#zohran-mamdani + #politics

And we need to show New Yorkers that we’re able to not only address a generational fiscal crisis, but also able to advance a vision that makes it easier to live in the city, because, frankly, for a working class New Yorker, they measure their life not in the city’s deficit, but in the cost that they have to pay, and it doesn’t mean much to a tenant who’s struggling to pay their rent if the city is facing a $5.4 billion deficit. What means something is if you’re willing to hold a bad landlord accountable, and we’ve held enough bad landlords accountable to win more than $30 million in settlements, have more than 6,000 apartments be repaired, host more than 1,000 New Yorkers at these rental rip-off hearings. And what we’ve found oftentimes is the conditions that people have had to live with have been a part of their life, not just for weeks or months, but for years, sometimes decades, and within that kind of relationship to such impunity, comes a diminished faith in government.

I would say that she’s a good fit for our administration because she’s delivering on our administration’s commitment to make this a safer city and that I do not need to agree with every one of my commissioners or city workers at large about every single issue within their purview. I do, however, need to agree with the decisions that they make and the outcomes that those decisions create.

I would say it is very much the same in terms of being a democratic socialist and believing in government’s ability to transform working people’s lives. I did not think I would think this much about the weather and the relentless nature of it, but the job of a leader is to respond to the crisis, not to ask why the crisis picked them as the leader to respond to.

The president and I disagree on many things in public and in private. We do, however, agree on one thing, which is a love for New York City, and that love, it is one that allows for our relationship to be a productive one, and allows for the city to know that it will not simply be affected by threats, but rather one that, as the president said, the better this city does, the happier he is.

It’s productive, even though he’s “a fascist?” Yes.

I just want to clarify one thing that you said in the beginning, because you mentioned you will need as long as you’re mayor to make good on your three biggest promises. Is that two terms or one term? [Laughing]: Inshallah, it’s two terms.

He trumpeted the securing of $1.2 billion for child care and the fixing of 100,000 potholes across the city. Mamdani also highlighted a new move in conjunction with New York Gov. Kathy Hochul to tax secondary homes worth more than $5 million owned by non-New Yorkers. The pied-à-terre tax is expected to generate more than $500 million in revenue per year.

At last Sunday’s rally, Mamdani announced plans to open a city-owned grocery store in East Harlem. He said the store will be in La Marqueta, a market started by then-New York Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia in 1936 and is expected to open next year.

Mamdani also promised to cut down on commute times by expanding bus service into areas of the city where subway stations are few and far between. He has yet to make progress on his other campaign promises to lower rent and increase taxes to help fund citywide improvements. And he’s still not even close to reaching his goal of free universal child care for all. However, he did promise to use a chunk of the $1.2 billion granted by Hochul to provide 2,000 free spots for two-year-olds in lower-income communities by fall 2026. He said he hopes to grow that 12,000 children by fall 2027 and to reach “full universality” within four years.

More than half (55%) said they have a favorable view of the new mayor, while 75% said they believe Mamdani is working hard.

Also, at least 60% of NYC residents see Mamdani as:

A good leader Fulfilling campaign promises Working to represent all New Yorkers Understanding the city's problems Doing more to unite the city than divide it Despite all that good news for the mayor, less than half of New Yorkers approve of his job performance thus far. But if the majority holds all the aforementioned beliefs, why is his overall approval rating floundering at less than half?

With the state budget unresolved, and Mamdani so far unable to deliver his tax on the rich, many of his bigger campaign promises like free buses and affordable housing remain up in the air too.

Mamdani's approval rating is lower than that of Eric Adams (61%) and Bill de Blasio (49%) at the same time during their administrations.

Kind of a shitty, misrepresented framing for this article, but those that bother to read may see that his positions are more nuanced and dare we say open-minded than the title might lead one to believe. Just like any media coverage of a politician, the media reports on the most extreme things you can probably find an inflates them. Yet if you see the guy speak in an interview or even bother to read beyond the sound bite you see he’s quite well informed.

During a lengthy interview on the Odd Lots podcast, Mamdani went into more detail about the kinds of deregulation he supported to enable more housing construction, such as ending parking minimums and two-stair requirements. He also criticized the New York City Council's practice of "member deference," whereby the Council will reject housing projects that are opposed by the councilmember whose district they'd be built in.

It would go much too far to say that Mamdani has had a deeper ideological shift to a more market-oriented perspective. He has continued to insist that rent freezes and faster permitting of new housing can coexist as complementary policies.

HOPE. TURN THE VOLUME UP.

New York will remain a city of immigrants, a city built by immigrants, powered by immigrants. And as of tonight, led by an immigrant.

His primary win was a spectacular repudiation of the pollsters, who with glossy charts and graphs try to induce the public to consent to middle-of-the-road, incrementalist politicians who give up before the negotiations have even started. Meanwhile? The median age of first-time homebuyers has soared from 33 years old during the pandemic to 38 in 2024. If that’s pragmatism, is it any surprise that no one’s interested? “It’s not about money, it’s about will,” Mamdani told Stewart.

• 90K volunteers on his campaign!

Politics is not something that you have, it's something that you do.

It's an opportunity to actually show that this whole campaign where we've talked about freezing the rent, making buses faster, free delivering universal childcare, these are not just slogans. These are commitments. And when we deliver them here in New York City, it will be also the delivery of a politics that can actually aspire for more than what you're living through. And for so many people across the city, politics has just become synonymous with an argument of celebrate the little you have or lose that.

It's not about money, it's about will.

One position Mamdani has stood firm on is his criticism of Israel and lifelong support for Palestinian rights. It represents a break from the Democratic party establishment and could be a deciding factor for many voters in a city with the largest Jewish population outside of Israel.