Zohran Mamdani elected mayor of NYC and I honestly do not care at all
Looking around various feeds and even my own personal social media on the rare moments that I bother to look at it I see that something that conservatives are all up in arms for in their latest manufactured outrage is that Mamdani, someone that I probably never would have heard about if it hadn't been made a big deal of, has been elected the mayor of New York City.
He is Muslim and a lot of people have been complaining that he is a socialist which of course gets turned into communist by people with political blinders on.
I don't have any idea what the guy is like but one of the main reasons that I don't allow it to bother me is because I have absolutely nothing to do with NYC, and I don't want anything to do with NYC either!
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Aren't people tired of everything political being shoved down their throats all the time? I didn't really even know who he was running against until my news feed got fixated on the guy but it is my understanding that he beat out Andrew Cuomo for the job and honestly, does anyone actually want that guy as the leader of anything anymore?
I have a few friends that live in NYC and I haven't asked them what they think of Zohran and they haven't been very vocal about it either. Sure the news is going to be able to find some very passionate and perhaps a bit nuts people on the streets when they want to sensationalize the news a bit but one thing that gets me about the manufactured "panic" from the right about this is that is it really a big surprise to anyone that ultra-left and blue no matter who NYC elected a blue guy?
This is like the left getting upset that Montana elects a conservative that wears cowboy hats or that a place in Utah elects a Mormon. Of course they are going to do that.
I also find it sad and funny at the same time that depending on the news source, they are really rubbing it in that Zohran won and this is somehow a loss for Trump and Republicans. I don't think anyone with any sort of sense actually thought that a conservative was going to win the mayoral race in NYC.
We also need to look at the fact that no matter how great or how terrible this guy ends up being, that it is going to have exactly zero impact on my life down here in North Carolina, nor will it have any effect on a vast majority of anyone, anywhere. Unless you live in NYC, why do you care who they elect?
I've grown rather tired of the "us vs. them" of politics that seems to just completely consume a lot of people's existence and we only need to go so far as the Elk's Lodge in my city of New Bern, North Carolina to see how ingrained this has all become: Many of the boys that I enjoy a coupla cold ones with a few days a week are super upset that this guy won but I normally will kind of suggest they shut the hell up about it.
What happens in NYC doesn't have any impact on our lives here in New Bern and it is only because of media manipulation that anyone is elated about such a victory or that people down here or really anywhere outside of NYC would be thinking that the sky is falling because he won.
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In my mind, it is just ridiculous that a Republican even bothers to run in NYC kind of like how it makes very little sense to waste money on a Democrat running for office in Oklahoma - you aren't going to win. These particular places had their party lines drawn quite some time ago and the only thing that stands out in my mind is how the heck did Rudy Giuliani manage to win his mayoral race back whenever the crud that was?
For the angry conservatives out there, let me put your brainwashed minds at ease with a little information here. If you must politicize everything just know that if Zohran does anything other than absolutely kill it at his job, that it's kind of a losing situation for him. His proposals of making things free don't work, and I don't know how they possibly can work, then it's a win for anyone who thinks socialism is a bad idea. I don't even know if the guy is really seriously considering socialist policies and even if he does try to implement them, its not like it is going to affect anyone that doesn't live in New York City. If any of his stuff fails on the other hand, the media will do their usual game of either highlighting the crap out of it if they are conservative and completely ignoring it if they are liberal.
I think that everyone out there that is losing their minds over this needs to take a step back and realize that maybe, just maybe, you are being manipulated by the media. How can people not see that? Already people are blaming Sliwa, the Republican for "siphoning votes awayfrom Cuomo." Give me a break! Cuomo is one of the most disliked politicians in recent history, he defeated himself by running as an independent.
So what do you think internet-land? Do you care that NYC elected a very left-leaning mayor? Are you at all surprised by it? If so, why?
To me I feel as though most people probably have enough things to worry about in their lives that they actually DO have some control over and it is simply a complete and total waste of time to get all worked up about something that they have no control over and also stands very little chance of affecting their life at all.
Mandani ran on promises he can't keep based on ideas that don't work, but he won because he was appealing to the real problems voters are facing. While the party elites play games, the coom folk are burdened by inflation, debt, costs outpacing earnings, and a government that is failing them.
Mandani promises to make government work for the people by central planning and price controls, in response to the failures of mainstream Democrat and Republican central planning and price controls. Yay. It's on the other coast, and I don't particularly care. It's the same tired promise of salvation through the sacrament of democracy.
That's what I keep hearing about the promises that can't possibly work. And then we hear the doom and gloom stories about how all the rich are going to leave NYC... get real... those people are not going anywhere. If anything a few upper middle class people might take off but the poor don't have the means to go anywhere and the wealthy are so crazy wealthy that this wont change their lives a great deal.
It'll be interesting to see what happens but in the end, it doesn't matter to me down here in NC at all. Do what you want in your own yard I say!
Those leaving New York have mostly been middle to upper middle class. I suspect this is at least in part to do with the large number of companies leaving New York because of tax and other cost factors. There have been a lot of companies that have left New York State (mostly New York City) for places like St. Petersburg, Miami, Houston, and Nashville among other places. Mamdani has said that he wants to significantly increase corporate taxes to as high as 11.5% (which would make it the highest in the country). More companies leaving New York seems like a pretty safe bet and with those companies will go at least some jobs and people.
It's easy to say that it doesn't matter what happens in NYC unless you live there and for the most part I agree. However, once someone makes it to a position like Mayor of New York City, there is a much greater chance that they will eventually make it to something like congressman or senator then it matters for everybody.
People cannot complain if the vote turnout was only 25% and they must live with it. The same thing happened in England with the general elections and if you can vote you have to.
I was talking to someone the other day and found out that Australians are legally obligated to vote or something like that. As in they will face some sort of criminal charges if they don't do so.
I think your vote is that important everyone should vote. In SA we have little hope of changing things so your vote actually means that much more because it is still reflecting in the numbers. I have seen low turn outs in the UK and US whether it is for a General Election or Mayoral and if you don't vote you cannot complain with what follows.
everyone gets really fired up about national elections that don't change their lives all that much but ignore the local elections that have immediate impact on their lives. It doesn't make sense.
I focus more on the local elections and in national ones I will normally vote for a Libertarian that has zero chance of winning.
I used to live in NY and heard Sliwa on the radio every morning. His voice is lower and raspy now and he rhymes a lot is all I heard in the recent clips. If there was ranked choice voting in NY then Cuomo or Sliwa would have won. Democrats put this in red states to push out stalwart conservatives and had great success.
yeah i suppose that makes sense. When I was in college a guy I knew was running for city council. he was young and vibrant and got the attention of the younger voters. The establishment old lady that had held the office for many years introduced another candidate to the fold: A cooler and even younger candidate that had no chance of winning but he/she succeeded in siphoning off just enough votes to keep her in office. Its a dirty tactic for sure, but politics are always dirty.
Terms like "communist" and "fascist" get thrown around to easily in general. Having said that, some of his positions are concerning. His support for publicly owned grocery stores and increased rent controls for instance.
In a lot of places, expensive housing is at least in part because of regulation that makes it difficult and/or expensive to build new housing (California in particular comes to mind). In New York City, I think they are simply running out of space. Increased rent control is likely to make private ownership of rental property less feasible. You can't artificially control rent without artificially controlling property values and other costs that go into rental properties.
I live far from NYC so it doesn't really affect me directly...except for the possibility of more New Yorkers moving to Florida anyway. It sucks here, stay away!
I hear that a lot and I know you are joking. If I was to move anywhere away from North Carolina, Florida would be right there at the top of the list.