"That’s what makes Zohran Mamdani’s election in New York so unsettling to the old order. New York City is not just another municipality; it’s a sovereign-scale entity. Its population surpasses 38 states. Its metropolitan GDP trails only Texas and California.
It is, by any metric, a small country masquerading as a city.
It governs more lives and more wealth than most nations. If democratic socialism — housing reform, public banking, equitable taxation — functions here, it obliterates the myth that such governance can’t work at scale. The fear isn’t ideological. It’s empirical. Because if Mamdani can keep the lights on, reduce homelessness, and maintain economic growth without catering to Wall Street, then the capitalist gospel collapses under its own dead weight.
What terrifies the establishment isn’t failure. It’s feasibility.
If it works in New York, there’s no reason it can’t work in Nebraska. If it works in Queens, it can work in Kansas City. And once proof exists, belief becomes irrelevant. The ship of democracy, fully refitted, will keep sailing — and no one can claim it isn’t American."
- Jackie Summers
Look, I appreciate the thought here, but no? NYC is massive - but more importantly, it is extremely wealthy. Our city budget this year was $126ish BILLION dollars. So yes, we have a lot of extra supports, but that budget does not include almost anything additional this year than last year. The primary funding for the one big new initiative, 2K, is being funded mostly by the state for the next few years, and NYC cannot raise its own taxes on basically anything but property without state approval.
Not only that, but the only reason the budget balanced this year is because they kicked the debt down the road. We’re looking at between a $6-9 billion deficit next year and the following.
So there’s two things - one is that NYC is much richer than Nebraska or wherever, and expecting Nebraska to do what NYC can is ridiculous. They don’t have the capital. Only the federal government can do the things even very rich states like CA, TX, and NY struggle with.
Two, PLEASE do not put all this on the mayor because the likelihood is he will fail at introducing almost anything of the things he said he wanted to do because he literally cannot do that without state action. And next year, the state is looking at massive federal cuts it will have to fill from Medicaid and SNAP, plus many others, so the likelihood they will be helping expansively isn’t as high. New taxes would most likely go to those cuts and not anything new in NYC.
So please be reasonable here, and always ask whether a politician has the actual power to do something.
