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Zohran Mamdani wins the New York mayoral race

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Re: Zohran Mamdani wins the New York mayoral race

#471
post #461

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please explain how city run grocery stores are middle of the road politics. Perhaps they’re middle of the road when your road is all the way to the left.

Last I checked, if you wanted to buy more than a 12 pack of beer in the state of Pennsylvania, it had to be from a state run store. Is Pennsylvania socialist?

That's a pretty bad policy PA has, however you want to characterize it.

Re: Zohran Mamdani wins the New York mayoral race

#472

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll give you one reason, among many, it wasn't a failure. It made it illegal to deny people health insurance coverage based on pre existing conditions. That was a big step forward in a broken system to restore some humanity to the system.

No that is a huge failure. That is perhaps the biggest failure of Obamacare. That means I, as someone with healthy lifestyle habits, has to pay largely the same premium as someone who smokes, is obese, and doesn't exercise. And sure enough, life expectancy in the US immediately stalled after the law's implementation: https://www.macrotrends.net/global-metrics/countries/usa/uni... . Exactly what economics would predic…

I remember being denied coverage after aging out of my parent's healthcare plan. The cited reason was "pre-existing conditions", which were allergies and a congenital cleft lip and palate (I had a number of corrective procedures as a kid). I was a healthy and relatively normal young adult.

Life expectancy flatlining could be any number of things. Correlation != causation

Re: Zohran Mamdani wins the New York mayoral race

#473

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Manchin and Sinema shouldn't be mentioned together in the same sentence. Manchin was genuinely the best Democrats could hope for from West Virginia. Sinema was absolutely not the best Democrats could hope for from Arizona. Manchin was also, while not perfect, more honest in much of his opposition than Sinema was, and sometimes he was actually right.

> Manchun was genuinely the best Democrats could hope for from West Virginia. Sinema was absolutely not the best Democrats could hope for from Arizona Sure. My point is both are preferable to a MAGA enabler. If you lose perspective and start aiming for perfection at the expense of the good enough, you lose power.

Maybe, maybe not. The problem with being fine not 'losing power' but without actually doing anything that your constituents need while facing an uncompromising opposition that is trying to destroy the way of life of your constituents is that you end up losing most of the battles while losing any active support. When people only vote for you because they are afraid of the opposition and not because they think you are going to help them, then your motivations are not in line with the people who voted for you, especially if you can't even provide an effective resistance against the opposition when they blatantly do illegal things.

At least with a MAGA enabler things can get bad enough that people might realize what they have to lose.

Re: Zohran Mamdani wins the New York mayoral race

#474

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Atlantic had a good article on this and how it isn't the doom and gloom you lay out above: https://www.theatlantic.com/economy/archive/2025/11/mamdani-... As some of the replies note, it has been rather successful and popular in other cities like Berlin.

Rent control is always initially popular with the people who are already in apartments. But it is longer term effects on supply and quality that are corrosive. An alternative is Austin: https://www.texastribune.org/2025/01/22/austin-texas-rents-f... "Austin rents have fallen for nearly two years. Here’s why. Austin rents have tumbled for 19 straight months, data from Zillow show. The typical asking rent in the capita…

I'm all for building more housing, but in places that already have an affordability problem, removing rent control before building more housing would just displace people overnight.

I live in SF and wish we would build as much and as quickly as Austin has been building. But, if we could do that, we shouldn't consider eliminating rent control until after those units are on the market.

Re: Zohran Mamdani wins the New York mayoral race

#475
post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Manchin and Sinema shouldn't be mentioned together in the same sentence. Manchin was genuinely the best Democrats could hope for from West Virginia. Sinema was absolutely not the best Democrats could hope for from Arizona. Manchin was also, while not perfect, more honest in much of his opposition than Sinema was, and sometimes he was actually right.

Manchin was a stooge who voted how he was paid. He doesn't get a pass for not being as clear a traitor as Sinema.

Without Manchin the Inflation Reduction Act would not have passed. Arguably Biden‘s biggest accomplishment.

Re: Zohran Mamdani wins the New York mayoral race

#476
post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The city already has a crime problem The city does not have a crime problem. It exists, but its down, and its lower than most comparable (and smaller cities). NYC is safe. Socialism has a bad track record for a reason Only because people confuse it with "communism", otherwise it has a great track record. This isnt even getting into hos antisemitism Yeah, thats why Brad Landers, the most prominent elected Jewish membe…

Socialism works in places with more or less homogenous populations. I always hear Norway/Sweden have universial everything. Yes they do cause taxes are sky high and the culture there is more or less the same. NYC is not Norway. People in Norway let babies sleep outside the supermarket when they go shopping. When you have that level of trust in a society, socialism has a fighting chance for sure. I think the establish…

Trust only comes from building it. I think you're confusing cause and effect here. Norway has a higher trust society not because of who they are but because of how they treat one another.

Re: Zohran Mamdani wins the New York mayoral race

#477
post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rent control in particular is an economic basket case policy, the fact that it's popular at election time should have about as much bearing on it making sense as the fact that another "experimental" candidate was considered by voters in 2024 to be "better on immigration" As for offering free stuff, the problem that - if you look at relative population numbers - NY, CA, etc are already facing is that on the margin peo…

Rent is a nonproductive component in the economy. It shouldn't even exist. If we want an economy that actually provides goods that people need we should focus on productive components like building more houses and actual shelter rather than using limited housing to extract profit, often without even improving the housing itself. > are already facing is that on the margin people he hopes will pay for it will just move…

So if I build a building full of studios targeted at young people who would have no interest in owning one permanently, or poorer ppl who don't have money or stability to buy, how am I to be compensated/incentivised? I guess it's not being built then!

As for population e.g. https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/how-...

Re: Zohran Mamdani wins the New York mayoral race

#478
post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>his policies are relatively common sense and middle of the road. Rent control isn't middle of the road, it's 100% socialist. Same thing with city run grocery stores. He also wants to defund the police while replacing them with community outreach people, as well as raising the minimum wage to $30 in 5 years which is absolutely wild. None of this is middle of the road in any way, shape, or form.

$30 min wage sounds doable? CA took fast food min wage up to $20 and it’s been fine.

> CA took fast food min wage up to $20 and it’s been fine.

Reduced employment by 3% but otherwise fine, yeah.

https://www.nber.org/papers/w34033

A nationwide $30 minimum wage would have a significantly higher impact (most places have lower wages than California and $30 is more than $20).

Re: Zohran Mamdani wins the New York mayoral race

#479
post #106

I hope this win signals (to both parties) that voters are receptive and will get engaged when a clear message is presented about cost of living and quality of life issues. Some of which are taken for granted in most other western countries. I’m no political wonk, and I’m curious what others with more insight might say about his ability to fund and implement his polices. I’m reminided of Obama and his hopeful message…

I kinda feel Obama is more of a Trojan horse. It was not he tried and failed to get what he campaigned for implemented, it was more like he did a U turn after he got elected. e.g. he called for universal health care but once he was elected he started saying it was "too radical". I hope the same doesn't happen with Zohran. If he was going to fail after all, I wish that will at least be after he had fought as hard as h…

I feel Obama was trying to appease the Republicans as well, he appointed many of them who back stabbed him shortly after. Maybe he was trying to no be too radical just because he was black and knew how racist a part of America was and it turned out it was right, Trump mainly got elected because "Democrats" put a black person in the White House. In retrospect, yeah, maybe he should have been more radical.

Re: Zohran Mamdani wins the New York mayoral race

#480

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll give you one reason, among many, it wasn't a failure. It made it illegal to deny people health insurance coverage based on pre existing conditions. That was a big step forward in a broken system to restore some humanity to the system.

No that is a huge failure. That is perhaps the biggest failure of Obamacare. That means I, as someone with healthy lifestyle habits, has to pay largely the same premium as someone who smokes, is obese, and doesn't exercise. And sure enough, life expectancy in the US immediately stalled after the law's implementation: https://www.macrotrends.net/global-metrics/countries/usa/uni... . Exactly what economics would predic…

Yes, everyone on insurance should be young and healthy. Fuck those sick people /s
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