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Coffee Break: Mamdani’s Battle With Entrenched Power Begins

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New York City Mayor-Elect Zohran Mamdani won the election, but now his real battle with entrenched power begins.

Mamdani will face opposition from outspoken enemies and nominal allies alike. Entrenched power has many faces, many voices, deep pockets, and generally bad intentions.

He’s also a bit like the dog who caught the car, as the 34-year-old will now be in charge of a city of 8.5 million people with a $116 billion budget and 300,000-person staff.

Dana Rubinstein lists the mundane but massive challenges facing Mamdani:

Mr. Mamdani’s first order of business will be to appraise the remnants of the outgoing administration and decide who to keep and who to let go from the leadership of more than 100 offices and agencies. He will have to determine how many deputy mayors he wants and then hire them.

Mr. Mamdani will also have to decide whether to involve himself in the ongoing race for speaker of the New York City Council — the person who will be his governing partner — and he will have to cobble together a preliminary budget plan in January.

And that’s the part where he’ll face the least opposition from entrenched power. Not only do “New Yorkers historically love to hate their mayor the moment that he’s sworn in” as Amit Singh Bagga, a former official in the Mayor Bill de Blasio administration reminded City and State NY, Mamdani also made enemies on the campaign trail.

Working Families Party co-chair Ana María Archila, an early and key Mamdani supporter, warned, “(the election) was not going to be the last phase of the fight. The billionaires didn’t spend $30 million to just fold their tent.”

According to that same CNN piece, at least one anti-Mamdani billionaire, John Catsimatidis, is vowing “There’s something more that we don’t know and someday we’re going to find out.”

Time will tell, but entrenched power never quits, no matter how many fights it loses.

Previous Coverage of 2025 NYC Mayoral Race

Readers may want to review my previous coverage of this race as well as my piece on the two gubernatorial races decided yesterday.

Let’s start at the top with POTUS Donald Trump and his ICE enforcement arm.

Donald Trump’s Threats to Mamdani’s New York

Trump’s comments about Mamdani have been consistently inflammatory, calling him a “communist” and predicting that Miami will soon see a huge influx of “refugees fleeing communism in New York.”

Trump’s likely modes of attack include:

While Trump will no doubt be at a minimum a nuisance for Mayor Mamdani, the simple nature of the us vs. them narrative will keep things from getting complicated on that front.

Mamdani’s biggest headaches will likely come from his nominal allies, the entrenched power, in the state and national Democratic party.

Gov. Hochul Already Raining on Mamdani’s Parade

New York Governor Kathy Hochul finally endorsed Mamdani in September but that doesn’t mean she’s going to be enabling his agenda. In fact, she’s already opposing one of Mamdani’s signature promises, free bus fares:

…during the SOMOS organization’s political conference in Puerto Rico over the weekend, Hochul seemed to put a pin into the balloon of Mamdani’s free bus concept, stating that it would jeopardize the funding of New York’s public transit system.

“I cannot set forth a plan right now that takes money out of a system that relies on the fares of the buses and the subways. But can we find a path to make it more affordable for people who need help? Of course, we can,” Hochul said during a press conference during Somos, a social-political event held in Puerto Rico last week.

Free bus fares would cost New York’s MTA an estimated $652 million a year.

Hochul is also “unwilling to budge on a tax hike” which is bad news for Mamdani’s hope to increase New York’s corporate tax rate to 11.5% (matching New Jersey) and a flat 2% tax on individual New Yorkers who earn more than $1 million annually.

Hochul is already promising to resist attempts to pressure her on tax hikes.

But Mamdani has allies in the state legislature including the “politicians in charge of the state Assembly and Senate, Speaker Carl Heastie and Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins, respectively — both of whom endorsed Mamdani’s mayoral bid.”

As NY1 News reported:

“It’s November. It’s still kinda early. We gotta see how things fit inside of the state budget,” Heastie said. “But I think there’s a willingness. I don’t want to speak for the other two partners in this. But we want Zohran, the mayor-elect, to be successful.”

The fight to fund Mamdani’s affordability agenda will be a relatively straight-forward one against entrenched power. Mamdani faces far more insidious threats from new friends in the city and around the country.

How Much Will Obama Be In Mamdani’s Ear?

While former POTUS Barak Obama did not endorse Mamdani (he has a policy of staying out of municipal races), he did reach out as described in this NY Times story, “Obama Calls Mamdani to Praise His Campaign and Offers to Be Sounding Board.”

This was an ominous development for Obama critics who were already wary of Mamdani following his mid-campaign compromise on pro-Palestine rhetoric.

The circumstances of that event are worth a look back at, per CNN in July:

Gathered alongside approximately 150 prominent business leaders at the offices of Tishman Speyer on Tuesday, Dr. Albert Bourla, chairman and CEO of Pfizer — who is the son of Holocaust survivors — asked Zohran Mamdani, the Democratic nominee for mayor to explain his previous defense of the phrase “globalize the intifada.”
…
During Tuesday’s meeting, Mamdani also told the packed room he understood why the phrase is also seen as a call to violence against Jews, why it is painful and triggering for them, and that he would discourage its use in the future, the two attendees told CNN.

A rhetorical compromise is one thing, fortunately, so far Mamdani has avoided any signature Obama bait-and-switch moves.

Most notably, Mamdani will be keeping his 100,000 strong volunteer force active in city politics, a sharp contrast to Obama who veal-penned and then shuttered his grassroots army soon after being elected president in 2008.

But Obama won’t be the only “Mamdani supporter” encouraging the young mayor to compromise on his promises.

This exchange between podcaster Kate Willett and YIMBY wonk Alex Armlovich (ex-CNBCNY talking head) is telling:

It’s important to only judge Mamdani on decisions and statements he has made, though, rather than assuming he’ll bend with the wind coming from the mouths of Abundance Bros and others attempting to speak on behalf of entrenched power.

So far his staffing decisions seem sound.

Mamdani’s Transition Team

One of Mamdani’s biggest allies during the campaign was Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders who pushed Mamdani to focus on the transition and the first 100 days, per CNN:

When Sanders came back to New York for a closing rally at Forest Hills Stadium in Queens on the last Sunday in October, he was feeling better about Mamdani’s chances. But he had a different set of concerns, which he aired out in meeting after meeting in his hold room backstage, according to a person in the room. He waved off requests for selfies and handshakes and instead demanded more detailed plans from Mamdani’s transition head Elle Bisgaard-Church and campaign manager Maya Handa. At one point, Sanders asked former Federal Trade Commission chair Lina Khan for her ideas on what to do at City Hall.

A former mayor himself, Sanders honed in on the first 100 days mark, telling them, “They’ll try to crush you,” and urging, “you’ve got to give people a sense of action.”

Learn a little from Trump, Sanders told them: it’s not policy or communications – but seeing them as the same and as producing results.

“Have you done research into your executive authorities? Do you have anybody on that?” Sanders asked. Aides offered up ideas they’d been working on. “What else you got?” he kept saying.

Mamdani’s transition team, co-chaired by former Biden FTC Commissioner Lina Khan, is also drawing praise from progressive policy wonks:

Elana Leopold, a political strategist who worked for former Mayor Bill de Blasio, will serve as team’s executive director. The other members are Melanie Hartzog, a former deputy mayor for health and human services under Mr. de Blasio; Lina Khan, a former Federal Trade Commission chair; Grace Bonilla, the head of United Way of New York City and an alumna of former Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s administration; and Maria Torres-Springer, the former first deputy mayor to the current mayor, Eric Adams.

I’m hoping NC commenters with more interest in policy and more direct experience of New York politics will have interesting things to add about Mamdani’s choices.

For his part, Matt Stoller is excited to see Khan on Mumdani’s team saying:

One of the more interesting dynamics at work in New York City is that Mamdani brought on anti-monopoly leader Lina Khan as one of his transition co-chairs.
…
Is there now a nascent unification of political populism with governing expertise?

Stoller goes on to “describe a bunch of economic termites, aka firms with market power, that drive up the cost of state and city government. More than just cost, they are the infrastructure on which governance operates, so the inflexibility of politicians is often a result of them being reliant on entities like these.”

These “economic termites” include monopolists in public safety equipment, emergency radios, transit buses, court and city management software, health care middlemen, and other vital city services.

But this NY Times story about the selection of the transition team did make my Spidey sense tingle a bit when they listed some of the voices in Mamdani’s ear when he made these decisions:

Ms. Hochul, who endorsed Mr. Mamdani in September and will be key to enacting much of his agenda, has assumed an unusually active posture in the hiring process, saying she will help him find a “very seasoned team to help manage a wildly complicated city.”

Mr. Mamdani and his team have sought advice from a wide range of people, including Ron Klain, Mr. Biden’s former chief of staff; Janette Sadik-Khan, who was transportation commissioner under Mr. Bloomberg; and Kathryn Garcia, the director of state operations under Ms. Hochul and the runner-up in the 2021 Democratic mayoral primary. (Ms. Garcia attended Mr. Mamdani’s victory rally on Tuesday night.)

Others consulted by Mr. Mamdani and his aides include Marshall Ganz, a professor at Harvard University and an expert in community organizing; Matt Bruenig, a labor lawyer who founded a left-leaning think tank; and Lilliam Barrios-Paoli, a deputy mayor for health and human services under Mr. de Blasio.

Ron Klain?!?

The man Lambert described on this site as having “set the course for Biden’s Covid policy of mass infection without mitigation before Jeff Zients took over.”

Yes, that Ron Klain. Yuck. Talk about servants of entrenched power.

We can only hope this is a case of keeping your friends close and your enemies closer.

Mamdani Uses and Dumps a Key Supporter

Mamdani has certainly shown the ability to be ruthless during the campaign.

Just ask New York City Comptroller Brad Lander who did as much to help Mamdani win the primary as any other person, but who won’t have a role in the Mamdani administration, per CNN:

(Lander) rebooted his campaign as a Cuomo takedown machine, with an explicit strategy of doing all the bashing — replacing his ads with an anti-Cuomo spot, building every event and robocall script around negativity, so that, advisers calculated, Mamdani could close out with all positive and hopeful feelings.

He even sent an aide extra early to the debate site to find the exact right seat to put the son of a man who died in a nursing home on Cuomo’s watch during Covid-19 to be both in the camera line and in the former governor’s line of sight. And perhaps most importantly, Lander figuratively and literally wrapped his arms around Mamdani, validating him to suspicious progressives and particularly to Jewish voters.

But over the summer, Mamdani would confide he wasn’t much impressed with Lander. Nice enough guy, but he didn’t seem particularly effective as comptroller, Mamdani said according to a person familiar with his comments. The two went weeks without talking, and though Lander would get defensive and blame overlapping post-election vacations, all his talk that he’d be the one really running the city next year had gotten back to Mamdani and not gone over well.

Ouch. Politics is an ugly business, but that’s not news and personally, I’m glad to see that Mamdani can be ruthless.

Progressive politics in the west have had more than enough “nice guys” like Bernie Sanders and Jeremy Corbyn who are always seemingly ready to get rolled when the fight against entrenched power gets ugly.

Lander is now rumored to be considering a primary challenge to AIPAC Congressman Dan Goldman. If Lander wins that one, happy ending all around.

Mamdani Cultivates Multiple Insiders

It’s not just Ron Klain, another NY Times campaign post-mortem names more two other “critical liasons” to entrenched power who have cozied up to Mayor-elect Mamdani:

Patrick Gaspard, a former Obama administration aide and director of the Democratic National Committee, and Sally Susman, a longtime corporate executive and member of the finance committees for the presidential campaigns of Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden. Gaspard met Mamdani years ago. Susman met him this summer, one of several C-suiters who privately reached out to him after his much-talked-about July meeting with the Partnership for New York City, a consortium of 350 members representing banks, law firms and corporations.

That same piece also shares some insight on how Mamdani is seen by entrenched power now that he’s won office:

Robert Wolf, another Partnership for New York City member and a major fund-raiser for the Democratic Party, told me that he has begun texting with the candidate, becoming an informal pulse check for the city’s finance and business community. Wolf also met with Mamdani for an hour at his campaign office this month, an in-person follow-up to an hourlong Zoom meeting in August.

“Zohran, to me, is more of a progressive capitalist,” Wolf told me, adding that he was convinced by their private interactions that Mamdani understood the importance of the private sector thriving in his New York. “He’s someone that wants to figure out how to use the government in an appropriate way on things that help equality and help the underserved.”

The conversations have allowed Mamdani to reframe his previous positions, tweaking the us-versus-them language of his democratic-socialist values to be a tad less punitive.

This reminds me of something John Lennon said about the compromises necessary to be a Beatle, “One has to completely humiliate oneself to be what the Beatles were, and that’s what I resent. I didn’t know, I didn’t foresee. It happened bit by bit, gradually until this complete craziness is surrounding you, and you’re doing exactly what you don’t want to do with people you can’t stand — the people you hated when you were ten.”

Compromise with entrenched power is necessary for anyone aspiring to govern and make real change, but some of Mamdani’s meetings do arouse concern, and also evoke admiration of Mamdani’s slick touch, from yet another NY Times piece:

Mr. Mamdani cold-called one of the city’s most powerful power brokers and asked for a meeting. It was a bold move after the business community had spent more than $20 million trying to defeat him, funding the largest super PAC in New York City history.

It also seemed antithetical to his man-of-the-people ethos.

And yet, Mr. Mamdani picked up the phone, and that power broker, James Whelan, the president of the Real Estate Board of New York, which represents the city’s mightiest landlords, set up an intimate gathering.
…
Few candidates have touched off fear and opposition among New York’s captains of industry the way that Mr. Mamdani, 33, has. Some have talked of moving out of state. Others are backing efforts to block his election.

But a surprising thing has been happening when Mr. Mamdani gets behind closed doors with New York’s elite. They are finding themselves, unexpectedly, charmed.

It’s partly because of what Mr. Mamdani, the well-educated and well-mannered son of Manhattan intellectuals, does: He listens, asks questions and is amiable.

But it’s also what he doesn’t do: He doesn’t lecture the business leaders, instead absorbing their points of view and, at times, promising to think about their arguments.

But there’s one person Mamdani doesn’t seem to be charming, one he’s already committed to keeping on his team.

Keeping Eric Adams’ Police Commissioner

I covered Mamdani’s decision to keep zionist oligarch Jessica Tisch in October, describing it as “the kind of compromise move that shows he’s aware of his political difficulties with the enforcement arm of the city government he will be running,” but warning “it’s unclear if he realizes the magnitude of what’s he’ll be up against.”

There’s no more entrenched power than the NYPD and Tisch is “a woman with three Harvard degrees, a $12 million Upper East Side duplex and no experience as a uniformed officer” and mayoral ambitions of her own.

After the election, Ken Klippenstein called the decision to keep Tisch, “Mamdani’s First Loss“:

It is his first major concession not just to the political establishment but more significantly to the national security system.
…
His decision to keep Tisch, however, is a whiplash-inducing swing back to the usual protagonists of American life.

The Harvard-educated Tisch, 44, is daughter of billionaire James Tisch, the Chairman of the Board of Loews Corporation. (Members of the Tisch family contributed over $1.2 million to the Cuomo-aligned Super PAC Fix the City.) Though she’s only been Police Commissioner for a year, Tisch has taken national security doctrine to heart.

At a press briefing last month, Tisch called a proposed $80 million federal cut to the NYPD’s counterterrorism budget a “betrayal” and demanded that the matter be placed above politics.

“Counterterrorism funding cannot be a political issue,” Tisch said. “If these cuts go through as planned, it will represent a devastating blow to our counter-terrorism and intelligence programs in New York City.”

Tisch went on to describe the tools that would be effected, including:

  • “intelligence analysts who uncover plots before they become attacks”
  • “camera systems that enable us to monitor conditions in real time”
  • “heavy weapons who guard our subways in major events”
  • “counter-terrorism patrols”

When asked if the loss of these tools would affect actual crimefighting (as opposed to the pre-crime focus of counterterrorism), Tisch conceded that they wouldn’t.

As a candidate, Mamdani repeatedly emphasized how seriously he takes “public safety” — perhaps in order to distance himself from defund-the-police rhetoric. Mamdani may think that keeping Tisch on is merely a concession to public safety, but it’s really a concession to the system of National Security, as Tisch’s counter-terrorism rhetoric illustrates.

No, not national security like the big, bad CIA, FBI or ICE, but national security in a more subtle, corrosive sense: the belief that some decisions are just too important to be left to elected officials, to voters, to democracy. Some things, as Tisch put it, “cannot be a political issue.”

Ali Winston had more on Mamdani’s relationship with Tisch and entrenched power in a Wired piece titled, “Zohran Mamdani Just Inherited the NYPD Surveillance State.”

While Mamdani’s public safety proposals center on the creation of a $1 billion Department of Community Safety that will handle non-emergency 911 calls in place of armed cops, some of his other stated positions conflict directly with Tisch’s own positions and background with the NYPD, where she got her start in the department’s controversial intelligence division during the height of its “mosque-raking” mass surveillance of Muslim New Yorkers.
…
Tisch was a main architect of the NYPD’s Domain Awareness System, an enormous, $3 billion, Microsoft-based surveillance network of tens of thousands of private and public surveillance cameras, license plate readers, gunshot detectors, social media feeds, biometric data, cryptocurrency analysis, location data, bodyworn and dashcam livestreams, and other technology that blankets the five boroughs’ 468-square-mile territory.

Winston quotes Surveillance Technology Oversight Project (STOP) founder in residence Albert Fox Cahn’s concerns with Mamdani’s relationship with Tisch and the entrenched power of NY’s surveillance state:

It’s a really open question about whether he’ll push policies that’ll dismantle the infrastructure of mass religious and racial profiling and the pseudoscience of surveillance as safety, and focus on evidence based alternatives, or he’ll be too afraid of the NY Post.

This raises a fundamental question: When mayors are so terrified of firing police commissioners who are inconsistent with their own agenda, do we really have democratic oversight of policing?. Are they overseeing police in name only, and if not, what does that say about the state of democracy in America? Forget Trump; this is on the local level.

For her part, Tisch has been busy leaking to the NY Post with complaints that Mamdani hasn’t been in touch and “demands autonomy from Mamdani” in return for generously staying on at the NYPD.

Her allies in entrenched power are not shy about speaking out:

…the business world is rallying behind commissioner Tisch. Numerous entrepreneurs and investors have praised her leadership, viewing it as a stabilizing factor during a period of uncertainty. “Public safety is the primary driver of economic confidence,” noted Jim Zelter, president of the investment firm Apollo Global Management, emphasizing the importance of maintaining continuity at the head of the department.

Kevin Ryan, founder of AlleyCorp, a venture capital firm and startup incubator, also described the decision as one “that demonstrates the new mayor’s willingness to rely on competence rather than ideology,” noting that the commissioner’s continued presence will ensure operational continuity within the police force.

The Intercept reminded its readers of the needle that Mamdani had to thread on the campaign trail regarding the NYPD:

As Mamdani’s opponents seized throughout the race on his past criticism of police, his public safety pledges on the campaign trail reflected an attempt to thread the needle between the NYPD and its critics — strengthening the power of the department’s civilian oversight board, keeping NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch in her job, and building a Department of Community Safety to “ensure that no New Yorker falls through the cracks of our social safety net.” Together, the proposals simultaneously aim to make it harder for police to escape accountability, preserve one of the department’s institutionalist leaders, and take certain responsibilities away from police as a way to lighten their load.

The Department of Community Safety, Mamdani’s marquee public safety proposal, would do violence prevention, crisis response, and mental health work by deploying non-police personnel throughout the city. The idea, successfully modeled in other cities, is to free police officers from spending time on those issues and let them focus instead on responding to the most violent crime.

The Intercept also points out that there is a lot more to running the NYPD than dealing with the commissioner:

The Mamdani administration will also have to determine who will run the agency, who will staff it, how it might affect the next round of police union contract negotiations, and what relationship it will have with the NYPD and its oversight body, the Civilian Complaint Review Board. That, according to Mac Muir, a former CCRB investigator, represents “a serious bureaucratic and infrastructural challenge ahead.”
…
Even if rank-and-file officers get on board with Mamdani’s plan, his administration will likely confront obstacles from department and leaders of the 50,000 member police union.
…
“His biggest issue, in my opinion, is going to be the extreme recalcitrance and push back from the rank-and-file members of the department and their union leaders to change and to reform,” said Sarena Townsend, the city’s former deputy commissioner for intelligence and investigation. Townsend was pushed out of city government under Mayor Eric Adams after she refused to dismiss a backlog of use-of-force cases in city jails…

“In situations where the rank and file don’t trust the mayor or the decision that the mayor is making, or their leadership,” Townsend said, “the rank and file just won’t do the things that they’re being asked to do, or they’ll revolt in other types of ways.”

Oh boy.

Mamdani is truly riding a tiger of entrenched power as the Mayor-elect of NYC.

This is why Mamdani volunteer Norman Finkelstein is warning Mamdani he’ll need to confront the NYPD or be eaten alive.

The thing about Mamdani’s compromise on the police commissioner is, it’s not like this is buying him any slack from his most brutal critics like the Anti-Defamation League:

Mamdani’s certainly made some of the right enemies. He’ll be wise to remember the servants of entrenched power are implacable, unforgiving, subtle, ruthless, and tireless.

He’ll need plenty of those qualities to chalk up any wins against them.

Mamdani should keep the words of ally Gustavo Gordillo, the co-chair of the New York City Democratic Socialists of America, in mind when he makes key decisions, “Siding with the 1 percent over his base and the rest of the city is what would really pose problems to his governing coalition.”

Stick with the people who elected and they’ll help you fight the entrenched power, Mr. Mamdani.

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41 comments

  1. Googoogajoob

    I can’t help but feel like a lot of left wingers have the constitution of a whipped dog these days. Yeah I get that there have been a lot of L’s, betrayals, disappoints etc. but if you really are committed you should know you’ve signed on to a franchise with a .200 lifetime winning percentage. The wins are significant but a lot of pain in between.

    I do not envy Mamdani in the least – he has to go up against a system that will throw as many obstacles into his path, and any mistep, failure or otherwise will be pounced on and emphasized. If anything, I do hope that residents within NY that voted for him recognize that their duty doesnt end at the ballot box – they are going to have to try and be active and be a consistent presence in backing him when he’sfacing resistance. Him maintaining his volunteer force is a good sign that he intends to keep people motivated.

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      2. Safety First

        I can tell you it does not include all the other revolutions that were attempted in the waning days or straight after World War I, all but one of which failed (i.e. were suppressed). Because then the winning percentabe would be 0.020, not 0.200…

        …and I won’t even count things like Spain in 1936.

        As well, there is some debate to be had over whether the French Revolution counts as a win. Because after the first decade or so it was, well, not, and although in the long run liberalism did replace absolutism in Europe – the LONG run if you count, say, the Russian Empire – it basically replaced, per Aristotle, tyrannies with oligarchies. I guess that’s technically moving to the left, ish, on an relative basis.

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    1. Nat Wilson Turner Post author

      Will do although I’m looking forward to being able to cover other topics for a while. There’s been a lot going on with the Magnificent 7 + OpenAI that I’m itching to get to.

      Reply ↓
  3. Adam1

    “Hochul is also “unwilling to budge on a tax hike” which is bad news for Mamdani’s hope to increase New York’s corporate tax rate to 11.5% (matching New Jersey) and a flat 2% tax on individual New Yorkers who earn more than $1 million annually.”

    Hochul is up for election next fall. If she actively works against giving New Yorkers what they voted for she could be in trouble. She can’t win without NYC. Most of Upstate will go Republican – she can’t make NYC her enemy and I would hope Mamdani knows that.

    She might be able to throw stones and build walls, but she can’t be seen as an outright obstructionist without loosing needed 2026 NYC voters.

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    1. Nat Wilson Turner Post author

      Yea, I’m hoping that Mamdani will keep his political muscles strong and flex them as needed to discipline the centrists. The primaries against the various Congressional zionists in the NYC area are also a hopeful sign.

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    2. upstater

      I disagree that upstate NY would go republican. Hochul is no prize, but is the first governor not from the city or suburbs in 100 years, which counts for a lot. All the upstate large cities/counties have been voting democratic for a long while. Sanders carried upstate in 2016 but it was NYC that gave Clinton her win. Stefanik will be Hochul’s opponent; her congressional district is an enormous rural area where I still see Trump flags. She might sell well in the Adirondacks or Southern tier, but is abrasive. Hochul saw the handwriting on the wall in September, unlike Schumer, Gillibrand or Jeffries’ very late, limp endorsement (hoping he’s primary-ed out to K street next year).

      Reply ↓
        1. Nat Wilson Turner Post author

          Thanks for that upstater, I meant to mention it, but time got away from me. Along with Lander challenging Goldman this is the most serious challenge of a pro-zionist incumbent Dem. Mamdani allegedly didn’t want Ossé to make this move. Glad Ossé didn’t listen to him.

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          1. Pat

            Good for Osse, and for Lander. May the Gods smile on them both. Jeffries is a tool, but Goldman is a bigger long term problem, both need to leave

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    3. JME

      Maybe I’m just an optimistic, deluded fool, but Hochul is an elected official, elected to do the bidding of her electorate. For her to stand in front of them and say that she will not do what they want, and is less inclined to do so the more she is pushed strikes me as horse puckey of the rankest variety. Obviously, she has an idea of how much of her electorate wants what, and how much her electorate will put up with, and the fact that the actions of the elected officials in this country have near zero correlation with the stated desires of the 99%. But when are we going to stop accepting this kind of attitude and treatment? We are the boss, not these stuffed shirts!!! Are we going to accept kayfabe forever?!

      Perhaps what we need is a slight change in election law, where it is required for the winner to actually get >50% of the eligible vote, from eligible voters, rather than cast votes. And if the voters stay home, and nobody gets >50% then no winner. Clearly this could just result is a redefinition of what is eligible, but somehow we need to get actual motivated, devoted, intelligent people elected. The kayfabe must stop or it will stop. That which is unsustainable will not be sustained.

      Reply ↓
  4. Gentoo Lady

    Montgomery County Maryland eliminated bus fares on the county’s Ride-On service in July of this year. Nothing life changing or anything, plus I got some exercise because I walked to the polls, but I am satisfied with the half hour I spent going to vote in the primary to keep the “leftish” county executive. Odious Democrats that Elrich and the council may be in this ridiculously expensive place to live, I finally got my darn hassle free bus rides and I like it. Voila, I just hop on the No. 5 bus around the corner from my house and I can get to downtown Silver Spring or Rockville or the public library almost as fast as I could drive there. My daughter can hop on the public bus and ride to her magnet high school without worrying about having to fiddle with a transit card as the bus speeds along to the next stop. The decisive calculation was that the cost of collecting the fares, including replacing and maintaining the perpetually broken collection machines, exceeded the revenue that would have been brought in from any reasonable fare rate (what company manufactures fare collection machines anyway? I’ll bet it’s a monopoly). Also the bus drivers seem a lot happier now that they can simply concentrate on driving and need not concern themselves with fare enforcement. Traffic is horrible and driving skills have deteriorated noticably, so for me it is well worth planning my commute around the bus schedule. I can improve my mind and read a book while I wait.

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  5. abierno

    Mamdani is correct in retaining Jessica Tisch – for the present, since she is clearly a tripwire for those forces that wish him least well. Giving himself and is well seasoned transition team to organize, build and organize more specified actuals as regards policies. There will be no shortage of battles to come, but managing the priorities, strengthening affiliations and building a network of proxies is a good strategy for this more than controversial mayor elect. He has chosen well in the co chairs for his transition team, and all have considerable experience in management of high powered conflict, use of diplomacy versus confrontation and tincture of time to allow his opponents to impulsively overreach as the out come of their hubris in their strength.

    Reply ↓
    1. Nat Wilson Turner Post author

      I hope you’re right. Being cautious and diplomatic is certainly the way to go. De Blasio fell short on the diplomatic front and he got got. And Mumdani has inspired far more fear among the ruling elite than de Blasio ever did.

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    1. Nat Wilson Turner Post author

      Even better, let me quote Fox News:

      Open Society Foundation has indirectly funneled a combined $37 million to the Working Families Party and at least other nine left-wing groups whose endorsements and get-out-the-vote groundwork played a pivotal role in helping Mamdani upset ex-Gov. Andrew Cuomo in the Democratic mayoral primary

      Can’t believe I didn’t squeeze that into the post.
      “indirectly” !

      “Funneled” !

      “over a decade” !

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  7. ciroc

    Despite having many enemies within and outside his circle, Mamdani may find that his greatest enemy is himself. In other words, a young man with no experience leading a large organization could become overwhelmed by his own incompetence.

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    2. Chris Darling

      Incompetence compared to whom? It would take alot to beat the incompetence of Adams and Cuomo. Both are extremely corrupt, Adams was indicted, Cuomo would have been if he ad not resigned. Etc.

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  8. B Flat

    Something like 58% of MTA’s budget is labor costs ($12.4 billion out of total budget of $19.5 billion). 8% is pensions (over a $1 billion). Free buses would eliminate $652 million, that’s significant. If Albany agrees to this, I see cuts coming, some way some how. Either laying off workers or cutting service. Or raising subway fare? I’m knucklehead and I see this. Did no one Team Mamdani reckon this reality? But Hochul has said No, so she’ll be blamed as the meany ruining the free bus party.

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    1. tegnost

      if the ,gov had to have a bake sale to fund it’s weapons programs, there would’nt be no weapons programs.
      Every time a bridge gets rebuilt, a bridge built by ,gov, it turns into a private toll.
      In the gigantic misallocation of resources that is NYC, maybe wall st isnt the vermouth, it’s the gin.
      More people moving around is commerce for vigorous small business’.
      At least make the buses cheap.
      https://www.osc.ny.gov/press/releases/2025/10/dinapoli-wall-street-profits-surge-again-giving-new-york-fiscal-boost

      Oh no, I get it, they earned it the old fashioned way.

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    2. Pat

      As a bus rider let me tell you that easily a quarter to a third of the people on the buses I ride aren’t currently paying. Some actually try but Omni doesn’t always work, but most just enter in the rear doors. The MTA is trying to combat it on the select buses but we’ll see how that goes.

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      1. tegnost

        On the other side of the world, today I paid .50 to go from skyline to marchs point, then .50 to go from marchs point to mt vernon and repeat. Probably 50 miles of travel for me to engage in commerce buying groceries The groceries were expensive. Who benefits from those high prices? Inflation happens because scoundrels raise their prices. The great threat is city owned grocery stores competing with kroger, and it is competinfg by serving an under served need, aka capitalism. Not state enforced monopolism.
        No bus, no commerce.
        The stupid, it burnzzzzz

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      2. mrsyk

        Regarding increasing numbers of riders not paying, I’ve heard the same from others that I know in the city. Seems like it’s a thing.
        My impression is that many stops do not have Omni readers. This has to lead to at least a few of those free-riders. And after you’ve done it once, lol.
        Seriously though, in my years of taking the city buses I’ve never once boarded and not been surrounded by people who would benefit with free fare (maybe excluding the M60 to LAG).

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      3. B Flat

        On my bus line i’ve seen people just not pay and bus drivers just wave people through. Not sure that matters to the point about bus revenue; AFAIK the budget is extrapolated from the previous year’s actual revenue. And 2025 budget forms the basis of projected deficits for 2027. Mamdani’s got quite a hill to climb to get this done (which I hope he does.)

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    3. Cervantes

      The flipside is that free buses allow more ridership which tends to be associated with more economic activity and more valuable real estate near infrastructure, which should both drive the tax base higher, ceteris paribus.

      Or even just looking at the demographics of the ridership, there is probably a high propensity to consume, so money not spent on bus fare is probably spent on other consumption items, which again drives the tax base.

      So, if you look at the MTA in a vacuum, a loss of revenue could be a modest budget hole (3.3% per your math), but if you look at the system as a whole, it might be growth-positive. It depends on the specifics.

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  9. tegnost

    free buses is such a great idea it’s effing bizarre, watch old movies…you jump on the streetcar.
    It’s vibrant.
    The reason imo centrist dems caved is the money feeding their various grifts (jp morgan runs your ebt card and kroger and it’s investors expect that dough.)
    Free buses effs uber. OMG less cars polluting the city
    They don’t want people to get .gov money they want it themselves.

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    1. B Flat

      The grocery stores. Mamdani wants to spend open 5 free groceries at a cost of $60 million and potentially much higher if more stores are established. The $ will be raised via Corp taxes, 2% tax on high net worth types, that kind of thing. But. The City already has in place 1000 food pantries, community centers and programs. Distribute the money to them! No overhead! There is also already a voucher program for seniors to use at farmers markets (which btw also accept SNAP). Expand the program and give the money directly to the people. Part of my skepticism of Team Mamdani is overcomplicating what could be simple, direct benefit.

      I was talking with my mom about this, and she remembered government cheese. She recalled the truck pulling up and the blocks of cheese (at the time packaged in a box) handed our to anyone who asked for one. This was late 40s/early 50s. No eligibility requirements, no incrementalism.

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        1. Carla

          All the food banks I’m aware of require proof of poverty to get a bag of groceries (mostly nonperishables) once or twice a month.

          Universal government benefits level the playing field, reducing economic inequality. Restricting government benefits to the desperate and near-desperate does the opposite. It is pretty obvious which our overlords (of any and every political persuasion) prefer.

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    2. Eclair

      In the winter months, I live in Seattle, carless, and ride the buses. And light rail.

      I have a senior ORCA card, $1.00 per ride, which I swipe at the bus stop. If the card reader is working: 50-50 chance.
      To add money to the card, I log on to the ORCA website, give ’em my password, etc., and the system loads up the card and charges my credit card.
      I have no idea how much it costs to buy, install and maintain the card readers at the bus stops around the city, but it must be substantial. And the credit card company gets a percentage when I recharge my ORCA card.
      Maintenance of the website when I recharge my ORCA card must cost a lot.
      And, the bus I take the most …. the E-bus, running from north of the city into downtown, along Route 99 … is always packed with homeless people. The bus is warm in winter, you get to meet your friends, and you can ride between the joys of downtown and the various homeless shelters along North Aurora Avenue. Do the homeless folk pay? I don’t know … they may have ORCA cards given to them by social service agencies. Another cost.

      So, as tegnost points out, there are substantial hidden benefits to various corporations that accrue from the whole process of fare charging. Plus, we get to demonize an entire section of the population who skip fares, either because they can’t spare the money, or they just want to mess with a broken system.

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  10. Matthew G. Saroff

    I fear that Mamdani will make the same error that Corbyn did, he will fail to purge the party apparatchiks, and in response, they will work against him, to the point of supporting the opposing party.

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    1. Nat Wilson Turner Post author

      NYC isn’t a parliamentary system. He’ll have to get the whip hand on the bureaucracy in short order but there’s no party for him to contend with. The Democrats in Albany (the state capitol) on the other hand will be a problem but he’ll have no way to purge them other than encouraging their voters to replace them with other, better candidates. He’ll need to pick his battles carefully on that front.

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  11. Gulag

    “”Zohran, to me, is more of a progressive capitalist,” Wolf told me.”

    An observation that seems right on the money.

    Aren’t we all capitalists now?

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