[AbstractH24]

It’ll be interesting to see the headlines the onions writing by summer 2026.

For all I dislike him, Trump essentially squandered the political capital he had on things that are shiny, motivated by ego, and created clickbaity headlines that single out small subsets of the American populous. He could have done far far worse and less reversible things to America. We’re now at the start of the end of his presidency, with focus first turning to midterms and then his replacement.

I don’t expect Mamdani to do much better with his political capital.

[api]

I don’t know a ton about Mamdani but he doesn’t seem narcissistic.

I agree with most of his goals but have serious doubts about the viability of the methods. We’ll see.

My biggest doubts are around the idea of price controls, which almost always lead to perverse incentives. The economy finds a way to sneak in an effective price increase via other means. Either that or you create a landed gentry of sorts, or a “landed rentry” for rent control. You get a class of beneficiaries locked into place and nobody else can get in.

I do like seeing different ideas get tried. I like experiments, and I think we should have more of them. The endless tape loop of 1980s-1990s Reagan/Clinton politics is clearly not addressing some glaring problems.

[r00fus]

> My biggest doubts are around the idea of price controls,

DeBlasio froze rent for rent-stabilized units for 3 years straight. Literally everything Mamdani campaigned on is entirely possible and funding straightforward.

Not easy, but emminently doable.

[api]

Not questioning whether he can do it, just whether it will help make the city affordable long term.

Of course he’d also pro density and new construction, which would actually help.

[AbstractH24]

But also he can only do it for a very small fraction of housing in the city, about 16,000 units. And even that Adams may undercut before he leaves office.

In contrast to how he suggested it.

[nobody9999]

No. He's proposing a rent freeze on rent stabilized housing, not rent controlled housing.

Despite the widespread (and why would folks who don't live in NYC and shouldn't really care about local elections except as they repeat flat wrong assertions about Mamdani and his proposed policies) incorrect framing, in NYC (which is what we're talking about here), rent control is a specific program governed by a specific set of laws. Rent stabilization is a different specific program governed by a different set of laws.

While there are only ~24,000 rent controlled units, there are ~1,000,000 rent stabilized units.

The latter is what's affected by Mamdani's proposal. This isn't new either. Rent stabilization in pretty much its current form has existed for more than 40 years and rent control much, much longer.

So this isn't some new policy that "commie jihadi" is proposing. And freezes on rent stabilized units have been done repeatedly, the last time in 2020/2021.

None of that is new or even mildly controversial.

Sources:

My lease.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rent_regulation_in_New_York

https://www.nyc.gov/site/mayorspeu/programs/rent-stabilizati...

https://www.nyc.gov/assets/hpd/downloads/pdfs/about/rent-reg...

https://rentguidelinesboard.cityofnewyork.us/resources/faqs/...

[AbstractH24]

While not a narcissist, I can’t tell how much he actually see this election as a stepping stone to higher office. Maybe even following in the footsteps of a one term senator…

And I do think he’s adherent to a fairly narrowly defined set of left wing principles and ideologies.

Like you, I agree there’s no harm in trying new things because there’s always what to learn. But I don’t exactly expect them to go well. Hope I’m wrong though and if nothing else it’s becoming incredibly clear we need a new generation of leaders in this country. To end this loop, like you said.