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

Re: Zohran Mamdani wins the New York mayoral race

#641

Post by johnnyanmac » Wed, Nov 05, 2025, 9:05 AM UTC

dralley wrote: post #200

octaane wrote: post #73

You guys have it all wrong. There was only one candidate for the dem party, Here's the list: 1) Cuomo. Sexpest who has been accused by many women of some pretty shitty stuff. Also a member of a multi-generational dynasty, which is not good. 2) Mayor Adams. Federally indicted by the Feds. They have a 99% conviction rate. Not because they're corrupt, but because they only go after people who have dome some really egreg…

> Mamdani. Millennial candidate. No dirt. Other that some stupid stuff he said while he was young, his policies are relatively common sense and middle of the road, and are aimed at leveling the playing field. Look, Mamdani ran a good campaign, and if I was an NYC voter (I am not) I'd probably vote for him out of the options provided. However, this just is not true. Many of his policies are neither "common sense" nor…

>Many of his policies are neither "common sense" nor "middle of the road"

It seems like common sense to hear "cityfolk pay taxes, buses are paid for by taxpayers. Therefore, bus rides should be free for cityfolk". There's a lot more to it, but most voters are not going to read the 50 page proposal that Mamdami would need to submit to the govenor to get the wheels rolling.

I think that's enough for it to fall under "common sense". Policy you can explain in 3 sentences or less. Homeless people need help, not to be arrested. Invest in an organization who makes sure that these people get help so they don't stay on the streets.

(I can't find his education policy on a quick skim of the website and plan).

Re: Zohran Mamdani wins the New York mayoral race

#642

Post by oezi » Wed, Nov 05, 2025, 9:05 AM UTC

samdoesnothing wrote: post #558

kelnos wrote: post #481

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like economists (as the Krugman quote above seems to illustrate) don't consider the real world. Price controls aren't necessary when there's abundance. When housing supply meets (or slightly exceeds) demand, landlords don't jack up rents every year and displace tenants. When it doesn't, and can't, what do we do to keep people from losing their homes? (And don't give me the usual drivel about how people who are…

Isn't the obvious solution to build more houses (apartments, flats, whatever)? Like, isn't it incredibly obvious that there is actually a simple solution to this problem - build more so that there is an abundance of choice? How people come to the conclusion that in a densely populated and highly desirable area, the solution isn't building more capacity but rather to artificially cap prices? It's like a database serve…

I mean your analogy makes it very clear that usually if a server is temporarily running OOM you might use temporary means to mitigate. You might use mitigations while you are waiting for new memory to arrive.

But what do you want to do if upgrading memory just isn't really possible quickly? What is point not to apply mitigations?

Re: Zohran Mamdani wins the New York mayoral race

#643

Post by ZeroGravitas » Wed, Nov 05, 2025, 9:09 AM UTC

johnnyanmac wrote: post #598

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #594

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Joe Lieberman and basically every Republican ever, for decades. And the Republicans on the Supreme Court that hobbled what the Democrats managed to narrowly get through the political process. But sure, direct all the anger for that towards Democrats, that will result in better Healthcare any day now. I hear Trump has concepts of a plan that he's been working on for over a decade that he'll let us know about in just 2…

I'm so tired of "this plan wasn't perfect, it failed. Democrats suck". And meanwhile the republican plan was to do nothing or actively make things worse than ignoring the problem. Why are some people seemingly hardwired to just blame democrats for any or everything? Because the plans they have don't immediately benefit them, the middle class person who was never down on their luck? Even then, I fail to think of any p…

Murc's Law

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murc%27s_law

> Murc’s Law is typically phrased as: "the widespread assumption that only Democrats have any agency or causal influence over American politics".[5] [6] It reflects a perceived journalistic double standard, where Democrats are held responsible for political outcomes regardless of context, whereas Republican obstruction or extremism is treated as a given. This framing, critics argue, absolves Republicans of responsibility and creates an unbalanced political narrative.

Re: Zohran Mamdani wins the New York mayoral race

#644

Post by johnnyanmac » Wed, Nov 05, 2025, 9:10 AM UTC

timr wrote: post #412

bayarearefugee wrote: post #379

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And lots of his dumb comments were from like 2 years ago, not 12 - he was not "young" when he said them. If you're talking about the "globalize the intifada" comment, he actually never even said that, but a whole lot of people (you among them, it seems like?) have been brainwashed into thinking he did through political maneuvering. The root of that whole drummed up controversy was him refusing to blanket condemn th…

[flagged]

>About the only response to this stuff a reasonable person can muster is "he doesn't believe that now".

My response is "looks good to me. Accepted". if police aren't protecting the people they shouldn't be funded by taxpayers. All for police reform.

And yes, if we aren't jailing everyone for being homeless or smoking weed, we'd need less prisons. If prisons were about reform, we'd nedd less prisons. These all make sense.

But I guess if detractors just want to take soundbites, remove all subtlety, and blast it out to twitter's 280 character limit, then their plan worked. It's just a same these same people would try to downplay 90% of the stuff Trump said in 2024 that he is doing in 2025 to the letter.

Re: Zohran Mamdani wins the New York mayoral race

#645

Post by nickpp » Wed, Nov 05, 2025, 9:13 AM UTC

howlingfantods wrote: post #285

nichos wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's the issue with billionaires?

They shouldn’t exist

I lived in a world without billionaires - Eastern Europe pre-1990.

It wasn't a world without powerful people though: party nomenklatura and their friends ruled us with an iron fist. Not billionaires in numbers but in lifestyle, power and ruthlessness.

Together with actual billionaires, we also lost all the products and services their work created in process of making them billionaires, so we were all cold and hungry.

I learned then to cherish societies where one could become billionaires: it meant there was enough economic freedom so that the tiny insignificant me could carve a honest, dignified living for me and my own without begging politician mercy for handouts.

We should have more billionaires.

Re: Zohran Mamdani wins the New York mayoral race

#646

Post by eesmith » Wed, Nov 05, 2025, 9:14 AM UTC

Taek wrote: post #552

nobody9999 wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Mamdani's policies are incredibly controversial, that's why it's such big news. Which policies are "incredibly controversial?" And be specific. Here'a a direct link to his platform for your reference" https://www.zohranfornyc.com/platform No rush. I'll wait.

His policies around being soft on crime (do you know what NYC was like in the 90's? It's not some distant history), the free bus fare, the city owned grocery stores, the rent control, are all policies that many feel threaten the economic viability and safety of the city. If you don't think any of those policies are contentious, you are living in a bubble and greatly disconnected from huge portions of the population.

You mean the 1990s which brought us "broken windows" policing and the frequent use of racist stop-and-frisk? When I visited Queens 15 years ago, what worried me most was the chance of interacting with cops on a power-trip.

The 1990s when NYPD cops Sean Carroll, Richard Murphy, Edward McMellon, and Kenneth Boss shot Amadou Diallo? When NYPD cop Justin Volpe sodomized Abner Louima with a broken broom handle? When NYPD cop Francis X. Livoti choked Anthony Baez for accidentally hitting a police car with a football?

If you don't think the history of being hard on crime is contentious, you are living in a bubble and greatly disconnected from huge portions of the population.

Other places have free public transport (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_public_transport). How has that threatened the economic viability and safety of those places?

And isn't it funny how the people who complain the most about free public transport have a large overlap with the people who didn't want congestion charges but instead wanted free access to city streets for their multi-ton private vehicles?

How could city owned grocery stores threaten the economic viability and safety of NYC? The only way that makes sense to me is if the economics of NYC depended on having a working class which is always on the edge of food insecurity. Were that the case, the economics structure of NYC must change, yes?

Since homeless shelters threaten the economic viability of hotels and rental companies, and libraries threaten the economic viability of bookstores, I suppose we should get rid of those too.

Re: Zohran Mamdani wins the New York mayoral race

#647

Post by mamonster » Wed, Nov 05, 2025, 9:14 AM UTC

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #600

Eisenstein wrote: post #455

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Times are changing. The pendulum swing back from MAGA is going to be interesting.

> Times are changing. The pendulum swing back from MAGA is going to be interesting The pendelum swings in multiple dimensions. MAGA went mainstream in a way the Tea Party and conservativism did not by abandoning policy purity in favour of, first, messaging, and later, idolatry. The preserved component between MAGA's messaging and Mamdani's rise is populism and, to a lesser degree, divisive politics. Where MAGA failed…

Main reason why MAGA will fail even harder is that you now see that there is basically nothing holding this movement together apart from Trump.

Next step in MAGA is the open inheritance war between the original 2016 spirit and the 2024 donor class.

Re: Zohran Mamdani wins the New York mayoral race

#648

Post by zimpenfish » Wed, Nov 05, 2025, 9:19 AM UTC

d1sxeyes wrote: post #492

miley_cyrus wrote: post #452

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

US policies wouldn’t affect the life expectancy in the UK, which has broadly the same trend: https://www.macrotrends.net/global-metrics/countries/gbr/uni... This is despite no-one paying (directly) for health care. Would you be willing to submit to invasive investigations into how you live to identify any risk factors you have (both under your control, like choosing to drive, international travel, and not under your…

> Would you be willing to submit to invasive investigations into how you live to identify any risk factors you have

To be fair, there are insurance policies (at least in the UK) which give you discounts if you drive "safely"[0] or health insurance that rewards you for "being active"[1].

[0] https://www.which.co.uk/money/insurance/car-insurance/how-bl...

[1] https://www.vitality.co.uk/rewards/ "you earn Vitality points by getting active or attending your health check-ups [...] rewards, including a reduced excess and lower renewal premiums"

Re: Zohran Mamdani wins the New York mayoral race

#649

Post by vjvjvjvjghv » Wed, Nov 05, 2025, 9:19 AM UTC

scott_w wrote: post #386

vjvjvjvjghv wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Obama was pretty timid. Especially at the beginning of his presidency he assumed that his fellow democrats like Lieberman and Baucus were rational and wanted the best for the country and not just being pawns for the insurance industry. I bet if he had pounded the table, he would have way more success. Heck, LBJ made senators cry to get things done.

Hindsight is 20/20. I recall Obama later saying he wished he was more radical because he only realised too late that the holdouts to ACA were never going to vote for it. Essentially, they negotiated in bad faith but Obama only realised this after they’d made all the requested changes and still couldn’t get the votes.

My ex worked at Congress at the time and even stupid me realized quickly that Obama was being played. I remember having fights with her when I told her that Obama is naive. Maybe they don’t see what’s going on when they are on the inside.

Re: Zohran Mamdani wins the New York mayoral race

#650

Post by johnnyanmac » Wed, Nov 05, 2025, 9:21 AM UTC

brandonagr2 wrote: post #134

octaane wrote: post #73

You guys have it all wrong. There was only one candidate for the dem party, Here's the list: 1) Cuomo. Sexpest who has been accused by many women of some pretty shitty stuff. Also a member of a multi-generational dynasty, which is not good. 2) Mayor Adams. Federally indicted by the Feds. They have a 99% conviction rate. Not because they're corrupt, but because they only go after people who have dome some really egreg…

Government run grocery stores are middle of the road? What would progressive ideas look like on that spectrum?

Government runs a lot of businesses alongside private estates. Postal is the biggest example. Why is this super unusual? I don't know if it's middle of the road, but I don't think it's socialism.

Progressive ideas would be price controls on groceries to curb inflation, or seizing the means of production by making a major stake in a major food chain.

(side note: I think it's hilarious that Trump is doing this with Intel and potentially Tiktok and few have labeled it as such).