The Problem With Mamdani Is He Might Succeed.

A lot of conservative and centrist Democrats do not like that a young, charismatic person, Zohran Mamdani, has won the democratic primary for NYC mayor. The New York times is completely freaking out over it, and Kristen Gillibrand went on a viscously racist rant over it, Adams and Cuomo are trying to convince the other to drop out to try and prevent Mamdani from winning. There are a lot of reasons — from fear of losing their positions in the hierarchy, to flat out racism, to a professed fear that anything with the word socialist attached to it will cost Democrats elections. I suspect, however, that the real reason they are afraid of Mamdani is not that his polices might fail, but that they might succeed.

When you peel back the hysteria, the racism, and the petty office politics, I think you are left with fear of a working government. Mamdani is not really proposing anything radical, if you look at it. He wants to freeze rents in some rent protected housing in order to lessen the affordability crisis, he wants to expand the free buses to all routes from the successful pilot program running now, he wants to open a couple of city run grocery stores in food deserts, raise the minimum wage to something approaching a useful wage, use city resources to build more affordable housing — often in partnership with private builders — and tax millionaires a bit more than they are today to help pay for the programs. I know, what a horrible revolutionary. Why, I bet the guillotines are already being built!

Most of the policy objections are silly. Millionaires won’t leave NYC if they have to pay a little more in taxes. They never do, whatever they say. The really rich live where they want not because of marginal tax rates — they have so much money that the tiny increases here won’t even be noticed — but because it is where they want to live. No one is leaving NYC unless they already wanted to. Massachusetts raised taxes on millionaires and now there are more in the state than there were before. And that is likely in part because of the raised taxes — nice places to live are nice places to live in part because of public amenities and services, all of which are better the more funding they receive. The rich aren’t going to go live in Iowa because of a tax increase they will not feel — if they wanted to live in Iowa they already would.

There are legitimate difficulties in Mamdani’s plans. NYC does not actually control much of its own governance — the mayors often need permission from the state government to make change , especially related to taxes and transit. It Some people claim that their opposition stems from the fear that Mamdani’s program is unrealistic and will make Democrats nationally look terrible. But Mamdani’s plans are economically reasonable and, if implemented, will have a positive effect on the lives of most people in NYC. And I think that is the real problem for a lot of Democratic politicians.

Senator Manchin famously killed the family child credit and other social welfare programs— and likely the Democrats chance at retaining the Presidency — because he was afraid that somewhere some mom would be using the pittance she got to buy drugs. Now, obviously, the social safety net we put up during COIVD did not lead to a world filled with drug ravaged moms. It lead to healthier families, workers more secure in their lives, and generally good outcomes for the economy and working people.

It was, in other words, a complete refutation of neo-liberalism, where the government is the enemy, only private sector can help anything, worker power is an affront to efficiency, and efficiency is the greatest good. Some democrats genuinely believe this ideology, some merely have donors who do, and some are living in 1988 and the height of the Reagan Revolution perpetually. If Mamdani successfully leverages government power to improve lives, then that is dangerous to that worldview. No longer can popularism claim that the Dems have to be afraid of government action.

And Mamdani might succeed. The mayor of Baltimore has helped drive down crime rates to historic lows not by investing in police but by investing in community programs. Bill de Blasio got a universal pre-K program up and running. Congestion pricing is working better than anyone expected and is popular. Government programs can and do work. Mamdani himself has experience making them work. He was one of the originators of the free bus pilot program and reportedly worked hard both with his colleagues in the legislature and with outside groups to help make it happen. He is, potentially, a real sewer socialist, someone intent on using the power of the government to make the city run.

If government is the solution, not the problem, if a party based on helping people live meaningful, economically secure lives, can succeed? That threatens many donors and many worldviews. It challenges how a significant portion of the consultant class understands both their jobs and the world. It could be a springboard to rolling back much of the anti-New Deal coalition that has run our politics since the late seventies. And that, to many people in the Democratic party, is the real threat.