The Democrats chose Zohran Mamdani, a Muslim, Socialist Communist in their Primary to be the next mayor of NYC. If he gets elected NYC is screwed. I don't like that they used ranked choice voting. That should be unconstitutional.
What happened is that all the progressive candidates agreed to rank each other. In effect, a vote for any of the other commie candidates became a vote for the Muslim via ranked choice.
He's now the de facto mayor elect. It'll take a major effort for him to not win in November. I fear there will be several "anti-Mamdani" candidates, splitting the vote, handing him the victory. Adams isn't dropping out. Republicans are trying to get another candidate on the ballot after gifting Silwa the primary win unopposed. Cuomo isn't dropping out (also running as an independent for the general election).
He said "globalize the intifada" is a good idea, which is a literal call for violence against Jews.
He "came out of nowhere" to win, but he had a barrage of mainstream media coverage leading up to the election. That's the same playbook they used to promote Obama.
by Cornpop Sutton 
, A bad bad dude who makes good shine., Friday, June 27, 2025, 00:37 (29 days ago) @ FSK
by Cornpop Sutton , A bad bad dude who makes good shine., Tuesday, July 08, 2025, 20:38 (17 days ago) @ JoFrance
edited by Cornpop Sutton, Tuesday, July 08, 2025, 21:19
To the youth who know no better, "equalize things and make things moar fairer" sounds better than hardly being able to afford to pay bills or being able to build wealth.
I have lots of sympathy for the under 35 crowd. Housing is impossible now, cars are unaffordable and overengineered pieces of techie shit, food is through the roof. They don't know anything about the history of communism, esp in the USSR and in China and North Korea, therefore they are easy pickins'.
Mamdami looks nothing like 20th century despots so if you make the comparison they will LOL.
Conservatives that believe completely in trickle-down as an answer to economic hardship have been fooling themselves and us for decades. But their preferred system has better results for most people than socialism. But, there is no practical way to prove that position.
Someone who has no path to a reasonably comfortable existence will be receptive to a message like "burn the entire motherfucker to the ground." I would probably think likewise.
I think capitalism seriously needs tweaks to avoid the problem of gross inequality building as everything in society gets financialized. But I have no idea what that would be. Pure capitalism does seem to have an end game of wiping out the middle class. Since if you can't expand the base of consumers, you are left to squeeze the ones you have until they are skeletons.
The only reason everything is "financialized" is because we have a corrupt monetary system. If banks and hedge funds can borrow at 3% when true inflation is 10%+, of course they're going to max out their leverage and buy up everything.
Government causes a problem. They say "This is a failure of the free market!" The "solution" is even more government regulation, which makes the problem worse. It's an endless cycle of escalation.
For example, the reason healthcare is a mess is because government artificially restricts the supply of doctors with the licensing cartel. Fix that problem, and most of the other problems would go away. But doctors are very happy with the way things are now, and are making so much money they will lobby to keep it going. In all discussions of healthcare problems and healthcare costs, nobody ever mentions the licensing cartel for doctors.
by Cornpop Sutton , A bad bad dude who makes good shine., Friday, July 11, 2025, 12:50 (14 days ago) @ FSK
A generation ago before financialization of all of existence, it was possible to make a semi comfortable middle class living in a city like NYC. Rents resembled the rest of the country. NY was shitty in the 70s but it was doable for a young person with a focus starting out.
The only way this all gets "corrected" is when the dollar melts down.