Zohran Mamdani - Democratic Socialist Mayor of NYC

[YOhio]

Agree. He's too closely tied to Israel.

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[Maximus]

Umm, publishing a take down of Mamdani is in no way an indication that the WaPo opinion page is right wing. Not even close. That's not even a conservative-only opinion. Plenty of smart people (including all economists and historians worth a grain of salt) know his proposed policies would fail as they are proposed. If there's one thing economists all agree on, it's that wide-spread rent freezes are a horrible, awful idea if you want to make and keep housing affordable.

And not endorsing Harris also is not an indication they are right wing. They didn't endorse Trump. I think it's fair to say they are more apolitical...which is a good thing.

They are much more conservative than trump or trump voters

So in the end they are right of center

[Moliere]

Umm, publishing a take down of Mamdani is in no way an indication that the WaPo opinion page is right wing. Not even close. That's not even a conservative-only opinion. Plenty of smart people (including all economists and historians worth a grain of salt) know his proposed policies would fail as they are proposed. If there's one thing economists all agree on, it's that wide-spread rent freezes are a horrible, awful idea if you want to make and keep housing affordable.

And not endorsing Harris also is not an indication they are right wing. They didn't endorse Trump. I think it's fair to say they are more apolitical...which is a good thing.

[frank ryan]

WaPo editorial board with a brutal take on Mamdani. When did the WaPo stop being liberal?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opini...ew-york-mayor/





Ouch.

He forbade them endorsing Harris during the election. It's absolutely a possibility he influenced this piece

[Jeff Lebowski]

If you think the paper hasn't been right wing for a while, you are the one suffering from delusions, mi amigo. I didn't say it was instant. But there have been a number of milestones that have marked its path towards being right wing, and Bezos' purchase is absolutely a significant one.

The answer to my original question is February 2025:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/style...nions-section/

Post owner Bezos announces shift in opinions section; Shipley to leave

In an email and social media post, Jeff Bezos outlined dramatic changes to The Washington Post’s opinions section and announced that opinions editor David Shipley has resigned.

Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos said Wednesday that the newspaper’s opinions section would now be focused on “personal liberties and free markets” and won’t publish anything that opposes those ideas. With the shift, opinions editor David Shipley has resigned, and The Post is searching for a successor.

“We are going to be writing every day in support and defense of two pillars: personal liberties and free markets,” the billionaire Amazon founder wrote in an email to Post staffers that he also published on X. “We’ll cover other topics too of course, but viewpoints opposing those pillars will be left to be published by others.”

[LVAllen]

He bought the paper in 2013. If you think the paper instantly became right wing you are delusional.

If you think the paper hasn't been right wing for a while, you are the one suffering from delusions, mi amigo. I didn't say it was instant. But there have been a number of milestones that have marked its path towards being right wing, and Bezos' purchase is absolutely a significant one.

[Jeff Lebowski]

Seriously? Right about the time they were purchased by a right wing oligarch. And then again when that same oligarch proclaimed his intention to eliminate opposing viewpoints on the opinions page. Most of the media outlets are owned by right wing people these days.

He bought the paper in 2013. If you think the paper instantly became right wing you are delusional.

[LVAllen]

WaPo editorial board with a brutal take on Mamdani. When did the WaPo stop being liberal?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opini...ew-york-mayor/





Ouch.

Seriously? Right about the time they were purchased by a right wing oligarch. And then again when that same oligarch proclaimed his intention to eliminate opposing viewpoints on the opinions page. Most of the media outlets are owned by right wing people these days.

[Jeff Lebowski]

WaPo editorial board with a brutal take on Mamdani. When did the WaPo stop being liberal?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opini...ew-york-mayor/

Zohran Mamdani drops the mask

The mayor-elect divides New Yorkers into two groups: the oppressed and their oppressors.

A new era of class warfare has begun in New York, and no one is more excited than Generalissimo Zohran Mamdani. Witness the mayor-elect’s change of character since his Tuesday election victory.

Mamdani ran an upbeat campaign, with a nice-guy demeanor and perpetual smile papering over a long history of divisive and demagogic statements. New Yorkers periodically checking in on politics could understandably believe that he simply wanted to bring the city together and make it more affordable. That interpretation became much harder after his victory speech.

Across 23 angry minutes laced with identity politics and seething with resentment, Mamdani abandoned his cool disposition and made clear that his view of politics isn’t about unity. It isn’t about letting people build better lives for themselves. It is about identifying class enemies — from landlords who take advantage of tenants to “the bosses” who exploit workers — and then crushing them. His goal is not to increase wealth but to dole it out to favored groups. The word “growth” didn’t appear in the speech, but President Donald Trump garnered eight mentions.

People’s lives, in Mamdani’s world, can be improved only by government: “We will prove that there is no problem too large for government to solve, and no concern too small for it to care about.” The crowd cheered, of course, but a thinking person might wonder whether it’s good for the institution that has a monopoly on violence to insist that nothing is beyond its purview.

Such crass appeals have real support in New York, where overpriced housing is a real problem. But it’s important to recognize that high rents are a function of too much government rather than too little. Temporary relief because of the rent freeze he promised for 2 million housing units will inevitably lead to less investment, driving up costs in the long run.

Ouch.

[BigPiney]

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That is hilarious

[Jeff Lebowski]

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[Northwestcoug]

Also, my first home was in Weet Valley City and it was a very small rambler. It was tiny but it worked for me and my family. Sure, we’d have loved to buy a bigger home in Draper or Davis county, but we couldn’t afford it. So we bought a starter home in the hood because that’s where my salary allowed for us to live. Don’t expect to own a nice house until you hit your 30s or 40s

Our first house was in Massachusetts. Our 2 bedroom apartment in a Boston suburb was getting pretty small for a family of 5, and interest rates were alluring enough that we reasoned a mortgage payment would be at least the same as the exhorbitant rent we were paying. We quickly found out that we needed to be outside a 25 mile radius from Boston to have any luck affording a home. We found a 70 year-old colonial on a fairly busy road which needed a lot of loving rehab. With a generous down payment from my FIL we barely afforded it. I spent a lot of time repairing plaster walls (it was that old) and painting. It was also fun finding out that any time it rained more than an inch in 24 hours the basement would flood, despite the presence of 2 sump pumps. It happened enough that we got very efficient rolling up carpets, putting them on Rubbermaids, and quarantining the basement for a week while it dried out. It was a small miracle that we were able to find a young couple that was just as desperate as we were to buy that house, and we even made a small profit.

Believe me, I'm with you on expectations for first homes. But the house market correction you are hoping for is not going to happen in a vacuum. It will be a significant event that will reverberate throughout the economy. At least that's what this economically illiterate person believes

[Moliere]

Sure: market demand, competition, materials and labour costs are all a factor which underly the point that reducing regulations does not result in homes magically being built and all supply needs being met. The state, or government, actually plays an arguably minor role in a very complex housing market. But I'm just a liberal arts grad so maybe that complexity is beyond me.

Deregulation isn’t a silver bullet, but regulations very clearly are a huge impediment to building new housing. And some of those regulations are a very good thing. NIMBY is a thing for everyone, Dems and Repubs alike, and regulations are what is used oftentimes to “protect home values.”

Home prices can’t stay unaffordable forever and they won’t. My college aged son tells me that he’ll never be able to afford a house, and I scoff at that. If my son, who with a business degree and decent job and employed spouse, is in the top quartile of earners his age (thanks to his degree) can’t afford a house, then who is buying the houses and who is renting them? The market forces will create an equilibrium as they always do.

Also, my first home was in Weet Valley City and it was a very small rambler. It was tiny but it worked for me and my family. Sure, we’d have loved to buy a bigger home in Draper or Davis county, but we couldn’t afford it. So we bought a starter home in the hood because that’s where my salary allowed for us to live. Don’t expect to own a nice house until you hit your 30s or 40s

[Bo Diddley]

I do appreciate what NWC was trying to say.

In the whole discussion, I thought Moli made the most sense with putting wealth in perapective.

Despite my admiration of the late Queen Elizabeth II, I'm not a fan of being born into obscene amounts of money. I'm socialist enough to favor capping how much can be passed down to the next generation.

Our tax code in the US allows the wealthy to avoid taxea disproportionately. And we're getting to a point where taxes will need to go up--for all of us.

[Bo Diddley]

And me.

+1

I have no delusions about being anywhere but the shallow end of the pool. I mean, I still don't quite get CA's point.