’s not clear how it’s possible not to be unless you’re a wealthy fat cat-at this point it’s working for no one else.
This point was elucidated very well on Greg Sargent’s recent interview of Amanda Marcotte-interestingly this was like a day before Mamdani’s win and he wasn’t the subject-the subject was AOC’s ability to get under Trump’s skin as the title connotates.
“…let’s talk about the Democratic side of this because I thought AOC kind of raised a bunch of interesting questions about this…” Or in light of Tuesday-Mamdani, indeed I listened to this episode on Tuesday and he was on my mind as much as AOC who as I discussed in Chapter AOC seems like a serious potential 2028 threat.
“…you had a piece recently on California Governor Gavin Nuome who’s taking on Trump over his sending of troops into LA nuome who has kind of played footsy with Trumpism a little bit has suddenly discovered that waging a major political war against MAGA is popular not just with the base but with a a fair amount of people in the middle of the electorate as well …”
Trump’s Anger at AOC Boils Over—and Reveals a New Way Forward for Dems – YouTube
Starting at 13:40
Indeed-we’ll see where things go but it’s arguable that Trump resuscitated Newsom’s chances in 2028 after he’d completely torpedoed his own chances with his Weekly Lunch With a Fascist shtick. Who knew that the Democratic base finds waging war against Trump’s assault on our democracy is more popular than playing footsie with him as he furthers his assault against US democracy? To paraphrase Jon Oliver-EVERYBODY LITERALLY EVERYBODY-certainly everybody in the Democratic base.
“…i wonder whether more Democrats could pick up on this maybe not do it exactly the way AOC does but each Democrat could find their own way to do it …”
You mean troll Trump aggressively attack Trump? Absolutely this is what the Dem base wants-speaking as a charter member of this very Dem base.
This is exactly what the Democratic party SHOULD be taking from this-wether they are is another question. In that vein I agree with Tim Miller’s point-this show was in light of Mamdani’s win-that you do NOT have to be a “democratic socialist” to run this playbook. Apparently some DSA types on social media were insisting you do.
BREAKING: Zohran WINS New York Mayor Primary
This is self evidently not true-I don’t live in NYC I’m from Long Island but if I did live there I would have voted for Mamdani and I’m someone who voted for Hillary Clinton three times and never voted for Bernie. Unquestionably a big part of what made Madmani possible is the time we’re in where Trump is engaged in a day by day assault against our democracy. Again there’s real hunger for fighters rather than triangulators who think there’s something to be gained by trying to get along with Trump much less “playing footsie with him a little bit’ as Greg Sargent aptly puts it-the opposite of what the Dem base wants. But for more on this back to Sargent’s conversation with Amanda Marcotte. Speaking of AOC he notes she talks like a regular person and:
“…she talks like somebody who has not triangulated her views through a focus doesn’t make everything a fundraising…”
Very true-way too many elected Democrats talk like this and it’s very unappealing indeed it screams a lack of “authenticity” as it suggests they don’t have any strongly held views of their own. Indeed a significant appeal of Mandami is he did those videos of him talking to folks in delis, etc where he came across as a regular guy you could imagine eating a bagel with etc. It was Brian Schatz-who I referenced in Chapter Schatz-who revealed some color on the dependence of many Democrats on focus groups-what these groups often do is not give the candidate not necessarily the way to say something which will appeal to the highest number of voters but will offend the fewest-which doesn’t sound like a recipe for saying anything interesting. It’s also a serious breath of fresh air that she’s will actually send messages to constituents without an immediate solicitation of more money. I’ve long since thought this is one thing that more Democratic politicians need to try-not always going for the hard sell for yet more donation money.
Back to Sargent’s point that AOC doesn’t make everything a fundraising pitch. Indeed not only does she get big points with the base for leaving out the fundraising pitch for an email to supporters but she gets more points for the topic of that email: she calls for Trump’s impeachment
Because if the Dem Establishment can’t wrap it’s mind around not focus grouping everything or making everything a fundraising pitch they also fail to understand that impeaching Trump is VERY popular with their own base as we discuss in Chapter Impeachment this despite the fact that Trump has already committed more impeachable offenses in his first six months than any previous President during their entire term.
But evidently these leadership Dems have things exactly opposite-they think playing footsie with Trump and definitely not impeaching him is the way to win elections when the truth is clearly the opposite. In that vein apparently some centrist Dems have bellyaching in a way behind closed doors that is beyond parody at this point.
How about a centrist Dem hot take? “It is extremely alarming that the only candidates who genuinely excite our voters are the ones making absolutely insane promises on politically toxic positions,” one Dem strategist tells Playbook’s Adam Wren. “Leaving us in the spot of trying to execute on bad policy and losing terribly, or failing to keep our promises and reinforcing the idea that all politics is bullshit.”
Sure no better way to correct their alleged “authenticity” problem than whining behind the scenes and suggesting it could be politically advantageous to break their promises.
It’d be pretty funny if only this were satire. As Keith Olbermann argues these Center Dems are even more pathetic in not even allowing their identity known.