Pirate's Cove

Which policies, though?

Europeans recognize Zohran Mamdani’s supposedly radical policies as ‘normal’

After New York City’s race for mayor catapulted Zohran Mamdani from state assembly member into one of the world’s most prominent progressive voices, intense debate swirled over the ideas at the heart of his campaign.

His critics and opponents painted pledges such as free bus service, universal childcare and rent freezes as unworkable, unrealistic and exorbitantly expensive.

But some have hit back, highlighting the quirk of geography that underpins some of this view. “He promised things that Europeans take for granted, but Americans are told are impossible,” said the Dutch environmentalist and former government adviser Alexander Verbeek in the wake of Tuesday’s election.

Verbeek backed this with a comment he had overheard in an Oslo cafe, in which Mamdani was described as an American politician who “finally” sounded normal.

“Normal. That’s the word,” Verbeek wrote in his newsletter, The Planet. “Here, taking care of one another through public programs isn’t radical socialism. It’s Tuesday.”

Those policies, specifically rent control, government owned grocery stores, and free transit, may seem great on the surface, but, in practice but do not work out in reality all that well.

That view hit on the wide differences in how Mamdani’s promises are seen by many across the Atlantic. “Europeans recognize his vision about free public transit and universal childcare. We expect our governments to make these kinds of services accessible to all of us,” said Verbeek. “We pay higher taxes and get civilized societies in return. The debate here isn’t whether to have these programs, but how to improve them.”

So…….they aren’t actually free? They come about via higher taxes? Don’t forget, it’s pretty much everyone who pays those higher taxes, not just “the rich.” Funny, half of European countries fought against the same policies the Soviet Union wanted to push on Europe by force, now they are implementing the same failures. The other half were actually forced to live under Communism (not the Political Science 101 definition, but, the real world practice type), and many tried to escape from it over the walls and fences guarded by people with machine guns.

Of course, it’s now the Democratic Socialists Of America policies that are truly the issue: it’s the hardcore Islam policies, turning NYC into the cities overrun by Islamists in Europe that are the problem. It’s not as easy to reverse bringing in gobs of Islamists to NYC as it is to end rent control.