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I'm fascinated by how big of a deal this mayor race seems to be to the entire republican party. Its like this is some kind of doomsday to them. All republican media, subreddits, all such things are absolutely laser focused on Mamdani like this is a massive deal.
Maybe NYC is more of a big deal as a political canary in the coal mine than I realize? I suppose NYC gave us our current president, lol.
I can understand why certain ideas of his are critically terrible for the ruling class, but the extent to which they are shrieking at Mamdani's success is really odd to me. I suppose NYC is the best possible model for showing ideas can work on large populations? Maybe an NYC mayor has the ability to showcase political change that is otherwise not possible?
Not really sure, but there is something very special about this race and I'm really interested to see how this develops.
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On June 27 2025 05:54 Mohdoo wrote:
I'm fascinated by how big of a deal this mayor race seems to be to the entire republican party. Its like this is some kind of doomsday to them. All republican media, subreddits, all such things are absolutely laser focused on Mamdani like this is a massive deal.
Maybe NYC is more of a big deal as a political canary in the coal mine than I realize? I suppose NYC gave us our current president, lol.
I can understand why certain ideas of his are critically terrible for the ruling class, but the extent to which they are shrieking at Mamdani's success is really odd to me. I suppose NYC is the best possible model for showing ideas can work on large populations? Maybe an NYC mayor has the ability to showcase political change that is otherwise not possible?
Not really sure, but there is something very special about this race and I'm really interested to see how this develops.
Fascists need an enemy. The more enemies they have, interior and exterior once, the better. And those enemies need to be threatening enough to justify more fascism. There needs to be a constant threat or you wouldn't need the fascists anymore.
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On June 27 2025 05:54 Mohdoo wrote:
I'm fascinated by how big of a deal this mayor race seems to be to the entire republican party. Its like this is some kind of doomsday to them. All republican media, subreddits, all such things are absolutely laser focused on Mamdani like this is a massive deal.
Maybe NYC is more of a big deal as a political canary in the coal mine than I realize? I suppose NYC gave us our current president, lol.
I can understand why certain ideas of his are critically terrible for the ruling class, but the extent to which they are shrieking at Mamdani's success is really odd to me. I suppose NYC is the best possible model for showing ideas can work on large populations? Maybe an NYC mayor has the ability to showcase political change that is otherwise not possible?
Not really sure, but there is something very special about this race and I'm really interested to see how this develops.
This isn't that much different than a Chicago or LA deal. Difference being NYC has more billionaires (and most of the money laundering via real estate) that are about to be taxed. Of course they don't like it. Chicago is more progressive but gets bogged down in old style politics (mafia/mob and crime rates by out of state guns) that kind of overshadow any good they do or could be doing. LA is LA. I don't know much about that area tbh.
I think Mamdani is just a new boogieman that has really good progressive ideas that the monied interests don't really like and are trying to scare people into voting against him.
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It's not just MAGA that dislikes big city progressive mayors. Simply look at the approval ratings some of them are putting up. Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson was once clocked at something like 9% approval rating. MAGA is just not that big in Chicago, Kanye West excluded. They get primaried or recalled left and right. The residents openly criticize the state of affairs in their cities, which have zero republican obstructionism, by the way. They lament over how the votes went in the previous election, and then acknowledge that they will vote for someone along the same ideological lines next time. The weird cope they do is that if they sense the person doing the criticizing is right-wing then they pretend like everything is fine. It's like fans of a football club that shit talk the performance of their manager or players but if they know it's a fan of a rival team doing the shit talking then fuck that guy.
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On June 27 2025 05:54 Mohdoo wrote:
I'm fascinated by how big of a deal this mayor race seems to be to the entire republican party. Its like this is some kind of doomsday to them. All republican media, subreddits, all such things are absolutely laser focused on Mamdani like this is a massive deal.
Maybe NYC is more of a big deal as a political canary in the coal mine than I realize? I suppose NYC gave us our current president, lol.
I can understand why certain ideas of his are critically terrible for the ruling class, but the extent to which they are shrieking at Mamdani's success is really odd to me. I suppose NYC is the best possible model for showing ideas can work on large populations? Maybe an NYC mayor has the ability to showcase political change that is otherwise not possible?
Not really sure, but there is something very special about this race and I'm really interested to see how this develops.
It is apparently still impossible for many lefties to realize that people on the right actually disagree with them. Instead of secretly "knowing" that they're right and just being stubborn to maintain whatever newly invented privilege in vogue this year. I assure you, no one is afraid that city run grocery stores, rent control, or replacing cops with social workers is going to *succeed.*
Second, the reason NYC gets so much attention is twofold. One, it's the biggest city on the country and it's near a large portion of the nation's population. California is the largest state but since we're 3 hours away by time-zone relatively little of what's happening over here gets national attention. Two, NY has a disproportionate amount of news concentration. Many national news services are hosted in NYC and it's a cultural center. People around the country often know and talk about NYC because that's the type of thing a lot of conversation makers are talking about. There are even multiple right of center publications in NYC like National Review and the Manhattan Institute/City Journal.
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On June 27 2025 09:13 Introvert wrote:Show nested quote +On June 27 2025 05:54 Mohdoo wrote:
I'm fascinated by how big of a deal this mayor race seems to be to the entire republican party. Its like this is some kind of doomsday to them. All republican media, subreddits, all such things are absolutely laser focused on Mamdani like this is a massive deal.
Maybe NYC is more of a big deal as a political canary in the coal mine than I realize? I suppose NYC gave us our current president, lol.
I can understand why certain ideas of his are critically terrible for the ruling class, but the extent to which they are shrieking at Mamdani's success is really odd to me. I suppose NYC is the best possible model for showing ideas can work on large populations? Maybe an NYC mayor has the ability to showcase political change that is otherwise not possible?
Not really sure, but there is something very special about this race and I'm really interested to see how this develops. It is apparently still impossible for many lefties to realize that people on the right actually disagree with them. Instead of secretly "knowing" that they're right and just being stubborn to maintain whatever newly invented privilege in vogue this year. I assure you, no one is afraid that city run grocery stores, rent control, or replacing cops with social workers is going to *succeed.* Second, the reason NYC gets so much attention is twofold. One, it's the biggest city on the country and it's near a large portion of the nation's population. California is the largest state but since we're 3 hours away by time-zone relatively little of what's happening over here gets national attention. Two, NY has a disproportionate amount of news concentration. Many national news services are hosted in NYC and it's a cultural center. People around the country often know and talk about NYC because that's the type of thing a lot of conversation makers are talking about. There are even multiple right of center publications in NYC like National Review and the Manhattan Institute/City Journal.
I'm not assuming fake disagreement. I'm noting the extreme interest in the race, but your description of why NYC gets so much attention makes sense. I hadn't considered the stuff about national news and it cultural center, so thank you for that. Based on what you're saying, I think people on either the left or the right being worried about NYC's politics harming political desires is reasonable. People who advocate against xyz might be worried about xyz succeeding in NYC. Even if the NYC example doesn't readily to other cities/states, it being cited as an example could do a lot of harm to political efforts in other places.
Rent control and police reform isn't something I expect fruitful conversation from since its all been discussed a million times.
But I honestly don't see the issue with city run grocery stores. NYC having grocery stores that do not seek to turn a profit should be strictly good for people, right? Until he starts advocating for NYC to seize other grocery stores and control food supply generally speaking, it seems harmless at worst. A library isn't run for profit and still manages to provide a lot of value to people despite books still being sold in stores. I imagine a city-run grocery store would just be a cost-focused grocery store that is run with the intent of breaking even. In such a case, what goes wrong?
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No ones going to talk about who the governor of Mississippi or west virginia is preforming because no one belives that things can ever get better for them. Trying to cut off what works at the knees before it catches on throughout the rest of the nation is just smart baseball. Republicans never have to worry about the consequences of their policies because they never try to make things better in the first place. They only fail when they fail to conserve the bad status quo in their communities, failure for them is the measure of success.
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On the grocery stores. The anti-socialist argument would be: Grocery stores will be run at a loss and kept afloat by tax payers. Because they're run at a loss, they'll out compete and push out private business that can't afford to operate at a loss over a long period of time. As private business goes out of business, society becomes more and more reliant on the socialist grocery store. The socialist grocery stores corner the market and gain a monopoly. Unlike a traditional private monopoly, they probably won't jack up prices... although there will be pressure from taxpayers to not be such a financial burden, so it could happen. However, almost assuredly they'll A) let quality slip. B) No innovation.
You end up with a really shitty service and no pressure to improve. It won't happen overnight, it takes decades to actualize, but it's the slow rot of socialism. It's the argument against all socialized things because it happens everywhere where socialism takes hold.
I personally make an exception for things that naturally become a monopoly like emergency healthcare and would like to see us go to universal coverage for medicine. It'd be better than the private monopolies that exist. However, even there, the world would suffer from a lack of investment and new treatment if the US went to socialized medicine.
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On June 27 2025 09:24 Mohdoo wrote:Show nested quote +On June 27 2025 09:13 Introvert wrote:On June 27 2025 05:54 Mohdoo wrote:
I'm fascinated by how big of a deal this mayor race seems to be to the entire republican party. Its like this is some kind of doomsday to them. All republican media, subreddits, all such things are absolutely laser focused on Mamdani like this is a massive deal.
Maybe NYC is more of a big deal as a political canary in the coal mine than I realize? I suppose NYC gave us our current president, lol.
I can understand why certain ideas of his are critically terrible for the ruling class, but the extent to which they are shrieking at Mamdani's success is really odd to me. I suppose NYC is the best possible model for showing ideas can work on large populations? Maybe an NYC mayor has the ability to showcase political change that is otherwise not possible?
Not really sure, but there is something very special about this race and I'm really interested to see how this develops. It is apparently still impossible for many lefties to realize that people on the right actually disagree with them. Instead of secretly "knowing" that they're right and just being stubborn to maintain whatever newly invented privilege in vogue this year. I assure you, no one is afraid that city run grocery stores, rent control, or replacing cops with social workers is going to *succeed.* Second, the reason NYC gets so much attention is twofold. One, it's the biggest city on the country and it's near a large portion of the nation's population. California is the largest state but since we're 3 hours away by time-zone relatively little of what's happening over here gets national attention. Two, NY has a disproportionate amount of news concentration. Many national news services are hosted in NYC and it's a cultural center. People around the country often know and talk about NYC because that's the type of thing a lot of conversation makers are talking about. There are even multiple right of center publications in NYC like National Review and the Manhattan Institute/City Journal. I'm not assuming fake disagreement. I'm noting the extreme interest in the race, but your description of why NYC gets so much attention makes sense. I hadn't considered the stuff about national news and it cultural center, so thank you for that. Based on what you're saying, I think people on either the left or the right being worried about NYC's politics harming political desires is reasonable. People who advocate against xyz might be worried about xyz succeeding in NYC. Even if the NYC example doesn't readily to other cities/states, it being cited as an example could do a lot of harm to political efforts in other places. Rent control and police reform isn't something I expect fruitful conversation from since its all been discussed a million times. But I honestly don't see the issue with city run grocery stores. NYC having grocery stores that do not seek to turn a profit should be strictly good for people, right? Until he starts advocating for NYC to seize other grocery stores and control food supply generally speaking, it seems harmless at worst. A library isn't run for profit and still manages to provide a lot of value to people despite books still being sold in stores. I imagine a city-run grocery store would just be a cost-focused grocery store that is run with the intent of breaking even. In such a case, what goes wrong?
I think Ren above is mostly right. It seems to be that things like grocery stores would be a classic case of something that should be/stay private. For one thing, iirc the margins in that business are fairly low, so any savings you would gain from having no profit motive would be minimal, even theoretically. Second, retail, high volume industries can be very sensitive to price signals. When the price of a bunch of bananas goes up, it's probably not price-gouging. Trying to fight the market price signaling mechanism will just lead to less stuff that costs more. Third, the expanded risk of corruption and capture. Presumably, all employees would become city employees and would suddenly be bargaining against the very people their new job arrangement is meant to help. Depending on economic conditions, their wages could be stuck low because high prices would hurt the politicians, or they could at times be far too high as they negotiate against their own employer, if you will. Normally how it goes with government workers is the latter, but given how sensitive people are to grocery prices I could see the former happening. Which circles back to an above point. The politicians are tempted to essentially fix prices, something I think (hope) most people here know is almost always a bad idea. Nevermind all the current business owners and the other businesses they work with being put out of work potentially. I'm sure there are other arguments as well. Is there a single place in the western world, or anywhere, where there are publicly run grocery stores? In the final analysis it seems like a gimmick more than anything.
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