Can Mamdani Survive as an Affordability and a Socialist Mayor?

A line in Shakespeare’s The Tempest, “misery acquaints us with strange bedfellows,” and I add, “visa – versa.”

On the night of June 25th, the Democratic primary, the Mamdani endorsements rolled to victory, victory against incumbents, with virtually unknown candidates. Mamdani has coattails even when he wasn’t on the ballot, Michael Lange, whose Narrative Wars is a must read, muses, can the Mamdani tsunami go national?

A month later, threats to arrest Netanyahu, ignoring the Israel parade, fumbling the rollout of the pied a terre tax, backpedaling on his support of the paraprofessional pay bump and his new chancellor enveloped in a corruption scandal as well as allowing education to drift aimlessly.

New York City mayors have stumbled, Bloomberg, with high favorability ratings in his first two terms decides to spend 100M of his own dollars to run for prez, he never polls above 3%, and blames the UFT, de Blasio mentions and abandons a presidential run, Adams moves from the high profile Black Jimmy Walker to an indictment and Trump bailout and with Chief of Staff, Frank Carone’s indictment Adams maybe dragged back to the courtroom.

Mamdani as the “affordability” mayor and Mamdani as the “socialist “ mayor, schizophrenic personalities.

The UFT quietly works with the mayor to push $2B down the road and avert layoffs and drastic budget cuts and after two years of meetings and lobbying and crafting the para pay bump bill, a bill Mamdani supported as a candidate, now opposes the bill, the mayor can either veto or challenge the legality of the bill, moving in weeks from a partnership to a possible “war.”

The rollout of the “pied a terre” tax, a tax on second homes in NYC valued over $5M, was a disaster, I live in a Michell-Lama coop, our management company sent the cooperators a city letter leaving all the cooperatives wondering.

After opposing mayoral control in his campaign,and promising to engage parents and teachers in the new chancellor selection he defaults upon election, and, new chancellor up to his ankles or neck in a corruption scandal  

The chancellor seems rudderless, skipping from bemoaning the exclusion of Black and Hispanic students from the Specialized High Schools, to whether to merge and/or close low enrollment schools, a school integration initiative, none of which are moving forward.

Council Speaker Menin and Comptroller Levine hovering above the carrion, the 2029 mayoral race has already begun.

Can Mamdani right the ship?  

The Manhattan Institute, once a “reputable” conservative think tank , now a MAGA mouthpiece on the attack.  Read Sol Stern’s superb dismantling of the Manhattan Institute.

Polyamorous relationships are difficult to maintain, Zohran may have to choose