On Mamdani
I am resentful that I have paid so much attention the New York City mayoral election, but here we are. I doubt I have anything insightful to add to the discourse, but that has never stopped me before.
The Good
My gut feeling is relief that Mamdani won over Cuomo. If nothing else Mamdani mobilized a lot of young New Yorkers into volunteering for his campaign (apparently 104k volunteers participated in his campaign?? That is like 10% of the people who voted for him!). This has been a dark year for progressives, and to many people he offered hope.
I think it is unambiguously positive that Mamdani won such a resounding victory. It will be difficult for others to argue that he does not have a clear mandate. I think it is even more impressive that Mamdani won despite being outspent and outsupported by Cuomo's allies.
I do not know that Mamdani will be a good mayor, but he is an effective campaigner and an effective communicator. He also has a good social media game.
He is an articulate speaker who can actually answer a question. As an experienced politician he has a tendency to veer to his talking points, but he is capable of talking with nuance about issues, and (much like Kathleen Wynne) he comes across as authentic even when he is hiding things.
He is able to tailor his message to different audiences. In his speeches and social media he focuses on his three big policy positions: "Fast, free buses", "Freeze rents", and "Accessible childcare". That is the tactic Pierre Poilievre took during his campaign ("Axe the Tax!" "Build the Homes!") but Mamdani actually pulled it off successfully. Then when grilled by the School of Journalism at Columbia he answers questions with more nuance.
The Bad
And yet.
And yet his policies are probably bad. I am especially skeptical of "fast, free buses," but overall the socialist approach to governing is littered with landmines. My feeling these days is that nobody wants to pay taxes but we all demand expensive services -- particularly in terms of health care and infrastructure. Even if Mandami taxes the billionaires I have doubts that this free bus plan will work out.
The anecdote that stands out most to me is the parable of Mamdani's scavenger hunt. Back in August his campaign team held a scavenger hunt across New York City, emphasizing previous New York mayors and their accomplishments. The hunt was a huge success, which was the problem. Organizers planned for 500 people and so printed that many free tickets. Those tickets were gone almost instantly. Then for the rest of the day eager beavers filled up the buses looking for clues, which apparently irritated regular commuters. The cost for participating in the scavenger hunt was relatively cheap, and a lot of (mostly young, mostly white) people took advantage. So demand far exceeded supply, and Mamdani's organizing team was overwhelmed.
It's not difficult to extrapolate this to Mamdani's other promises. He estimates that it will cost $700 million USD to cover the cost of lost fares and make bus transit free. But if bus transit is fast and free then it will be popular, and I don't see how supply keeps up with demand. Then -- just as with Canadian health care -- people can look forward to long wait times and low availability. Even in a democratically socialist utopia like New York City, supply and demand matter.
Contrast this to congestion pricing. That policy has (according to urbanist zealots) been a great success in New York City, reducing traffic jams and improving safety. But congestion pricing works because it makes transportation more expensive, thus reducing demand. Fast and free buses do the opposite.
In an ideal world the increased demand for fast and free buses would reduce traffic overall, but I doubt this will happen. Some people who would otherwise drive might take transit, but if buses really become free then people will make a lot of additional bus trips they would otherwise not make. Worse, buses will be free and subways will not be, so some people who might otherwise take the more-efficient subway might opt to take buses instead, increasing demand further.
Personally I suspect that Mamdani will have a hard time getting his promises through, and that this will cost him political capital. I don't know how long his honeymoon period will be, but I expect that when he falls out of favour he will fall hard. But even if he succeeds in implementing some of his agenda New Yorkers will not necessarily be happy with the results. Even if buses are free subways won't be. Even if some rents are stabilized lots more won't.
I am also certain that Mamdani will be much less popular in a year than he is now. He is going to have to govern, which means making unpopular tradeoffs, dealing with scandals, and betraying some of the innocent ideals he expressed during the election campaign. These disappointments are inevitable; I just hope Mamdani will handle them skillfully and authentically.
I hope Mamdani will openly acknowledge the tradeoffs he faces, and be humble in the choices that he makes, but I doubt that he will actually do this. He is under too much scrutiny. Powerful interests will jump on his every fumble to try and unseat him. Most likely he will become another polished politician spouting empty talking points to deflect blame that he should be accountable for. It would be great if he could transcend this and remain a human being, but I think that is too much to ask.
I wish that Mamdani could remain accessible to New Yorkers. He gained a lot of attention for interacting with regular New Yorkers and listening to them. As threats to his personal security increase, this will change. He could also fall victim to the usual leftist danger of becoming paranoid and obsessed with suppressing his political enemies and "counter revolutionaries". I hope that New York City is pluralistic and low-stakes enough that (unlike, say, Venezuela or Cuba) Mamdani manages to avoid this, but it is a danger.
I also hope that -- unlike Barack Obama -- Mamdani does not take the huge volunteer base that got him elected for granted. There are lots of ways to mobilize an energized volunteer base, and they do not all involve electoral politics. Mamdani has some real opportunities here to get New Yorkers helping each other in concrete ways, if he can keep those volunteers engaged. But if/when Mamdani pulls and Obama and abandons those volunteers once he starts governing, then he will suffer for it and so will New York City.
The Ugly
I have been neglecting municipal, provincial and federal Canadian politics and reading way too much about Trump and Andrew Cuomo and Zohran Mamdani and even Curtis Sliwa.
I am also upset that so much of my exposure to this New York City race has been so one-sided. All I have heard about Andrew Cuomo is that he handled COVID poorly and that he resigned in scandal because he was (accused of being) a sex pest. Certainly I think Cuomo deserves scorn for not taking no for an answer when he lost the Democratic primary, but it also looks like he accomplished some positive things as New York State governor. I get the strong sense that I have not seen a balanced view of the two candidates, and thus am ill-prepared to conclude that Mamdani was actually the better candidate, and not just the candidate that was more popular.
The level of Islamophobia expressed during the campaign has been remarkable, although I suppose it is not surprising.