Matthew Schmitz (7:16)
So it's a. It's a curious choice. And just in terms of that one statement, I'd say maybe note that there is a certain critique of kind of, you know, liberal and modern societies that argues that there's a kind of dynamic that's kind of, in a way symbiotic between individualism and collectivism. Right. That when more local forms of community break down, or the family or religious institutions, associations, things like this, and people are individualized, that's when they need to look to this broader kind of national level collective for support, because they no longer have those other forms of support. So in Mamdani's mind, there's an absolute opposition between individualism and collectivism. But I would say certainly when those specific terms are used, there's a pretty venerable argument that the two things actually go together. And I'll just note that in, you know, Mamdani's speech, there are certain hints of the way those things can go together. He says, we will tell a new story of our city. It will not be a tale of one city governed only by the 1%, nor will it be a tale of two cities, the rich versus the poor. It will be a tale of 8 1/2 million cities, each of them a New Yorker with hopes and fears, each a universe. So though he's saying, I'm for collectivism and I'm against individualism, he says, this is a New York. We will have eight and a half million New Yorks. Each person will have his own New York. So there is, within Mamdani's own rhetoric, a very strong sense that the individual is the standard by which things are measured. And so I think that Mamdani's speech is open to that. Line of critique that individuals, certain kind of individualism can advance collectivism and collectivism can kind of advance individualism because it often is uncomfortable with alternate forms of community or solidarity. In terms of Mamdani's project, I'm going to put my marker down and say I'm very skeptical of where things will go. He may have some lasting achievements. I think if you look at the last real attempt at progressive governance in New York under Bill de Blasio, he had his universal Pre K initiative, which is in place, I think has popular support and isn't going to go away soon or easily. So de Blasio had that real achievement. And Mamdani may have some similar achievements, but I'm skeptical of them. And I think that things will fail to work out for him in a way that a lot of critics haven't yet. Kind of it'll work out in a way that's a bit surprising. So a lot of critics of Mamdani's call him a socialist right. And he claims a label for himself. And so there's this notion that it's going to be a kind of overextension of government that will lead to disaster. We don't yet know how. His probably his most famous initiative, the city run, or I think I should say city owned. That's his term. City owned grocery stores will work, but I think it's important to realize that he talks about them as city owned grocery stores. And there's an important distinction between something that is city owned and city run. So Kansas City has a city owned grocery store. That city owned grocery store has seen a huge fall off in customers. It's become a money sinkhole that the city is constantly pouring money into. But what I want to note here is that it is run by a nonprofit. Similarly, Chicago, which is exploring its own city owned grocery stores, commissioned a feasibility study and this study from the consultants. So the consultants have been paid. And what they recommended to Mayor Brandon Johnson was that the city not attempt to operate the supermarket itself, but it rather partner with a for profit operator, a nonprofit operator or a co op. So I think that there is a notion that Mamdani is just going to kind of extend the reach of the government into everything. But there's a more complex process that's likely to occur and that is the city partnering with nonprofits, giving them leases, giving them money, and then they're supposed to deliver these services. So it's going to be a kind of extension of the rule by NGOs that Darrell Paul described for compaq in his article why NGOs run your world. You know, we've seen some other moves from Mamdani. You know, he's revoked some of Eric Adams's executive orders. He's revoked a more expansive definition of anti Semitism that Adams broadens. You'll continue to see contestation on those lines, but I think really Mamdani's project is going to rise or fail on the success of some of his signature initiatives. The city run grocery stores, free buses, and then public safety. And he's talked a lot about this new kind of expanded attempt to handle mental health problems through basically social workers rather than policing. And I'm pretty skeptical about how well that will work. But I think when you look at Mamdani's speech, the important thing to realize is that he is trying to offer, you know, a positive vision that's exciting. And one reason he won is that the kind of, you know, kind of the. The long trail of Bloombergism in New York just exhausted itself of a more kind of technocratic liberalism. And when Bloomberg was in office, that kind of technocratic Democratic Party did have its own spiritedness and its own ambition. There really was an optimism about using market mechanisms or kind of this smart technocratic city planning and how it could improve our lives and one of our charter schools and Teach for America and bike lanes. And these were seen as things that would really improve the city. So there was a certain excitement. I think I'll also note that one of the things that gave that Bloomberg era liberalism and energy was its social liberalism. So Bloomberg was very like really any Democratic politician, but it had a certain character there. Bloomberg embraced gay rights, which back then had more salience than they do today because they were still contested. Right. Gay marriage was not a constitutional right recognized by the Supreme Court. So. And there were a lot of Republicans who were actively opposing gay rights. And so it had a certain energy. N. Cuomo, when he was governor of New York, said, you know, if you are a bigot, if you kind of deny the right to marry, or if you deny a woman's right to choose, you have no place as a New Yorker. So those kind of Democrats who kind of appear very centrist now, they had a certain kind of cultural energy that they derived from these socially liberal causes. And I think partly through the success of those causes, that energy dissipated. And so the kind of, the more technocratic wing of the Democratic Party was deprived of one of the ways in which it really claimed a sort of left wing or liberatory potential. And transgenderism hasn't sufficiently replaced the energy that gay rights once provided the party, because it's much more divisive within the Democratic Party than gay rights were.
