If Zohran Mamdani could “ruin” New York City, then it wouldn’t be worth saving. And New York City doesn’t require saving, except to the willfully blind.
What you’re about to read isn’t a defense of Mamdani, or his government grocery store policies, wage floors, and soak-the-rich socialism. Not at all.
At the same time it’s a comment that New Yorkers aren’t remotely socialist. Even the socialists in New York City aren’t socialist. A visit to New York City will mug even the most ardent of New York haters with this reality.
New York is truly a city that doesn’t sleep. People are moving feverishly at all hours simply because New York is where the ambitious go. Or as Ken Auletta put it in the 1970s amid the City’s economic struggles, New York is the “final test” for the ambitious.
Sorry, but to reduce New York City to voting or ideology is to miss the point. And the point is that what attracts generation after generation of people to New York City is the skyline, the individual energy that fills the City's streets, and the chance to succeed on the biggest of big stages. This is true from the most left-wing of left wing political types eager to become a name in politics, it’s similarly true for those eager to make it in left-dominated professions like music, movies and entertainment more broadly, and it’s true for those who come to test their financial acumen against the best of the best while working endless hours.
It's a long way of saying that even if New York City elects a socialist in Mamdani, it won’t be socialist. And that’s because collectivism or the desire for it is not what brings people to New York. It’s just too hard to live there if your aim is to live off others.
It’s worth remembering with Mamdani top of mind. While he ran on all sorts of ridiculous notions that vandalize economics, never forget that rhetoric meant to excite voters is rarely matched by policy. In a national sense, think Donald Trump’s first presidential term during which stocks did well precisely because Trump wasn’t able to do nearly as much damage as his rhetoric suggested he would.
Conversely, think Barack Obama’s two terms in office. Call it a relief rally if you must, but by 2010 he’d lost the House of Representatives, which meant the legislative portion of his presidency largely ended within two years of his moving into the White House. The S&P rose 300%+ under Obama? Returning to Trump, every time he’s tried to live up to his rhetoric in term II, markets have slapped him back to reality.
Back to Mamdani, what he says he’ll do and what he’ll do are two different things. See above. At the same time, see the people of New York City. “Government grocery stores”? Not a chance. They’re not why people come to the City. A $30 minimum wage? Oh please. Hourly wages are already well beyond $30 as is. Does anyone seriously think people move to the City to make $50,000/annually?
Watch what people do, not what they say. It’s the multi-millionaires and billionaires that make New York, New York. It’s what attracts even the socialists to the city? Get it? Without billionaires, socialists have no reason d’etre. Furthemore, the millionaires and billionaires are way too smart for Mamdani.
New York is New York because of its people. Mamdani can’t overcome that, and he won’t. If he could, New York already wouldn’t be New York. Be optimistic. There’s no ruining what’s great.
