Zohran Mamdani wins the New York mayoral race • Hacker News Board

Re: Zohran Mamdani wins the New York mayoral race

#561

Post by dyauspitr » Wed, Nov 05, 2025, 7:41 AM UTC

dluan wrote: post #372

Zohran is exactly the kind of change candidate that the San Francisco machine with Grow SF would actively seek to squash. But Zohran's not alone, today's election was a massive swing back in almost every single race. School boards, city councils, state houses and senates, all swung radically left. It should be ringing alarm bells that the SF / YC / startup community that used to champion utilitarian, meritocratic QoL…

You got to have a Zohran that is also going to be tough on crime and homelessness but our political separations don’t allow for that right now.

Re: Zohran Mamdani wins the New York mayoral race

#562

Post by griffzhowl » Wed, Nov 05, 2025, 7:41 AM UTC

dralley wrote: post #286

peanuty1 wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

1) "intifada" has not historically meant "peaceful resistance". It has referred to events like October 7th, and the 1st and 2nd intifadas which killed more people than the Troubles did in about 1/3rd as much time, etc. 2) Also dumb shit like "queer liberation means defund the police" and "when the boot of the NYPD is on your neck, it's been laced by the IDF"

True that "intifada" doesn't imply peaceful, but it simply means "uprising" in Arabic. For example, the Warsaw ghetto uprising is called the Warsaw ghetto intifada in Arabic. Its central connotation is resistance to an oppressive regime.

Re: Zohran Mamdani wins the New York mayoral race

#563

Post by abenga » Wed, Nov 05, 2025, 7:43 AM UTC

miley_cyrus wrote: post #452

xivzgrev wrote: post #415

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…

That's the point of insurance.

Re: Zohran Mamdani wins the New York mayoral race

#564

Post by dyauspitr » Wed, Nov 05, 2025, 7:43 AM UTC

It’s not entirely about this election but it feels like this uptick in right wing extremism might burn out far sooner than the regular 10-20 year political cycle we usually see.

Re: Zohran Mamdani wins the New York mayoral race

#565

Post by lazyasciiart » Wed, Nov 05, 2025, 7:45 AM UTC

anovikov wrote: post #529

xivzgrev wrote: post #415

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.

Isn't it the same thing that made it unaffordable?

No, what made it unaffordable was scrapping the penalty on not having health insurance. If you force health insurance to cover everyone then you also need to force everyone to have health insurance to keep the system balanced. One way to do that is have everyone automatically covered in a public system: rejected. Another way is to tell people they don’t have to sign up for health insurance but they do have to pay into the system.

Re: Zohran Mamdani wins the New York mayoral race

#566

Post by seydor » Wed, Nov 05, 2025, 7:45 AM UTC

Workaccount2 wrote: post #282

seydor wrote: post #165

The fact that people in here (who are richer than average) disagree with his policies makes his election more hopeful

The reality, which kinda sucks and is boring, is that generally people with money understand how money works, and why things like rent control, government grocery stores, and free [expensive service], are financially brutal policies.

This is stuff economists know. Why would rich people know that? How many rich people pay rent or rely on social security? Making profits is not a skill transferrable to the broader economy.

Also, what worked in the past, in different places or different demographics does not mean it will work again today.

Re: Zohran Mamdani wins the New York mayoral race

#567

Post by whoooboyy » Wed, Nov 05, 2025, 7:45 AM UTC

wredcoll wrote: post #423

jrm4 wrote: post #402

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is astoundingly naive to think that the forces in America make it such that "whoever is the president has unlimited power, whether they're an old rich white billionaire or a relatively young black guy on the Dem side." Again, I implore you all to grow a bit smarter.

People acting like the supreme court would overturn laws in favor of obama the way they do for trump...

We'll never know because RBG chose not to retire when Dems could have done anything, and every Dem after that just politely waited for GOP to take advantage of them. It's still happening with folks like Jeffries today being utterly willing to capitulate on policy if it means the institution is respected.

Re: Zohran Mamdani wins the New York mayoral race

#568

Post by lisdexan » Wed, Nov 05, 2025, 7:45 AM UTC

Workaccount2 wrote: post #300

HellDunkel wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Greetings from western europe. Not so bad and communist around here. They call it social capitalism.

Western Europe would have been collapsing right now if daddy cold capitalist didn't show up with gas and guns to drive away the Russian bear. Western Europe has been on vacation for 30 years. There is no future where they can stay on the path they have been on. European leaders recognize this, but how the hell do you get a generation raised with an easy life to recognize this? Germans work 400 hours a year less than…

>There is no future where they can stay on the path they have been on. European leaders recognize this, but how the hell do you get a generation raised with an easy life to recognize this?

The call is inside the house. Puritan ethics will not stop China from overtaking the US.

>Germans work 400 hours a year less than Americans, and they celebrate that. Good luck.

You have a dedicated HN work account with 15337 karma.

Re: Zohran Mamdani wins the New York mayoral race

#569

Post by debtta » Wed, Nov 05, 2025, 7:46 AM UTC

what wrote: post #312

bix6 wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

>fine A medium fries is over $4 before taxes… over $1 more expensive than the rest of the country.

Why would you expect fries to cost the same in California as in much poorer states (most of them)?

Re: Zohran Mamdani wins the New York mayoral race

#570

Post by FridayoLeary » Wed, Nov 05, 2025, 7:46 AM UTC

I have some thoughts on this. Mamdani is a very charismatic person, and is in touch with a large segment of modern Democrat voters. It's the sort of stuff that can carry him to the White House as VP. He won more then 50% of the vote with a large turnout. As far as mandates go it's a pretty good one.

Now for the other stuff. He is a pretty extreme socialist. He wants to raise taxes on rich guys, businesses. Make buses free, rent controls, defunding the police, city run stores and more. These are great vote winners and terrible ideas. All of that has been tried and failed many times. As a political belief system socialism is a disaster. Thatcher pointed out that no other political experiment has been run as long and has so completely failed as socialism. I think his ideas represents all of the worst excesses of the Democrat party.

Then there's the man personally. My impression of him is he's basically a spoiled rich kid who's never had to work a day in his life. That doesn't mean he's not allowed to be ambitious, but it does put into question his credentials as a genuine socialist. It's easy to hold popular opinions when they won't affect your lifestyle in any way.

Finally there's the ugly stuff. He has used the term "globalise the intifada". For any of his apologists who will claim that phrase has any peaceful connotations, imagine a populist saying "globalise National Socialism". Would you be prepared to give him the benefit of the doubt? NYC is perhaps the most important city in the world. I'm worried for it.