Everybody is rightly worried about what damage Zohran Mamdani will do to New York City. It is, after all, the financial capital of the world.
However, the truth is that many of the things he has promised to do will be blocked in Albany due to some complexities in the relationship between the city, the state, and multi-governmental organizations. Mamdani will be able to do a lot of damage, of course, but likely more along the lines of being a worse Bill de Blasio than a Fidel Castro.
“In high school Katie Wilson started to get involved in the anti-consumerist, anti-globalist movements of the ’90s.” https://t.co/i0GAzwiJWl
— TakingHayekSeriously (@FriedrichHayek) November 13, 2025
New York City has so much wealth that it will take a long time and a lot of effort to do irreversible damage, I suspect. Mamdani will be flashy and do damage, but not kill the city. I think. I hope.
“I had never heard of Zohran Mamdani… but it makes a lot of sense.”
In her first national interview, Seattle Mayor-Elect Katie Wilson talks to CNN’s Erin Burnett about comparison’s to New York mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani, and why she’s fine with being called a socialist.… pic.twitter.com/CnraCrJ8Fa
— Erin Burnett OutFront (@OutFrontCNN) November 14, 2025
Seattle, though, may not be so lucky. New York City is a colossus, so it can sustain quite a bit of injury. Seattle may be wealthy by most standards, but its success has shallower roots and its institutions are likely less resilient.
Katie Wilson — a 43-year-old socialist who still lives off parents’ money — wins Seattle mayoral race https://t.co/PYdJm5ELsS pic.twitter.com/8FYQtqL3fb
— New York Post (@nypost) November 13, 2025
The election of Katie Wilson, who barely ousted the incumbent Mayor Bruce Harrell, takes the city out of the frying pan and directly into the fire. Harrell has been struggling to bring the city back from the disastrous COVID/CHAZ/CHOP years, which devastated the city. Microsoft, based just outside Seattle, no longer holds its big Build conference there because the city has become intolerable at times for visitors because of homelessness and drug use.
Harrell was trying to address those issues by rebuilding basic institutions like the police.
Socialist Seattle Mayoral candidate Katie Wilson on her lack of any real world experience after never having a real job:
Running a tiny lefty non profit that can’t file its taxes on time is the same as running a Fortune 500 company pic.twitter.com/yDxqtMJ7St
— Ari Hoffman 🎗 (@thehoffather) October 31, 2025
Wilson’s pitch to bring Seattle back is to become more socialist. Ideologically, she is very Mamdani-like, but intellectually, she is Mamdani-light. Or, perhaps I should say, Mamdani without the looks or charm.
New York City will survive Mamdani. But Seattle? Not sure with this new mayor. Booming Bellevue and its clean streets and vibrant shopping complexes are just a few miles away. I’ll bet on Bellevue. https://t.co/QytxrDfNcK
— John Fund (@johnfund) November 14, 2025
She even shares a similar background to Mamdani. Her parents are prominent academics in New York who regularly send her money because she is basically unemployable and can’t afford to live in Seattle. She went to Oxford, but dropped out a few weeks before graduation, and she blames her lack of a college degree for her inability to get high-paying jobs.
Seattle’s new mayor Katie Wilson: “We will not allow grocery chains to close stores at will” pic.twitter.com/YQUpJyWy0H
— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) November 13, 2025
At least she didn’t need student loans. Her parents floated her throughout her life.
Seattle’s newly elected mayor Katie Wilson sounds like a precocious 10-year-old who’s acting like an emperor who was just given the Mandate of Heaven to reign over a thousand year empire.
She promises free housing, free healthcare and she to redistribute the wealth and land of… pic.twitter.com/OvtJiGB7ju
— Ian Miles Cheong (@ianmiles) November 14, 2025
Mamdani is already backtracking on some of his more difficult-to-implement policies, and will fall back on blaming Albany or Washington—particularly Donald Trump—for his inability to fulfill some of them. For instance, Kathy Hochul has already quashed the free buses and massive tax increases promises, despite having endorsed Mamdani. She needs the support of those hedge fund managers for her presidential run.
Seattle Police Officer Guild statement on the election of police abolitionist Katie Wilson:
“The vote count for Seattle’s next mayor took so long that I almost forgot we had an election. And much like public safety in Seattle, our election process needs to be reformed.” pic.twitter.com/5Bwt3O1vVW
— Ari Hoffman 🎗 (@thehoffather) November 13, 2025
I expect Mamdani to be more show than dough on many of his biggest issues. Where he will do the most damage is in policing and education. Most of his economic agenda is not doable as mayor.
Seattle mayor-elect Katie Wilson says to pay for her socialist wish list in an already unaffordable city: “I do think that we will need to pursue new progressive revenue in order to fund our priorities…There’s several progressive tax options I proposed as part of my platform.” pic.twitter.com/8sZpCYAjWZ
— Ari Hoffman 🎗 (@thehoffather) November 13, 2025
Wilson, though, appears to be even more ideologically rigid and far less intelligent. And she is going to be in charge of a city with far less economic depth and resilience than New York City.
Socialist Seattle Mayor-elect Katie Wilson’s first move after winning the election was to boycott Starbucks, a hometown company. pic.twitter.com/zPoNULxfuk
— Ari Hoffman 🎗 (@thehoffather) November 14, 2025
Ancient Rome could endure many bad policies because there was a lot of wealth to consume before it collapsed. New York City is like that. Seattle doesn’t have the economic depth and power to endure a lot of horrific management. Having a mayor whose sole experience is running a tiny nonprofit, whose husband is an unemployed baker, and who can’t even support herself, I’m pretty sure you are screwed.
“Seattle should be a place where you can busk at Pike Place Market and still afford to live here.”
Socialist Seattle mayoral candidate Katie Wilson pic.twitter.com/1r036KKmS5
— Ari Hoffman 🎗 (@thehoffather) October 31, 2025
Yep. The city is screwed. Big time.
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