Six days after Zohran Mamdani’s election as New York City’s next mayor, the jubilation and recriminations haven’t subsided. Conservatives and moderates ought to be honest about the outcome: they treated his out-of-nowhere June Democratic primary win over the vile former Gov. Andrew Cuomo as little more than a punchline, an extension of the house-of-cards Kamalot from last fall, failing, from Day One to acknowledge that Mamdani was a smart, media-savvy candidate with ties to big money. That’s now in the past.
Some conservatives, taking cues from the hysterical New York Post, immediately made silly claims that the socialist’s victory would result in a million people leaving New York for less penurious tax-crazy states, even including New Jersey, which is hardly a haven. This is ludicrous at even a cursory glance: moving, particularly out of the state, is difficult and time-consuming. Perhaps a number of noisy billionaires and corporations will flee (and toast themselves on social media), but for the rest of that “million,” they have weigh the threat of the new mayor’s promised “progressive” policies against selling a house, uprooting children for different schools, finding new jobs and leaving friends and neighborhoods they’re accustomed to.
That’s a preposterous scenario. Most New Yorkers, even those most virulently opposed to Mamdani’s perceived anti-Semitism, free buses that could instantly becoming homeless shelters and vindictive higher taxes, will see how it shakes out. I’d guess—and it’s simply a guess—that Mamdani will be shackled by a permanent bureaucracy that will slow down his most outrageous plans (like a $30 dollar minimum wage by 2030, when he might be out of office) and that he’ll move closer to traditional leftism. Or maybe he’ll take on Trump’s audacious persona and promise this and that, and then change his mind.
The New York Times—which didn’t endorse Mamdani—congratulated the Mayor-elect in a lengthy editorial that offered recommendations on how he should proceed on Jan. 1. The tone was generous but read more like the paper’s editorial wish list than anything of substance. (And it can’t be said this was written on “deadline”: like advance obituaries, the editorial was likely scripted around Oct. 1, along with a similar six-point plan for Cuomo in case he won.)
The editorial, after tedious, schoolmarm paragraphs of wishy-washy suggestions, concluded: “[Mamdani] can win at least some of his skeptics over getting results as mayor. He should start by building a leadership team light on democratic socialists and heavy on officials with records of accomplishment and proven management skills. [Not one such person was named, and wasn’t it sclerotic “proven” officials Mamdani ran against?] He should then remain laser-focused on tangible improvements to city life. If he can build a more affordable city where New Yorkers feel as safe as they did in the early 2010s, where the subways and buses move more quickly, where both schools and early child care improve and where good-paying jobs are plentiful, he will have a claim on being one of the city’s great mayors.”
That last sentence is delusional—does anyone believe “good-paying jobs [will be] plentiful”?—but that’s what used to be called “the honeymoon period” that a new elected official is afforded.
The Washington Post, reacting to Mamdani’s victory speech—on Saturday—was alarmist in an editorial. The first sentence: “A new era of class warfare has begun in New York, and no one is more excited than Generalissimo Zohran Mamdani. Witness the mayor-elect’s change of character since his Tuesday election victory.”
On Nov. 3, Michele Goldberg, anticipating Zohran’s-my-man in Gracie Mansion, attempted to set up a choice between the new mayor and the racist podcaster Nick Fuentes as a battle during the coming year, culminating in the midterm elections next November. She writes about Fuentes: “His sneering, proudly transgressive attitude has made him a hero to legions of mostly young men who resent all forms of political gatekeeping… Plenty of conservatives, especially Jewish ones, abhor Fuentes’s growing clout. But by cheering on Donald Trump as he promoted conspiracy theories and systematically destroyed bulwarks against nativism and bigotry in the Republican Party, they helped make Fuentes’s rise possible.”
Pied Piper Fuentes’ cadre of groypers had little or no influence on last week’s Democratic mini-sweep in the off-year elections, and I’d imagine he’s an albatross who’ll be blacklisted by the GOP by the time Santa, in his big-boy costume, shimmies down hundreds of Brooklyn chimneys. Republicans got swamped last week because of the economy, and could face difficulties keeping control of Congress, snubbed by voters across the country who’ve never heard of Fuentes.
The picture above is of my non-groyper friends Grant Abrams (a gentle, “smile on your brother” guy; catnip to the gals) and G.I. Joe, one of the few ROTC members at Johns Hopkins at the time, and a guy who had strong opinions (mostly conservative). Jousting in debate with G.I. Joe required a clear head, since he was extraordinarily well-read, and studious, although hardly immune to the pleasures afforded by a loose counterculture. This was the backyard of a house on Belvedere Ave. that I shared with four other guys during the fall semester of my sophomore year. As it happened, the house was too far from school, and the rent stretched my already-thin budget so I moved to Waverly the following January, taking a basement slot in a rowhouse that cost me $32/mo.
Take a look at the clues to figure out the year: Armistead Maupin’s Tales of the City begins serialization in The Pacific Sun; Agatha Christie’s Poirot’s Early Cases, Roald Dahl’s Switch Bitch, Lawrence Durrell’s Monsieur and Tom Stoppard’s Travesties are published; Robert Lowell wins the Poetry Pulitzer; Lee Trevino takes PGA Championship; Led Zeppelin announces their new label, Swan Song Records, at the Four Seasons hotel in NYC; Mama Cass and the “ham sandwich”; The Spinners’ LP Mighty Love is released; Michael Shannon is born and Bud Abbott dies; Enoch Powell leaves Conservative Party in UK; Harold Wilson leads a victory for the Labour Party; former Prime Minister Edward Heath’s house is bombed by IRA; and Eyvind Johnson wins the Literature Nobel Prize.
—Follow Russ Smith on Twitter: @MUGGER2023