Why do New York mayors need to be frequently traveling to other countries again? Especially after Adams’s hilariously corrupt excursions to Turkey, it seems Mamdani’s was the only correct answer.
Obama insulted Trump once at a publicized dinner and what was Trump's reaction?
Last night, Mamdani mentioned the name of Trump at least eight times. New York City needs to protect Mamdani like a presidential candidate, if not more.
Milwaukee has had three socialist mayors for most of fifty years (1910-60), who modernized the sewer system, created public parks and housing, raised the minimum wage, started a worker's compensation program and built roads and bridges. What other "horrors" await New York now??https://emke.uwm.edu/entry/socialists/
Very few people know this, myself included and I was born in Milwaukee and raised in Green Bay! It's amazing how we have been brainwashed to believe socialism is evil when in reality t's exactly what we need.
Democratic socialism and communism are two different things. While they agree on the notion that workers should own the means of production, they disagree on the strategy to get there. Communism believes in the "dictatorship of the proletariat", meaning that in order to break the hold of capital over the means of production, it is necessary to go through an authoritarian period of revolution including forcible removal of private property. Democratic socialism believes in using grassroots reform movements to lawfully restructure society through initiatives like wealth taxes, social benefit programs, and labor unions, to starve capital of its power to control the working class without violence or upheaval.
There are fair critiques of both approaches. Communism has been shown time and time again to be the wrong approach, even if it succeeds in the short term, because revolutions incite chaos and give sociopaths and monsters an advantage in claiming power. There is only one dictator in history that we know of who willingly abdicated his throne when the crisis that put him there was past: Cincinnatus. All the others have succumbed to corruption and selfishness, and eventually created bureaucracies in their wake. Democratic socialism, while perhaps less problematic and more sustainable in the long run, can easily devolve into mere reformism, allowing the bourgeoisie to bide their time a couple of generations to return the system to a state of monopolism, crony capitalism, and finally technofeudalism.
Socialism is a very good idea that's extremely hard to implement as long as we fail to address the intergenerational trauma that thousands of years of patriarchy, Abrahamic monotheism, and class division have wrought on us as a species. If you want to read about people who found their way out of the dilemma, *Native Nations: A Millennium in North America* by Kathleen Duval has some fascinating anecdotes. Apparently, key parts of American democracy were influenced by ideas from First Nations governance, rather than by Enlightenment ideals as we were taught in school.
Beautifully said, Ken, as always. I awoke this morning with a strange sensation in my throat and chest: I was breathing normally, not grinding my teeth and taking tiny gulps of air. I think I see a tiny speck of light and hope, somewhere in the distance, and for now I’m going to cling to that.
Good analysis. Tangentially, I would kindly request that you link to Twitter posts using xcancel.com rather than x.com, as x.com obstructs viewers who don't have an account or who are using strong ad and tracker blocking in their everyday surfing.
The everyday experience of NYC for people who do not have millions of dollars is to be out in the thick of it, elbow to elbow and hip to hip with everybody under the sun, rushing to get things done -- and occasionally, only very very occasionally -- to be inside the quiet of a hushed room with rich people shuffling papers, which is of course exactly the opposite the experience of Mike Bloomberg or Andrew Cuomo. So Mamdani definitely embraced that neglected public space, made himself so approachable in the everyday chaos of NY. Those of us who are older are now terrified for his safety -- I hope his mother is holding up! And I hope the victims of Cuomo's and others' scaremongering -- the badly manipulated segment of the Jewish community that was so cynically flooded with fear and hate messaging, designed to benefit only the billionaires -- can see what happened in the plain light of today and rejoin that public space of dialogue and getting things done.
Great piece Ken (& Bill). I also thought this was a great video:
"Another campaign video featured Mamdani speaking to Halal food truck vendors, virtually ubiquitous throughout the city. A pressing issue but one not obvious to people outside of New York (including myself) was why these Halal vendors’ food had suddenly become so expensive. City regulations and other forms of needless bureaucracy, he was told. He promised to get to the bottom of it. "
But I would have liked to see the media probe him a bit more on why the answer to high Halal prices was regulatory reform to reduce the price of the permits but his plan to reduce grocery prices involved city owned grocery stores rather than reducing their regulatory burdens.
I.e. why have city owned grocery stores, but not city owned Halal trucks? How does he distinguish between services that should be public and those that should remain private?
Bernie Sanders was asked this question by Ezra Klein at Vox back in 2015 and had a coherent answer regardless of whether you agreed with it or not:
"Ezra Klein:
What is the underlying principle there? What are the situations where you look at a given area of the economy and say, "That's something we should turn over to the market," or, "That's something we should possibly federalize"?
Bernie Sanders:
...
It seems to me that when you look at basic necessities of life — education, health care, nutrition — there must be a guarantee that people receive what they need in order to live a dignified life.
Because halal carts are not a basic necessity for ensuring nutrition. Grocery stores selling unprocessed and less processed foods that can be made at home are. Food truck management is an opportunity for New York residents with the knowledge of how to make good food to get in on a flexible, mobile, low-cost way to bring their product to the people. If they have the ambition to do so, they can use that as a stepping stone to establish a brick-and-mortar restaurant and broaden their reach.
Halal Guys, a small restaurant chain in NYC, began as a food truck (near the Lincoln Center, if memory serves me). I have a single-location coffee shop in my own neighborhood in Piscataway NJ called Chapter 2, that started out as a food truck at the Metuchen farmer's market.
The government should make safety nets available to entrepreneurs like that, to give them the ability to take risks and operate temporarily at a loss. But I don't need "Uncle Sam's USDA-approved Doner Kebab" outcompeting all the MENA and South Asian immigrants who are just trying to keep a roof over their head and food on their table in a tough city.
Thanks for this excellent recap of Mamdani's winning strategy. What a fascinating way to campaign: A real person, asking real people, what they want from their mayor. In the age of oligarch control of the major media it is great to see how a smart politician can circumvent their control.
Why do New York mayors need to be frequently traveling to other countries again? Especially after Adams’s hilariously corrupt excursions to Turkey, it seems Mamdani’s was the only correct answer.
Well written, Ken.
Obama insulted Trump once at a publicized dinner and what was Trump's reaction?
Last night, Mamdani mentioned the name of Trump at least eight times. New York City needs to protect Mamdani like a presidential candidate, if not more.
Milwaukee has had three socialist mayors for most of fifty years (1910-60), who modernized the sewer system, created public parks and housing, raised the minimum wage, started a worker's compensation program and built roads and bridges. What other "horrors" await New York now??https://emke.uwm.edu/entry/socialists/
Very few people know this, myself included and I was born in Milwaukee and raised in Green Bay! It's amazing how we have been brainwashed to believe socialism is evil when in reality t's exactly what we need.
Democratic socialism and communism are two different things. While they agree on the notion that workers should own the means of production, they disagree on the strategy to get there. Communism believes in the "dictatorship of the proletariat", meaning that in order to break the hold of capital over the means of production, it is necessary to go through an authoritarian period of revolution including forcible removal of private property. Democratic socialism believes in using grassroots reform movements to lawfully restructure society through initiatives like wealth taxes, social benefit programs, and labor unions, to starve capital of its power to control the working class without violence or upheaval.
There are fair critiques of both approaches. Communism has been shown time and time again to be the wrong approach, even if it succeeds in the short term, because revolutions incite chaos and give sociopaths and monsters an advantage in claiming power. There is only one dictator in history that we know of who willingly abdicated his throne when the crisis that put him there was past: Cincinnatus. All the others have succumbed to corruption and selfishness, and eventually created bureaucracies in their wake. Democratic socialism, while perhaps less problematic and more sustainable in the long run, can easily devolve into mere reformism, allowing the bourgeoisie to bide their time a couple of generations to return the system to a state of monopolism, crony capitalism, and finally technofeudalism.
Socialism is a very good idea that's extremely hard to implement as long as we fail to address the intergenerational trauma that thousands of years of patriarchy, Abrahamic monotheism, and class division have wrought on us as a species. If you want to read about people who found their way out of the dilemma, *Native Nations: A Millennium in North America* by Kathleen Duval has some fascinating anecdotes. Apparently, key parts of American democracy were influenced by ideas from First Nations governance, rather than by Enlightenment ideals as we were taught in school.
I am happy to live in the neighborhood where Mamdani grew up, Morningside Heights, which over indexed in support of him. 78.9%.
I am a senior Jewish voter and disturbed by Jews who act like doom is in the room because Mamdani will be the next NYC mayor. Mazel Tov to Mamdani.
Beautifully said, Ken, as always. I awoke this morning with a strange sensation in my throat and chest: I was breathing normally, not grinding my teeth and taking tiny gulps of air. I think I see a tiny speck of light and hope, somewhere in the distance, and for now I’m going to cling to that.
Good analysis. Tangentially, I would kindly request that you link to Twitter posts using xcancel.com rather than x.com, as x.com obstructs viewers who don't have an account or who are using strong ad and tracker blocking in their everyday surfing.
Thanks in advance for considering my suggestion.
The everyday experience of NYC for people who do not have millions of dollars is to be out in the thick of it, elbow to elbow and hip to hip with everybody under the sun, rushing to get things done -- and occasionally, only very very occasionally -- to be inside the quiet of a hushed room with rich people shuffling papers, which is of course exactly the opposite the experience of Mike Bloomberg or Andrew Cuomo. So Mamdani definitely embraced that neglected public space, made himself so approachable in the everyday chaos of NY. Those of us who are older are now terrified for his safety -- I hope his mother is holding up! And I hope the victims of Cuomo's and others' scaremongering -- the badly manipulated segment of the Jewish community that was so cynically flooded with fear and hate messaging, designed to benefit only the billionaires -- can see what happened in the plain light of today and rejoin that public space of dialogue and getting things done.
We mapped the BIG BLUE WAVE that swept America including Zohran's big win!
https://thedemlabs.org/2025/11/05/big-blue-wave-map/
Great piece Ken (& Bill). I also thought this was a great video:
"Another campaign video featured Mamdani speaking to Halal food truck vendors, virtually ubiquitous throughout the city. A pressing issue but one not obvious to people outside of New York (including myself) was why these Halal vendors’ food had suddenly become so expensive. City regulations and other forms of needless bureaucracy, he was told. He promised to get to the bottom of it. "
But I would have liked to see the media probe him a bit more on why the answer to high Halal prices was regulatory reform to reduce the price of the permits but his plan to reduce grocery prices involved city owned grocery stores rather than reducing their regulatory burdens.
I.e. why have city owned grocery stores, but not city owned Halal trucks? How does he distinguish between services that should be public and those that should remain private?
Bernie Sanders was asked this question by Ezra Klein at Vox back in 2015 and had a coherent answer regardless of whether you agreed with it or not:
"Ezra Klein:
What is the underlying principle there? What are the situations where you look at a given area of the economy and say, "That's something we should turn over to the market," or, "That's something we should possibly federalize"?
Bernie Sanders:
...
It seems to me that when you look at basic necessities of life — education, health care, nutrition — there must be a guarantee that people receive what they need in order to live a dignified life.
https://www.vox.com/2015/7/28/9014491/bernie-sanders-vox-conversation
Because halal carts are not a basic necessity for ensuring nutrition. Grocery stores selling unprocessed and less processed foods that can be made at home are. Food truck management is an opportunity for New York residents with the knowledge of how to make good food to get in on a flexible, mobile, low-cost way to bring their product to the people. If they have the ambition to do so, they can use that as a stepping stone to establish a brick-and-mortar restaurant and broaden their reach.
Halal Guys, a small restaurant chain in NYC, began as a food truck (near the Lincoln Center, if memory serves me). I have a single-location coffee shop in my own neighborhood in Piscataway NJ called Chapter 2, that started out as a food truck at the Metuchen farmer's market.
The government should make safety nets available to entrepreneurs like that, to give them the ability to take risks and operate temporarily at a loss. But I don't need "Uncle Sam's USDA-approved Doner Kebab" outcompeting all the MENA and South Asian immigrants who are just trying to keep a roof over their head and food on their table in a tough city.
Thanks for this excellent recap of Mamdani's winning strategy. What a fascinating way to campaign: A real person, asking real people, what they want from their mayor. In the age of oligarch control of the major media it is great to see how a smart politician can circumvent their control.
what a much needed breath of fresh air!