Josh, New York City is home to half a million Orthodox Jews. They are already subject to alarming levels of one-sided street violence. Maybe you don’t care about his views about Israel - do you care about the safety of those half million New Yorkers? And you can’t brush this off as “file it under crime and safety”, because whatever decision he makes about how to relate to the NYPD, the recent spike in attacks on visible Jews has come with anti-Zionism as a pretext - one Mamdani is signaling that he will happily be credulous about.
I really think you need to reconsider how much of Adams's success was due to a fantastic team of deputy mayors and staff across city agencies who resigned when he was federally indicted last year. I see a second term for him playing out very similarly to Trump - he'll interpret his win as a mandate, will shoo away competent bureaucrats at every level, and will double down on the corrupt self-dealing. Instead of the dynamic of his first term where he'd attend galas while his staff did the tireless work of running the city, his second term looks poised to see him attend galas while his staff of lackeys does God knows what.
Also, can we stop celebrating his trash containerization? It's been piloted to what - ten city blocks? I'm going to save the accolades until he actually implements this city-wide.
Great piece. I do think his views on I-P are suggestive of an ideological fanaticism that doesn't seem confined to that issue, although his "I'm listening" shtick also seems genuine, I agree.
One other reason to vote for Adams, however, is to see the reaction of the top NYTimes commenter who implored the paper not to publish on Mamdani's affirmative action scam because he was their "last source of hope." The personality cult around him (Mamdani) has not been pleasant to see.
It's somewhat ironic that the loudest complainers about COL in NYC are the well educated yuppies who also have the luxury to pick up and move to a more affordable area. Absent letting crime run rampant and returning NYC to the 70's, Mamdani is not going to be able to solve the affordablilty issues. Although to be fair, I don't think any of the candidates would be able to solve it either. I think this cohort is going to be disappointed for the next four years.
Why have you written 3 articles on the NYC mayor race and 0 on the single worst law that has ever been written that just passed? This topic has been severely under reported
Your excellent column brings to mind the memorable bumper sticker from Edwin Edwards' 1991 campaign for re-election as governor of Louisiana against David Duke: "Vote for the crook, it's important".
I wish Josh had spent more time talking about education. Zohran (hopefully) cannot repeal the high school entrance exam, but can he change it? He can appoint the chancellor of NYC public schools, and it seems very plausible that he would pick someone with very weird ideas on equity.
Some of the most progressive activists in education seem to actively oppose excellence itself, and they are gaining scary amounts of power in some places. Would Zohran contribute to this trend, and how much damage would he be able to do?
I really love seeing young leftists internalize the idea that commerce is inevitable and for it to work for people, it needs to be lightly regulated in some cases. A lot of them are smart, decent, and motivated and should be encouraged when they're on the right track. Hope it sticks, we'll see.
That's one of the reasons I find economics such an interesting discipline; no matter what system you try to impose, the basic laws of supply and demand are stubbornly true. The best interventions (anti-monopoly regulation, reducing artificial constraints on supply, etc) take advantage of the "invisible hand" while the worst ones exacerbate it (and drive commerce into the black market).
Josh, New York City is home to half a million Orthodox Jews. They are already subject to alarming levels of one-sided street violence. Maybe you don’t care about his views about Israel - do you care about the safety of those half million New Yorkers? And you can’t brush this off as “file it under crime and safety”, because whatever decision he makes about how to relate to the NYPD, the recent spike in attacks on visible Jews has come with anti-Zionism as a pretext - one Mamdani is signaling that he will happily be credulous about.
ding ding ding
I really think you need to reconsider how much of Adams's success was due to a fantastic team of deputy mayors and staff across city agencies who resigned when he was federally indicted last year. I see a second term for him playing out very similarly to Trump - he'll interpret his win as a mandate, will shoo away competent bureaucrats at every level, and will double down on the corrupt self-dealing. Instead of the dynamic of his first term where he'd attend galas while his staff did the tireless work of running the city, his second term looks poised to see him attend galas while his staff of lackeys does God knows what.
Also, can we stop celebrating his trash containerization? It's been piloted to what - ten city blocks? I'm going to save the accolades until he actually implements this city-wide.
Great piece. I do think his views on I-P are suggestive of an ideological fanaticism that doesn't seem confined to that issue, although his "I'm listening" shtick also seems genuine, I agree.
One other reason to vote for Adams, however, is to see the reaction of the top NYTimes commenter who implored the paper not to publish on Mamdani's affirmative action scam because he was their "last source of hope." The personality cult around him (Mamdani) has not been pleasant to see.
Mamdani routinely campaigns with Hasan Piker who calls Orthodox Jews “inbred.” I fail to see the high-minded critique of Israeli policy in that.
It's somewhat ironic that the loudest complainers about COL in NYC are the well educated yuppies who also have the luxury to pick up and move to a more affordable area. Absent letting crime run rampant and returning NYC to the 70's, Mamdani is not going to be able to solve the affordablilty issues. Although to be fair, I don't think any of the candidates would be able to solve it either. I think this cohort is going to be disappointed for the next four years.
Why have you written 3 articles on the NYC mayor race and 0 on the single worst law that has ever been written that just passed? This topic has been severely under reported
Your excellent column brings to mind the memorable bumper sticker from Edwin Edwards' 1991 campaign for re-election as governor of Louisiana against David Duke: "Vote for the crook, it's important".
As you said in your prior email about the race, there are really only shitty choices.
I wish Josh had spent more time talking about education. Zohran (hopefully) cannot repeal the high school entrance exam, but can he change it? He can appoint the chancellor of NYC public schools, and it seems very plausible that he would pick someone with very weird ideas on equity.
Some of the most progressive activists in education seem to actively oppose excellence itself, and they are gaining scary amounts of power in some places. Would Zohran contribute to this trend, and how much damage would he be able to do?
I really love seeing young leftists internalize the idea that commerce is inevitable and for it to work for people, it needs to be lightly regulated in some cases. A lot of them are smart, decent, and motivated and should be encouraged when they're on the right track. Hope it sticks, we'll see.
That's one of the reasons I find economics such an interesting discipline; no matter what system you try to impose, the basic laws of supply and demand are stubbornly true. The best interventions (anti-monopoly regulation, reducing artificial constraints on supply, etc) take advantage of the "invisible hand" while the worst ones exacerbate it (and drive commerce into the black market).