The next mayor of New York City is .... Zohran Kwame Mamdani.
Mamdani and I share a birthday. He was born on October 18, 1991, the day I turned thirty-three.
At any rate, I believe I have already shared my view that Mamdani's election in likely to be a disaster for the City that has now placed itself in his hands.
I would like today to address the question: will that disaster help or hurt President Donald Trump?
I've heard one theory that Trump needs a good bogeyman. After all, Nancy Pelosi was his bogeywoman for a long time. She remains in the House of course but has faded into the background and her successor in party leadership there, Hakeem Jeffries, has a much lower profile.
The mayor of New York City has long been a national figure -- Jimmy Walker, Fiorella LaGuardia, John Lindsey all come to mind -- even though the post doesn't seem to work as a stepping stone to higher office. So ... a mayor of New York, one who attaches the label "socialist" to himself and who was not born in the US -- looks to be a promising substitute for Pelosi. Could he be sufficiently useful as a bogey to help rehabilitate Trump's own approval numbers?
Trump may be angling for just that. Perhaps he endorsed Cuomo just to put the final nail into Cuomo's electoral coffee and deliver him a Mamdani mayoralty.
I don't think it will work, though. The best one can say for the useful-bogey view is that stranger things have happened.
I don't believe that the right's demonization of Pelosi ever did them any good. At one point, it amounted to a deliberately slowed-down tape apparently designed to make her seem drunk. The trickery was not very sophisticated, was soon uncovered, and the manipulators had to resort to the old whine about how it was all just a harmless joke. With what election did that help them?
And in general, one moment's bogey is another moment's lightning rod. A lightning rod, of course, draws electrical energy away from where it might do the most harm. I suspect that if a genuine anti-autocracy coalition does form in the months to come, a mayor Mamdani could serve it as precisely such a rod. Not a working part of the coalition, but a protective distraction from certain of the bolts that would otherwise be thrown its way.
If, for that cause, New Yorkers have to suffer under foolish leadership and some deterioration of their housing stock (into which no private investment can be expected under the circumstances): that is a misfortune. Perhaps the next non-dictatorial President will be in a position to undo so of the damage they are about to do themselves. In the meantime: draw some bolts, NYC! Ben would be proud.
Christopher, you don't say why Mamdani will be a "disaster" (strong word!) for NYC. Paul Krugman writes, "Mamdani may be on the left, but all indications are that he’s a pragmatist who will get along fine with the rest of his party," and that Mamdani says he’s a socialist but really isn’t." https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/which-party-is-in-trouble-again. I think that a "socialist" these days is just someone who wants a social safety net. I'm all for that.
ReplyDeleteHenry, I wrote about why he will be a disaster this summer, after the primary vote. I'll ignore the definitional questions about socialism/pragmatism for now. Let us talk about the rent freeze thing. My old anarcho-cap instincts kick in here. Markets are very useful things -- it is precisely in the valuation of assets (and of transferable liabilities) that they most directly prove their worth, and rent control in all its forms is a direct attack on this function.
DeleteNew York City's history with "rent stabilization" is a solid illustration of this point. The history is not happy. And intensifying that war on the discovery of value will do a good deal of harm to actual values.
The bottom line is that Mamdani seems likely to mess with the housing market in ways that effectively freeze new construction of livable spaces, force further skimping on maintenance, lead to longer waitlists and reduced mobility.
Let us move to another of his guiding ideas. City-owned grocery stores? to compete in low-end food pricing? Great. Be sure to tell the owners of neighborhood bodegas that although they are going to be put out of business it will only be for the best of reasons.
But you don't have to listen to me. Listen to someone else who calls himself a socialist, Brian Leiter. Disposed to agree with Mamdani's general view of the world, Leiter nonetheless said in a post on his non-defunct blog [after the primary]: "while Mamdani's victory is satisfying ... I doubt it's going to lead to the realization of his agenda, and could lead to an economic collapse in NYC."
Christopher, I am not competent to argue with the points you make about the socialist aspects of Mamdani's ideas concerning rent and groceries. But you're overlooking the big picture -- the symbolism of his victory. But it's more than symbolism. It represents, I hope, a turning point in which the likes of Mamdani replace the likes of Schumer, and the Democrats come alive in the fight against fascism. In any case, voters had no choice, or, more precisely, their choice was Mamdani or a serial sexual harasser who represented the old Democratic Party and whom Trump endorsed.
ReplyDeleteAgreed (I think). There has been a great delay in the generational shift within the Democratic Party. The work they had to do in order to get President Biden out of the way last year -- accomplished too late, as we saw -- is an example of the fact that the old crowd has overstayed its utility. Mamdani is of newer vintage. So is Mikie Sherrill (born in 1972) -- and Abigail Spanberger (born in 1979). In terms of the labels Krugman used: Sherrill and Spenberger seem stronger on the pragmatist part, not so much on the socialist part. Vive la resistance!
DeleteI withhold judgment on the new Mayor. His ideas, while seeming pretty unorthodox, are not so radical, should they prove doable. I can't see them working in New York City, but that assessment is not to be considered prophecy. His Democratic Socialist label does not bother me. Social democrats have been elsewhere and have not (so far) destroyed those places. There was movement in Sweden, if I remember right. Sweden is doing pretty well, I think. Will follow this, as best I can. I can't just dismiss him as boogeyman. Not yet, anyhow.
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