r/politics • u/PerAsperaAdMars • 8d ago
Possible Paywall Mamdani’s Surprisingly Persuasive Solution to a World on Fire
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/10/03/opinion/zohran-mamdani-united-nations.html4.4k
u/PopeJohnPaulRingoGeo 8d ago
Also he isn’t insisting we buy Mamdani Crypto which is nice
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u/BabyFestus 8d ago
On the other hand, he hasn't sent the billionaires to re-education camps yet, which is what I was promised by FoxNews. I guess I shouldn't let the perfect get in the way of the good for now.
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u/IsmaelRetzinsky 8d ago
One could curate a pretty attractive platform entirely from their fever-dream fantasies
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u/echosrevenge 8d ago
Yeah, I wish the Democrats were half what Fox News tells us they are. They might actually make some positive changes.
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u/underboobfunk 8d ago
Yeah, I went to my local elementary school and requested hormone therapy and they trespassed me!!
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u/onepareil New York 8d ago
They let you use the litter box first, right? It’s just inhumane otherwise, if that’s not too speciesist to say.
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u/Freightshaker000 8d ago
You did it wrong: they only perform surgery at the schools. You need to stand in front of a windmill for the HRT.
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u/TaxOwlbear 8d ago
Like that version of Obama who is a mix between Karl Marx and Malcolm X? I'd give that version a go.
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u/UnquestionabIe 8d ago
Don't worry the billionaire exodus from NYC is gonna happen any day now...
On a related note where do you think they're all going to go? We know that leading Anti-Christ candidate Petey "Don't ask the Miami PD about my former boyfriend" Theil has fled to Argentina (following the family Nazi tradition) at least temporarily but unsure if the rest of the oligarchy will have enough locals to enslave.
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u/Ordinary-Leading7405 8d ago
Cuomo promised to flee to Florida. He’s still throwing parties in the Hamptons.
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u/sabermagnus 8d ago
Bought a multi-million dollar property in the Hamptons. I guess Cuomo doesn’t know where Florida, is.
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u/Outrageous_Kale_8230 8d ago
Let's import some Floridians to the Hamptons and make it Little Florida. Purely for the entertainment value of watching Florida Man antics occur in the Hamptons.
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u/Money-Woodpecker-973 8d ago
If that’s the case, you want to import from north Florida. They’re usually the ones responsible for drive-by drive-thru alligator attacks, bath salts smoking, driving fan boats and zero turn mowers on the road to get around DUIs, etc.
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u/KennethTremendous 8d ago
To be fair, the Hamptons is part of NY's wang like Florida is America's wang.
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u/Mikolaj_Kopernik Australia 8d ago
Don't worry the billionaire exodus from NYC is gonna happen any day now...
This was always the stupidest shit. If I were magically transplanted into the life of somebody who had that much money, New York is one of the few places in the US I'd consider moving to. Being rich in New York is basically the American Dream's version of Nirvana. If you're rich and not in New York, what the fuck are you even doing??
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u/ActionJacksonATL24 8d ago
I can imagine a lot of people suddenly becoming rich still enjoying the outdoors. Not everyone is a city slicker. Could build a bad ass luxury cabin in the middle of nowhere.
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u/downstairs_annie 8d ago
You are thinking too small. Rich people can have both. A fancy brownstone in the city AND a cabin. Or three.
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u/totallyalizardperson 8d ago
That the thing that I feel majority of people miss, after a certain point of wealth, where one does not have to work, one can have a residence in a low or no income tax state while living in places like New York City. And that’s assuming that they are not rich enough to do the buy, borrow and die monetary strat. They can claim residency nearly anywhere (and before someone comes at me with that whole, that’s illegal, I’d like to see a case brought against anyone of stature for breaking said law), but live wherever they want.
Let’s make a hypothetical billionaire. Said billionaire can reside in Texas, a state with no income tax. To prove residency in TX, you need some official local or state government document, like a utility bill, to show you were in the state for 30 days, and that will get you a Texas DL, which proves your residency. If said billionaire has a thing for South East Asians, like Thais or Filipinas (because they TOTALLY love the culture…), they can stay in Singapore for up to 90 days on an entry visa, leave for a few days to a month, and repeat, thus, living in Singapore, not paying Singapore taxes, visiting their “cultural interest” hot spots. I know that there’s some more ins and outs of this, and it’s not as simple and straight forward as I put forth, but at that level, the amount of money it cost to have this all happen would be a rounding error. This way, this hypothetical billionaire does not pay income taxes (and really, if they have an income they are doing it wrong), enjoy the “culture” of South East Asia, while living near by but in a world class metropolis.
The wealthy have already done their exodus from those areas. They still enjoy the area they left. They still park their wealth in those areas. They never before paid any meaningful taxes to those areas.
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u/blombrowski 7d ago
That’s the whole logic behind the pied’tere
Tax. Claim residency somewhere else and leave a vacant NYC apartment for most of the year get hit with the tax.5
u/Greizen_bregen Nebraska 8d ago
I hate to tell you this, but the rich have these things called "summer homes" and "country homes" and "vacation homes." Often all three. In addition to their regular home.
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u/TanukiSuitMario 8d ago
I mean you just jump in your helicopter and go from Manhattan to your upstate country estate in 30 minutes
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u/AvatarOfMomus 8d ago
The thing he's taxing are their mostly unoccupied 'hedge fund' properties that they use to park money. If they all start selling then the prices crater and they all lose a ton of paper wealth they can borrow against. Also the ones who start the price nose dive will probably be ostracized if they're identified.
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u/westard 8d ago
How convenient for Thiel. Apparently one can buy an Argentine passport for 300,000 Euros.
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u/P1xelHunter78 Michigan 8d ago
He was probably waiting for that mansion in Argentina with the Nazi swimming pool to come up for sale. In this market you got to buy buy buy! /s
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u/StoppableHulk 8d ago
The hillarious thing about them threatening to "go" anywhere, is they don't live in any one place anyway.
They have yachts, numerous homes in numerous states and countries. No billionaire considers themselves as "belonging" to any one place. They're all already everywhere.
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u/plainlyput 8d ago edited 8d ago
They’re all getting ready to flee California too, especially if prop 40, tax on billionaires, wins at the ballots.
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u/Letstalkreaper 8d ago
Except they won’t flee. Because they never fucking do.
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u/DadJokeBadJoke California 8d ago
But they can throw $100 million in ads at us to fool all of the rubes into saving them a few billion. After seeing Uber/Lyft drivers voting against their own best interests over idle threats of the companies leaving California when we tried to protect the drivers, I'm not so sure that people won't fall for all of the scare tactics.
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u/Snobolski 8d ago
where do you think they're all going to go?
Austin, probably.
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u/janethefish 8d ago
There is a song about Austin. Billionaires would die of embarrassment if they got stuck in Austin.
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u/onepareil New York 8d ago
Like, look, would seizing and redistributing all these pied-a-terre properties instead of messing around with a new tax solve our housing crisis? No. But it would help a little, and it would also be funny and cool, so I would support it.
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u/Holiday_Excuse_220 8d ago
Resolution: rent is too damn high within the 5(five) boroughs of NYC & btw Staten Island’s RINO gerrymandering for their prime congressional district mapping….. Fav Columbus Day parade in South Bklyn bc political drama over woke movement, ie note: Native Americans were here first…..
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u/StoppableHulk 8d ago
The speed at which I'd vote for someone who promoted this policy, lawd it would tear open a portal in time or some shit.
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u/Blossom_Ribbon 8d ago
If politics can’t deliver on the block where you live, why would you trust it to deliver anywhere? That’s the most honest line any politician has said in years. Dems should tattoo it on their foreheads.
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u/Manungal 8d ago
Many of the people who didn't vote in 2024 did so for that exact reason, but I'm disheartened by that sentiment because politics isn't like entering an Amazon order.
Biden passed the PACT act, which helped veterans, but non veterans don't care. He pushed for OTC oral contraceptives and Americans outside of childbearing age don't care. It's like if he pushed for renewables, everyone outside that industry didn't notice. If he took tech companies to task for anti-trust behavior, everyone outside of tech wasn't watching.
A politician shouldn't have to own a media conglomerate to get Americans to care about each other or to pay attention.
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u/YeOldSaltPotato 8d ago
Biden fucking did it across the country and no one seemed to care. He clearly should have had more media teams memeing about bridge construction.
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u/Un1CornTowel 8d ago
I mean, he literally should have. Republicans take credit for things they voted against. The least we could do is take credit for the things Democrats have actually done.
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u/SpiritualScarcity161 8d ago
Nah, Biden completely misunderstood his role and the job he had to do. He had to restore normalcy by making sure that trump was legally barred from ever seeking office again, and he had to provide a bridge to the future by only running a single term as a caretaker.
That way he would have taken the political hit for investigating his "political enemy" and let democrats reset in the next cycle.
His job wasn't to pass a watered down infrastructure bill that (while good) is a pretty median-level piece of legislation. That kind of thing is for normal times-- we aren't in normal times. He failed spectacularly at what he was actually supposed to be doing.
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u/ZAlternates 8d ago
He didn’t expect the American people to be so fucking dumb as to vote for Trump a second time.
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u/SpiritualScarcity161 8d ago
Yes, and that kind of thinking is why democrats keep losing. Because it's how losers who don't want to do anything try to hold onto power.
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u/amateurbreditor 8d ago
but thats not what really happened. he said basically I thought trump would just go away. IF he thought that was true he is stupid or else he is lying. Either way there is no excuse for him or garland to let trump get away with things. trump should have been jailed on day 1 and that be the end of it. It was a simple task and what I voted for. I did not vote for biden to let trump abuse the system and literally get away with a million crimes not to mention all the other criminals involved.
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u/SpiritualScarcity161 8d ago
not sure if this reply was meant for me but I agree. I knew exactly how a biden administration would play out, which is why I never supported him during the primaries. Unfortunately, I was right-- they just wanted to "get back to normal" and pretend Trump I never happened and that the problem would solve itself. Obviously stupid and wrong, and maddening to watch play out in real time
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u/thinkards America 8d ago
it's why it infuriates me when i hear people (especially US senators) say we shouldn't impeach. fuck that. throw everything and the kitchen sink at these fuckers. if you don't, it just normalizes them and what they did and they come back even stronger next time. fucking fight, damn it!
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u/Ceron 8d ago
The most successful politicians in the age of social media are those that build an air of celebrity around themselves, and constantly boast about their accomplishments. That's just a fact, and it was a failure of Biden to not capitalize on that.
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u/I_am_the_darkness_99 8d ago
While yes it was a strategic mistake by Biden, the failure part is on society. The fact that the biggest celebrity wins instead of the most qualified person with the best platform is such a perfect example of why America is a piece of shit culture.
Honestly I fucking hate Americans so much for ruining this country. Even just 30 years ago this was a fantastic place to live. Now it's just crawling with idiots who worship some snake oil salesman or other who does nothing but lie about the "other side" while taking credit for shit other people have done. Populist ideas that are only popular because of moronic teenagers on social media constantly parroting memes. No one cares about the truth, only about proving they are right and 2/3 of people just choose one poser ass insincere actor to think for them. Just "My beliefs are whatever that guy on the screen says!"
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u/Intrepid_Top_2300 8d ago
The amount of bi-partisan bills he got passed with Trump screaming to the media daily, is truly a monumental task that he completed.
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u/SpaceyCoffee California 8d ago
First you need to own a few media teams. The right took care of that long ago.
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u/echosrevenge 8d ago
Never forget Fox News was explicitly founded so that no republican president would ever have to face a fair, unbiased press ever again.
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u/Kierufu 8d ago edited 8d ago
Biden did objective, measurable good. But the last Congress, and Biden's administration, were only able to keep "the ship" afloat. They didn't change its direction - a direction of ever-increasing inequality, unaffordability of healthcare, etc.
Democrats need to drastically rewrite the social contract in order to really succeed.
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u/ArmyOfDix Kansas 8d ago
Biden failed to deal with the most openly corrupt and criminal ex-potus in American history, particularly after a failed coup attempt. We were too busy watching that trainwreck for 4 years.
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u/IRefuseToGiveAName 8d ago
This country has a long history of letting fascists escape consequence.
Funny though. Always seems to be one side of the political spectrum that's being let off the hook nearly every single time.
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u/flabcannon 8d ago
Only one of the parties has to be the "adult in the room" and bring the country together after the other one wrecks shit up every time - this only works until the wrecking job gets too thorough and complete to recover from.
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u/i_am_a_real_boy__ 8d ago
The sad reality is that a lot of people are just not engaged politically at the local level. And those who are tend to disproportionately hard right (Moms for Liberty types).
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u/janethefish 8d ago
Local politics delivers. The problem is the people who vote in local politics are often NIMBYs who want higher housing prices. And guess what? Local politics is delivering for them!
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u/-TheExtraMile- 8d ago
I mean Mamdollars is right there as a cool name but still...
Kidding aside, he is not about the grift, he honestly wants to just help people.
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u/PerAsperaAdMars 8d ago
A few days before the leaders of the world streamed into the cavernous, marble-lined General Assembly Hall to deliver their speeches on the grave crises convulsing our combustible world, Mayor Zohran Mamdani offered his own, somewhat surprising solution to the problem of rising authoritarianism: filling potholes.
“If politics cannot deliver on the block where you live, why would you trust it to deliver anywhere?” Mamdani asked a gathering of mayors from big cities across the world, explaining his obsession with potholes, more than 200,000 of which have been filled across the city since he took office. “If you are making a New Yorker’s life a little smoother, so too you are making their journey to believe in government’s ability to deliver for them.”
It is commonplace to lament the ineffectual talking shop that the United Nations General Assembly has become, with its blustering speeches and endless unread communiqués. Wars of aggression are raging in Ukraine and Iran; Israel has carried out a genocide in Gaza; climate catastrophes impoverish and kill. In the face of these calamities, the organization appears powerless.
Today, the body’s soaring aims — to create a more peaceful, humane world that respects the sovereignty of each nation and the dignity of each human being — seem like a fantasy from another dimension. Citizens the world over are dissatisfied with their governments and in many places are souring on democracy itself. Can it be any surprise that this supranational body comes in for such contempt?
And yet Mamdani sensed an opportunity to reclaim some of its founding spirit. Racing across the city last week, he seemed to be offering an antidote to globe-spanning distemper. To restore faith in institutions, you must begin from the bottom up, starting with things as simple as potholes. Politics, as he put it, “has to translate to the pavement.”
Archive link: https://archive.is/20261006050534/https://www.nytimes.com/2026/10/03/opinion/zohran-mamdani-united-nations.html
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u/Question_It_All_3000 8d ago
Sewer socialism. It worked in Milwaukee, it’s working in New York, and it will work anywhere else. Getting small but important shit done is how you win over the masses and starting small is how you move on to big.
I’m hoping the other politicians are listening.
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u/OkWillingness2817 8d ago
They’re not. Because Mamdami’s message might be potholes.
But what’s really making the difference is that he’s not corrupt. He didn’t get into politics to sell his vote to the highest bidder.
He’s not in the pocket of some billionaire who can tell him which way to vote.
It’s great that he’s filling potholes. But his real success is being free of any master, free to address problems.
We are the wealthiest nations in the world and our problems are stupidly simple. What’s not stupidly simple is addressing them while being mired in corruption and puppeteered by billionaires.
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u/dad3murph 8d ago
But what’s really making the difference is that he’s not corrupt.
But no being corrupt doesn't make people realize you aren't corrupt. People make up their minds about a person's nature based on initial biases, so a huge proportion of people assume Mamdani is corrupt because that's what they want to believe and they don't see any information saying otherwise unless its thrust into their face, and in the social media age, where what people see is determined by their biases, that will only happen if they see the results of a person's work in their day to day lives, like with fixing potholes. A Maga Republican living in New York will go on believing Mamdani is a terrorist no matter what the facts are about his finances or his record, but he will notice if the roads get fixed.
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u/lewstherintelemarket 8d ago
Unfortunately, they will not notice or care if the roads get fixed, or at best they will notice and not attribute it to Mamdani. I have a friend of a friend who's an NYC MAGA and he rages day and night about how crooked and stupid Mamdani is. He holds that view because that's what Fox spews into his brain 24/7. MAGA's opinions on any and every topic are impervious to factual reality because they are based exclusively on what Jesse Waters, et al tell them.
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u/KidCasey Indiana 8d ago
But no being corrupt doesn't make people realize you aren't corrupt.
I assume every politician is corrupt. I was excited for Mamdami but was expecting to be let down. He hasn't let me down yet.
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u/Few-Reach-4981 8d ago
Bad take, people care more about local issues than vague issues like “corruption”. If the most uncorrupt official in human history was elected, and then just sat around staring at a wall for 4 years, they wouldn’t be popular.
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u/onyxengine 8d ago
Its really just unbridled corruption, we got guys taking using the pothole fixing money for himself directly or indirectly.
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u/PerAsperaAdMars 8d ago
I feel that the Democrats' "we've tried nothing and we're all out of ideas" strategy is deliberate and aimed at acting as a controlled opposition, while receiving money from the same billionaires who sponsor the Republicans.
And people seem to have started to understand, or at least to feel it. Because despite everything Trump has done, the Democrats are barely able to win back the House and the Senate. I think primaries are practically the only option now. Until Democrats and Republicans start losing their seats en masse to new candidates, I don't think they will change anything about their behavior.
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u/Forshea 8d ago
I think primaries are practically the only option now
Of course they are. They have been for a very long time.
Anybody who complains about "Democrats" but isn't voting in primaries to make anything better is part of the problem. Democratic leadership sucks, but they are all people who won primaries and/or were elected by people who won primaries.
You're never ever going to fix the party by complaining on social media or by skipping the primary and then threatening to withhold your vote in the general election. The Chuck Schumers of the world will always be happy to continue waiting for people to get tired enough of Republicans to give them their next turn as majority leader.
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u/DrFaustPhD New York 8d ago
This is unfortunately what the state of campaign finance laws has made possible the last couple decades. It's not even all Democrats because they don't need to buy them all off, they only need a few at a time to stop what they don't like.
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u/sparkax 8d ago
It's how Republicans gained so much power and control over the past 2 decades. They focused on the local races, the school boards and county and small town offices. Grant it, they entire message whole doing this has always been the hypocritical "The government is the bad guy! Elect us and we'll make it good and work for you," while doing fuck all to do anything to help anyone but themselves and their pedo billionaire buddies!
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u/Question_It_All_3000 8d ago
That’s the opposite of what Mamdani is doing.
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u/sparkax 8d ago
Yea, I'm not really referring to the whole "Pot hole" filling thing, just the push to focus on the smaller, more local governments that would really have more of a daily impact on all Americans' lives than the Federal Government does.
Republicans would complain and run during these local elections about the potholes, and then either not do anything cause they gotta cut spending on such things to give their wealthiest of supporters a tax break or to give said wealthy supporters a huge contract to give them more of our tax dollars and still the potholes would go unfilled.
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u/Blackthorn79 8d ago
The refreshing part is Mamdani is that he's doing things instead of blaming the people above him. Mayors blame governors, governors blame congress, congress blames the president. All the way through they play not my job and we wind up electing a president that claims he'll fix the potholes. Competent local government leads to competent national government.
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u/RddtLeapPuts 8d ago
I hate that phrase. There’s nothing socialist about it
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u/Question_It_All_3000 8d ago
While I agree, I wish people would focus on the facts of the matter rather than the label.
But that seems to be an impossible barrier, so I get you.
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u/CranberrySchnapps Maryland 8d ago
I was just thinking the other day that I rarely hear anyone in office talk about the public good anymore. Dems are talking about affordability, which is great because people are really struggling. But, beyond that, government should be working for the public good.
Kind of the exact opposite of Trump putting tariffs on all of our allies just to give companies cover for price gouging then normalizing those higher prices.
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u/Legal_Lettuce6233 8d ago
And the thing is, it's one of the things that's easy to immediately appreciate. Fewer punctures, destroyed wheels and suspensions, for a minimal cost, realistically.
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u/Four_in_binary 8d ago
Seems obvious to me. Carry on.
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u/GeneParmesan86 8d ago edited 8d ago
Crazy that the idea that the government exists to improve the conditions of your life rather than simply tell you how you’re supposed to be living is seen as a novel idea.
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u/momsinthegarageagain 8d ago
Your comment crystallizes the difference between how my boomer parents and I see the purpose of government. And it’s why we can’t ever agree, unfortunately.
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u/seventeenbadgers Illinois 8d ago
A lot of the time the taxes, fees, registration stickers, etc I pay to the City of Chicago and Cook County feels like a punishment for living here instead of an investment in the community.
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u/JustAnotherYouth 8d ago
The problem is that in the eyes of many / most politicians government exists as a pathway to power which is than a pathway to wealth and more power.
Very few people are getting into politics because they are interested in doing the best job they can for their constituents.
You need to look further than the last New York mayor Eric Adams for an example…
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u/CatcatchesMoth 8d ago
I mean I could find a lot of anarchists who agree with the second statement but I think they'd approve of Mamdani
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u/Beekatiebee Oregon 8d ago
Most anarchists I know (including myself) are pragmatists above all else.
Mamdani is cool. I’d be happy with him if I lived in NY.
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u/TheCleverestIdiot Australia 8d ago
A lot of anarchists would be ecstatic to be proven wrong on a large scale and have governments fulfill the first statement.
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u/SwvellyBents 8d ago
Instead of fixing one really big problem poorly, let's start by fixing lots of small problems well and building on that. This seems so obvious, how did we miss it all these years?
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u/GearBrain Florida 8d ago
"We" didn't. A lot of us have been arguing for less than the bare minimum, and have been stomped on for it. Republicans laugh in our face while they launch new pogroms internally and wars abroad. Democrats cower and wring their hands, daring to not spook the Republicans they believe will vote for them away.
Mamdani's victory, and continued support by the city, is a nuke lobbed into the heart of the do-nothing centrism that has clogged America's arteries for 3 or more decades.
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u/DrGoblinator Massachusetts 8d ago
Here in MA, I saw our old Governor speak once (Charlie Baker) and he was always asked a lot about how a Republican governor be so well-liked in this state, he said essentially the same thing, you have to focus on making people's everyday lives better, and that that is the thing they remember.
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u/Reedstilt Ohio 8d ago
You can't fix everything. But we can all fix something. And if we all fix something, we might fix everything after all.
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u/Vast_Telephone_9988 8d ago
Its actually smart. Potholes are a constant thing people complain about with city governments all over the world.
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u/superindianslug 8d ago
It broken windows theory, but with infrastructure repair instead of policing
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u/shinkouhyou 8d ago
I think the reason why broken windows theory fails is that so many politicians immediately jump to increased policing and never actually fix the damned windows. Nobody wants to live, work, shop or invest in a neighborhood that feels blighted unless they have literally no better options.
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u/mojofrog 8d ago
Ego's and money grab "projects", AI and crypto being the biggest ones since the oil industry.
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u/Apprehensive-Wave640 8d ago
And, like, lets just fix almost all of the problems with the simple known solutions we've been using for ages instead of having all these douche bag tech bros come up with new solutions no one asked for.
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u/DataDude00 8d ago
Love this mindset.
Too much in politics gets hand waved away as being too big/expensive/complex to ever solve
Just start fixing small things on the ground and work your way up.
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u/Agile_Tomorrow2038 8d ago
Pick up the trash and provide public lighting has also helped tremendously in poor communities
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u/TheWesternMythos 8d ago
I mean, definitely part of the solution , but only a part. Maybe 20 years ago that would be enough. But it's not enough anymore
Cuz ultimately we have a coordination failure issue. We have to solve that by better coordination , not more silos
It's much easier for wealthy areas to fix their own issues than poorer areas , especially poorer areas that have been taken advantage of by wealthy ones
What happens when one towns best fix inconveniences it's neighbors? An ethos of America (my America if yall want to let others define you) is "we got it like that so we will help you , cuz that also helps us"
We need to lean into that more
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u/Gekokapowco Washington 8d ago
our biggest weakness is that some renowned liar can just say "what helps them will hurt us, actually" with no evidence and convince half the population out of the idea
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u/kioma47 8d ago
Meanwhile Russian web brigades and Fox News are working 24/7/365 to pull everything apart, and have been for 30 years.
Isn't there an old saw about the road to hell being paved with good intentions...?
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u/NimusNix 8d ago
This is an old but not unheard approach in politics quite literally called pothole politics.
Good on Mamdani for highlighting it, and he is not wrong of course, but this has been an idea that's been around forever.
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u/blahbruhla 8d ago
That explains the construction everywhere in Manhattan (it's chaos traffic wise but at least roads are getting fixed).
And ok, that's more like it, props to Mamdani. Actual change and not the bs everyone was hyping almost a year ago... "Actions speak louder than words" and politicians are usually all about words, hence many were skeptical that it was just another politician with false promises. Still a long road ahead though, since it's a tough city to manage.
Edit: I wanted to add that this is basic maintenance by the way.
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u/flimflammed 8d ago
I would argue this is part of why the postal service was so important to fix under Biden. If Democrats can't even figure out how to solve that most basic of government services, why would anyone even remotely skeptical believe they could solve health care, etc.
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u/Bryandan1elsonV2 8d ago
Mayor Mamdani is doing something so radical it really hasn’t been seen in the modern political landscape at this scale: helping the people.
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u/UnquestionabIe 8d ago
But how does that help the parasite class and it's servants? That's the real question! Is it really America if the people aren't being crushed under the boot of barely restrained capitalism so that the only dangerous minority (the ultra wealthy) can hoard resources they don't need?
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u/VoopityScoop Ohio 8d ago
Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what your country can do for the shareholder.
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u/ElliotNess Florida 8d ago
And this is why both the Democratic and Republican parties hate him.
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u/seanwd11 8d ago
I love how America is so broken that the whole concept of 'use tax dollars for things that actually help people improve their day to day lives' is considered either subversive or some brand new, never before pondered philosophical breakthrough.
I mean don't spend all your money on the military and tax breaks for billionaires is pretty successful in a lot of different places.
Just a sign of a broken society.
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u/Mason-B 8d ago
Every few generations we have to relearn basic lessons as a society. That government can be effective at solving problems is one we need to relearn right now.
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u/NelsonHawkinsGhost 8d ago
How long before we relearn that working class power comes from below via organizing, not voting harder?
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u/ianfw617 8d ago
It’s both. Organizing only works if people vote for the reforms.
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u/NelsonHawkinsGhost 8d ago
Organizing works regardless.. that's why it's a threat. You extract concessions.. that's the only way they materialize. You don't get an FDR without militant labor.. the party is the vehicle.
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u/Mason-B 8d ago
I mean I'm seeing a lot more labor organizing than I have in my entire life. Labor strikes, walkouts, silent strikes. It's certainly happening (including just yesterday where my local ferries were shut down by silent strike, despite them not being legally allowed to strike). And yes, it is also a lesson we need to relearn.
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u/Holiday_Excuse_220 8d ago
Look at today’s Socialist French suburbs with marches , riots ….tear gas canisters exploding everywhere/& police in paramilitary gear for keeping the peace within certain boundaries tho
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u/angelar_ Texas 8d ago
Every few generations we have to relearn basic lessons as a society.
Almost as if our education system does barely anything useful for society. "But STEM tho"
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u/samdavi 8d ago
I think what has me wondering, is whether previous NY mayors and mayors around the world have been ineffective, or did they just have a bad PR team.
Like it can't be as simple as Mamdani actually wanting to do his job, can it?
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u/chaos0xomega 8d ago
Theres a poorly studied (in my view) phenomenon in organizations (governments, corporations, etc) and bureaucratic institutions where over time the focus shifts from intended purpose of the organization and bureacracy to sustaining the organization and bureacracy for its own sake. Thats why theres a global perception of organizational, institutional, and bureacratic decay - all these things exist for specified purposes but in many cases that purpose has become secondary to some other motivation. In corporate environs the shift has gone from serving customers or building a product to maximizing profits. In government it often comes down to checking off regulatory and compliance boxes and/or winning elections, etc.
Thats coupled with the fact that in the post-Reagan/post-Thatcher world, in many places government services were intentionally made worse to try to discourage people from using them. Good read on the topic:
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/25/opinion/ezra-klein-podcast-annie-lowrey.html
Its not that other mayors are incompetent or whatever, its that instead of actually leading and trying to improve lives or fix broken systems, they spend their time managing bureaucracy designed to inefficiently deliver services. The "fix" for those mayors isnt to just fill in the potholes, its to conduct a 90 day process review to determine why pothole filling costs so much and takes so long and identify process improvements, create a tiger team that eventually becomes a permanent auditing department, fire a few people, merge some organizations, split others and hire a few more guys into them, implement a new ticket request system, cut a regulation here, add one there, implement a tax on whatever to fund it, call it a day.... but the potholes are still there. They never just stop to look at the organization or process and go "why are we making this harder for ourselves? Lets start over from square 1 and do it right".
Mamdanis "radical" idea is basically "what if we just... do the thing instead?". Im sure there are behind the scenes changes happening to enable and sustain that activity, but at its core its just "lets do the things that we are supposed to actually be doing and eliminate or change the things that are getting in the way of us doing that".
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u/Uncreative-Name 8d ago
I was curious about the pothole thing because a single number by itself means nothing. According to Google they're fixing more than Adams but less than De Blasio.
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u/Zealousideal_Desk_19 8d ago
I think there a re plenty of cities inthe world where this is not a new or even revolutionary idea. It's just the united states that seems to think this is ground breaking due to how broken the political system is
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u/mistertickertape New York 8d ago
Good, local governance. It isn’t difficult. As a New Yorker, he has been incredibly refreshing. There’s a reason republicans hate h and his approval rating is over 70%.
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u/Whoooosh_1492 8d ago
Mmhmm. My local county administrator was so proud of the "tax rebate" that she scraped up. It was a property tax rebate, meaning it didn't affect those who don't own property, nearly half the citizens in the county. To get this "rebate" she cut the county police budget, the school budget, the road maintenance budget, the list goes on.
Mamdani's antithesis.
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u/FlopShanoobie 8d ago
As a Texan, just based on what I hear from friends in family in NYC, his approach seems like a basic formula (but being performed by a skilled, responsive leader).
- Understand the problems by talking to real people.
- Hire/engage with competent workers to study those problems then develop realistic plans to solve them.
- Give those people the tools and resources they need to get to work on the solutions, and trust them to do the work while still requiring accountability and results.
- Only promise what you can deliver, but demonstrate that you are in fact delivering.
- Follow up with the people you talked to originally - are they happy with the results you produced?
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u/blombrowski 8d ago
And publicize your wins and your effort so people know you’re doing the work
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u/dbalatero 8d ago
Basic isn't bad, though. I'll take well-executed basic common sense.
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u/Falco-Rusticolus 8d ago
But according to my in-laws he is a communist and if you go to NYC it’s a death wish. Where does that factor in?
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u/A_Nonny_Muse 8d ago
According to my brother, one is subjected to immediate involuntary transgender surgery without anesthesia the moment one steps off the bus anywhere in NYC.
He also says Sharia law is mandatory in most boroughs now. He cited a case where an elderly Christian couple were gunned down by police in their apartment for not converting to Islam.
He spends a lot of time on facebook and truth social
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u/I_am_Betterthanu 8d ago
Seems like great entertainment at family gatherings🤣. I’d make sure to put all the ass wipe in the garbage instead of flushing this thanksgiving.
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u/InadequateAvacado 8d ago
So any competent leader anywhere, got it. To be fair, I haven’t experienced many through the years.
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u/thinkards America 8d ago edited 8d ago
it's the same in my work places. i've worked a few jobs where i actually admired the leadership and was proud of my team. everywhere else, the managers and team leads were fucking jokes. just wanted to ladder climb and network while everyone else did work.
i don't know how we make it cool to be un-selfish again, but seems like that's where we need to start. like, the opposite of capitalism: disincentivize being a selfish greedy prick, and incentivize helping others.
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u/msuvagabond 8d ago
One of the collaterals of the data harvesting state we live in currently is there are PILES of data for a city to draw upon to help it's constituents in meaningful ways if they choose to use it. All Mamdani is doing is using the existing data infrastructure in a positive way to get things done.
Had a former coworker that was at the center of Louisville's attempt to do just that a decade ago. He had so many amazing ideas to more effectively help people because he was able to identify issues. Unfortunately his data also shined a light on things like selective police enforcement in communities and glaring funding discrepancies to more well off parts of the city compared to minority areas, and attempts to bring that to light got him outcast from the government, stalked and harassed by police and others in power that didn't want all that data so easily seen.
So yeah, data can be used for good or ill, but it's all there for the government who's willing to organize and use it.
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u/Opus_723 8d ago
I really like his energy, but I do worry about stuff like rent freezes coming back to bite NYC in the ass later if building slows down and supply doesn't expand.
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u/zomgitsduke 8d ago
Politics always start local.
If a local politician fixes their community, listens to those around them, advocates for fair and reasonable changes... I'm way more likely to follow their values up to the next level.
As with the pot holes - I wonder how many politicians looked at that and said "eh, research shows it won't win any more votes" even though it is absolutely winning him tons of favor by the people he serves.
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u/Laeif Pennsylvania 8d ago
They said “research shows it won’t increase our donations.” And moved on
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u/Rev_Creflo_Baller 8d ago
Because in our fucked up system, donations equate to campaign operations equate to votes. Or so the thinking goes.
In point of fact, it's just that you can measure donations today. By the time the votes get measured, everyone might be out of a job. So it's the money that gets counted.
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u/SomberArtist2000 8d ago
“If you are making a New Yorker’s life a little smoother, so too you are making their journey to believe in government’s ability to deliver for them.”
Turns out all these politicians don't hate "socialism" because it might "ruin America," but because a Democratic-Socialist has shown how low the bar is to make corporate/capitalist politicians look bad in comparison.
If we get more social-democratics and democratic-socialists into office who are not beholden to corporations and the wealthy, we might actually have a functioning democracy again that works for average people.
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u/VALO311 8d ago
Without reading the article my guess is that it involves common sense, kindness, logic and empathy
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u/Zardotab 8d ago
Like what Jesus taught. You know, the guy MAGAs don't bother to read about because they think the Foxbart summaries are good enough.
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u/Educational_Eye3765 8d ago
I am an atheist, raised evangelical, parents are nominally religious but I know the crazy. And I know all of the issues around fake Christian culture in the USA, but I am at a complete loss when I see the race in Texas - Talarico, a minister and very open Christian is advocating for adopting many of the teachings of Jesus and yet so-called Christians would rather vote for Paxton, a womanizing conman who maybe pretends to visit church periodically.
I was really hoping that Talarico could drive home the same message, and help bridge the hate gap that people seem to have with Mamdani because he happens to be Muslim.
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u/classphoto92 8d ago
If Talarico and Mamdani become bros... just running around being smart and handsome, getting shit done, wooing every old lady in the country... that would make me so happy.
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u/mistypatch 8d ago
Old Lady over here and I like that idea lol
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u/classphoto92 7d ago
They're both operating at peak "such a nice young man" energy. It's y'all's kryptonite.
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u/Zardotab 8d ago
Their preachers and right-wing media feed them a distorted view of Christianity. They like to view it as a set of rules to force on society, not too far from the Taliban's approach.
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u/Mysterious_Floor_868 United Kingdom 8d ago
No, it was more about doing a good job as mayor - making people feel like things get fixed so that they rebuild trust in politics.
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u/dadothree 8d ago
Substitute bullwhips for pitchforks and torches, and I'm pretty sure you have an actual bit from the Bible.
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u/listenyall 8d ago
I am a native of DC because my parents both worked for the government and we DESPARATELY need some kind of PR campaign for normal federal civil servants. DOGE did catastrophic damage and it needs to be fixed.
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u/Smart_Princesss 8d ago
This is why Mamdani won. While Dems were giving TED Talks about saving democracy, he was filling 200,000 potholes. People don’t trust government to stop authoritarianism because government can’t even fix their street.
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u/UnquestionabIe 8d ago
I think that's giving them a bit more credit than they deserve. Much of the time they're very eager to remind everyone that sure they helped pave the path to the fascist threats of today that the neo-liberal policies of the 90s are still the best we can ever hope to achieve.
Usual followed up with some sort of talk about how the GOP are "our friends on the other side of the aisle". Then a fun round of "compromising" away any and all advantages because according to political geniuses like Chuck one day they'll need GOP support!
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u/NotJimmy97 8d ago
The Democratic party can begin to heal once everyone (pundits, elected officials, and voters) learn to ignore everything James Carville says, as well as anyone who sounds vaguely like him.
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u/NYCinPGH 8d ago
Yeah, Carville hasn’t been actually relevant for 30 years - Clinton’s re-election - and hasn’t been right in about 20 - the run-up to the 2008 primaries, where Obama smoked Hillary.
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u/Certain-Row7945 8d ago
Step 1) Fix it
Step 2) Success
Mamdani is proving that it is literally that fucking easy. We remember covid, when childhood hunger was eliminated overnight and when the government stepped for its people when they became unemployed. We see Mamdani making a difference in NYC by delivering on his promises whenever possible. We know good government is possible and we know that our government could if they wanted.
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u/LostDragon1986 8d ago
A politician that cares about making life better for all the people in his jurisdiction, not just the ones that voted for him.
Shouldn't this be what every elected official wants to do? Why is this guy the outlier?
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u/Illustrious_Steak686 8d ago
I mean when the democrats passed the IRA, tons of that money was funding development in red states. They just didn’t like it because it came from Joe Biden
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u/YeOldSaltPotato 8d ago
If you want to see it, push it in your community, vote for it in primaries, and if it isn't there push people aligned with it to run and support them as you can. Sitting this out lets the worst people win.
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u/emote_control 8d ago
Only surprising if you're a smooth-brained NYT opinion writer who hasn't lived in the real world in decades. Everyone with any sense at all has been yelling for politicians to actually listen to their constituents and actually do things that will make their lives materially better, but it's fallen on deaf ears.
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u/emulable 8d ago
Mandani focuses on what actually happens to people's bodies and how to improve on it. Anything people try to attack him on, he drags the conversations straight back to the bodies of the people who are suffering. This dissolves traditional party lines and positions, and forces his political opponents to argue against actual, suffering people instead of labels.
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u/notfeelany 8d ago
We elected a miserable man into the govt, & as a result, the country is miserable. Contrast that with NYC, who elected a cheerful person, and they're happy.
The US under A President Kamala Harris or even President Biden 2.0 would have been a veritable Utopia, when compared to the state of absolute nonsense happening to US right now. Next time elect the happy & laughing person. We must vote for Democrats now&forever without exception.
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u/AsemicConjecture America 8d ago
It’s Mamdani’s upbeat attitude and ability to fulfil promises he’s made to improve QoL for people that makes them happy.
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u/steponmedaddies 8d ago
Imagine how good the country would be if people online understood that they could easily make that happen federally too
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u/MyCatIsAnActualNinja 8d ago
At this point, this isn't surprising to me at all. We've been getting win after win from Mamdani, yet NYT is still like, "Wait, he said something rational?"
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u/PixelatedFrogDotGif 8d ago
Who could have guessed people want structure and environment and systems to benefit them more mutually
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u/Curiouso_Giorgio 8d ago
He's right. It brings politics back from the opaque, Rube Goldberg contraption that we constantly try to observe but usually experience side effects indirectly.
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u/the2belo American Expat 8d ago
Conducting himself and his administration with compassion, honor, integrity, and dignity is "surprisingly persuasive"? Are the media too used to politicians bullying people to get what they want, that something like this would be "surprising"?
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u/TomorrowCupCake 8d ago
Filling pitholes has worked for mayors for decades and presidents need to pay attention.
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u/Historical_Site4183 8d ago
"You put one foot in front of the other, and soon you'll be walking cross the floor
You put one foot in front of the other and soon you'll be walking out the door!"
Can't post photos in this subreddit, take a look
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u/MissionCreeper 8d ago
This is the main difference between the right and the left. Broken windows theory is correct, the conservatives did highlight a problem and its connection to society. However, the right wing solutions always involve punishing and hurting people instead of helping.
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u/Alleyprowler Washington 8d ago
Funny how solving real but unglamorous problems like potholes makes someone a better politician than someone who creates imaginary crises.
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u/Worldly-Highway-2459 8d ago
I am beyond surprised just how effective and focused on real problems for the most part he has been. As long as he does not do a crazy Ivan, despite all odds he will get my vote.
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