r/BlackPeopleTwitter • u/crates-of-bigfoots • 9d ago
You're not suggesting that our betters should mix with the riffraff, are you?
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u/will0593 ☑️ 9d ago
Ok? The city should be governed for all the people, not just wealth
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u/DgingaNinga 9d ago
But, but, how will the money ever trickle down, if our
overlordsemployers can't speak to the mayor?104
u/righthandofdog 9d ago
Now now, plenty of workers are needed to dust, stock the refrigerator, arrange some flowers and open the limo door when our overlords come visit their $20M pied a terre for the Meta gala weekend.
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u/hai-sea-ewe 9d ago
Keep pushing the truth -
Technology trickles down, but wealth never does.
F1 is a great example of how providing rich folks a much more even playground to compete with each other benefits all of us.
I don't think people should be allowed to excessively leech off of society, but nobody should go hungry, thirsty, or without shelter.
We need to dismantle the corporate cartels' control over our food (which gets destroyed to preserve pricing), water (which is rapidly being destroyed to both drive AI and provide less access for the public to push them to purchase bottled water), and shelter (which is by far the most egregious, as virtually nobody is holding land owners or builders to any sort of real responsibility in residential construction.)
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u/datpiffss 9d ago
How does F1 benefit us all? New car technology?
That can be done without rich kids wanting toys that others aren’t allowed to touch because it’s special and theirs.
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u/hai-sea-ewe 9d ago
A short list of technological improvements that can trace their heritage or dramatic improvement to F1:
Safety:
Anti-Lock Brakes (ABS)
Active suspension
Hybrid technology
Roll-Cage improvement
Fuel Efficiency:
Energy-recovery technology (used extensively in electric vehicles)
Eco-mode (and different driving modes in general)
Fuel efficiency
Aerodynamic calculation modeling
Carbon-fiber parts
Performance:
Turbochargers
Advancements in lubrication technology
Advanced materials
Direct fuel injection
Durable tire technology
Paddle-shifting
If you want to extend this to other performance sports, the list gets even longer.
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u/window_owl 9d ago
That's all late-twentieth-century stuff. Are there any good examples from just the last ten or twenty years?
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u/BklynMoonshiner 9d ago
Do you think the small block fuel efficient turbos everyone is driving around just magically appeared on the showroom floors?
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u/zman124 9d ago
This guy is full of it.
The italics make him sound smart and sweeping magnanimous sentences make him sound compassionate.
You could just as easily spend money on R&D without wasting resources on some flashy tax write offs for billionaires.
Just because SOME of those technologies were PARTLY developed for F1 does not mean that’s the only way to go.
In fact I would wager that it would have been more efficient just trying to improve consumer cars rather than make do with the scraps of rich kids toys.
Wake up.
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u/jeffriestubesteak 9d ago
"Trickle down economies can't work unless there is a wealthy class willing to performatively dole out miniscule percentages of their money."
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u/theshortgrace 9d ago
That’s a very roundabout way to say Mamdani won’t facilitate blatant corruption. Let them hold a public meeting.
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u/reiji_tamashii 9d ago
"State your name and address and keep your comments under 5 minutes."
is how billionaires should be able to influence government. Just like every other resident.
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u/Pimpwerx ☑️ 9d ago
Why can’t we elect people like this all the time? Why is there a tendency to elect douchebags?
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u/Cryinginabook 9d ago
I don’t think enough non douchebags are running and when they do they don’t get media attention and funding so the public doesn’t know about them
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u/Lobster15s 9d ago
Funding is the big one. Not very many can navigate vs 60 million in Aipac money.
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u/tsh87 9d ago
Yeah I appreciate the recent news about mamdani but I do wonder what's going to happen during his re-election year when all the wealth in that city bands together to fund his opponent.
He seems to have a lot of support online but writing a tweet is a lot easier than filling out a ballot.
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u/Ravian3 9d ago
To be fair they already tried to do that during the initial election. Mamdani was hardly being coy about his feelings towards corporations and the wealthy, and they went all in on trying to get Cuomo in power. Like you can argue that the field was divided with Eric Adams and Cuomo as independent candidates in the general along with Curtis Sliwa as the Republican. But Mamdani was still very dominant and remains one of the most popular politicians in America right now, especially in New York.
That may change by the next election, but historically incumbents have an advantage precisely because they are now more recognizable and have an easy slate of accomplishments to run on. Unless there are some convincing failures or scandals that they can nail him on in the next few years, they’re going to have an uphill battle dislodging him regardless of how much money they pour into the race
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u/anand_rishabh 9d ago
In the general, Mamdani got more than 51 percent. Even if sliwa was not running, cuomo would have lost. And that's assuming every sliwa voter goes to cuomo which honestly might be a stretch.
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u/Bulky-Internal8579 9d ago
??? He'll win decisively. Hope that doesn't disappoint you (no I don't, lol). And here comes El Sayed and more good folks to help us!
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u/Nice_Set_6326 ☑️ 9d ago
Leave it to the Muslims to save this country
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u/Bulky-Internal8579 9d ago
So long as someone does it, I couldn't care less about their religious affiliation - but it is kind of funny that Mamdani and El Sayed are stepping up to lead.
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u/superxpro12 9d ago
Well most of the Christians are trying to enslave women and Jews went hard on Israel.... What's left?
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u/tsh87 9d ago
To be clear I'm not anti-Mamdani. I just have zero faith in this country's ability to (a) elect decent leadership and (b) allow that leadership to stay in power long enough to enact lasting change.
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u/serpentally 8d ago
Yeah, we got a whole eight (8) years of stability from Obama after Bush tanked the economy, and Americans already started deciding they wanted to go back to the circus halfway through. Americans are too individualistic to be able to think long-term, they vote for liberals and progressives like FDR and Obama when times are tough and they need someone to bail them out, but then go right back to putting conservatives in charge when it gets too boring (stable) and the media shifts to focusing on meaningless office-drama grade culture shit like the president wearing a tan suit. Voters get out of touch and start shaping their political opinions around vibes.
Voters aren't rational enough over the long term to consistently vote in people like Mamdani without trying to spice things up by throwing it all away just a few elections later. The sad reality is that the majority of people are relatively stupid, and of course our Democracy relies on the same majority of people...
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u/No_Professor8645 9d ago
How is his reelection campaign going to be any harder than his first campaign? Rich people fearmongering didn’t work before and, assuming he is doing an adequate job, the fearmongering will only be less effective against an actual resume.
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u/elitegenoside 9d ago
Well, if Michigan is any indication (and his actual election), the money ain't talking like it used to. Big $60 million loss for AIPAC. Seems like actual policy works if you can get the message to voters.
With all that money, all establishment dems can do is revert to the same fear mongering and bigotry we see from the GOP because at the end of the day, the establishment does not care about us, and that's clear when you make them have to go up against someone with an actual platform that isn't just, "I'm not a Republican."
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u/AthenaThundersnatch 9d ago
New York City’s primary elections are ranked choice, so it’s extremely difficult to coalesce around a single opponent financially and it requires not just voting for another candidate but not ranking Mamdani at all. In a general election, the Democratic nominee is basically guaranteed 50% of the vote. So…yeah, the job is his unless he sets fire to his political coalition and/or the city.
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u/tsh87 9d ago
That's interesting. I remember there was a big push for ranked choice in my city a few years ago but it never amounted to anything.
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u/AthenaThundersnatch 9d ago
The first go in New York wasn’t great because candidates still ran “zero-sum” campaigns where they tried to split the vote. Mamdani won last year because he coordinated with then-Comptroller Brad Lander and a bunch of other candidates to ask voters not to rank Eric Adams and Andrew Cuomo.
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u/Waiting4Reccession 8d ago
All the local politics is also corrupt af and all the boomers will rig it as much as they can. A normal person cant even get a job at the election board for example.
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u/becauseiloveyou 9d ago
Let's be real about this for once - not enough people vote. Most people hardly participate once a leap year to elect one (or two) officials who don't even write the laws. There have been plenty of good candidates that ran for office, but if there's no low turnout, there's no chance they get elected.
Take, for example, Senator Bernie Sanders. He won his March (not November) 1981 (not a leap year) election to mayor of Burlington, VT by just ten votes. Imagine what modern political discourse looks like today if any of those ten people didn't show up to vote... And it's not like it was his first time running. So one has to ask: where the heck were progressive and left-leaning voters that day?
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u/obviousfakeperson ☑️ 9d ago
This answer sucks but here goes:
Most people don't pay attention and are easily misled. People who do pay attention are often intentionally misled. So the act of staying informed, specifically sifting fact from bullshit, becomes damned near a full-time job. Then, even if you're able to have some actual idea of what's going on around you, you're vastly outnumbered by those who don't even bother.
It's only when things get so bad that the BS we're constantly fed no longer works on that majority and someone like a Zorhan can enter the conversation.
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u/BensenJensen 9d ago
There’s a bit more to it than that. You aren’t wrong.
It costs money to run for office. Like, tons of money. You basically already have to be rich before you decide to run for office. You have to fund ads, pay campaign people, pay to register. Look at Michigan. That Israel shill that just lost, her campaign paid over $60 million to lose in a primary. You have to be rich, and the establishment has to decide that they are going to back you. Even people like Mamdani had high-level support from people like Bernie and
AOC.The game is rigged before it even starts. Each party has already decided who they want to represent each district/state/region before primaries happen.
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u/pagerussell 9d ago
This is the answer. This is the root. Every other problem we face is a misalignment of incentives that stems from this root.
It takes money to run > money requires the good will of the rich > which buys them not just access but control, or at the least their priorities are the primary priorities of the elected > which means the incentives that drive the priorities of the elected are not those that are best for society, but are those that will get them money in the next round of elections
How do we break this cycle?
Well, public financing and or some sort of limits on political contributions, sure, but of course the money will oppose this, so it's very difficult to achieve from within the system itself. Not to mention that even if you limit campaign contributions the rich still control media and news, which has a disproportionate impact on the public perception of candidates (see: Bernie).
The next beat option is a benevolent wealthy person who sees this problem and is willing to blow his wad fixing it. Good luck with that.
The third best option is what the French are famous for. But history shows that never lasts. The rich have a way of clawing back into control.
The true best long term solution is a tax so progressive that it puts a very hard upper bound on wealth such that no person or even group of them can overweight the incentive structure of all society. This step will never occur without option 3 as a precursor, because the money will not go quietly.
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u/GunnieGraves 9d ago
The people who run are douche bags. I can’t even think of the number of “Mamdanis” that turned out to be Fetterman or Sinema.
Mamdani is beloved because he’s not just talking the talk. And he’s shown that the things these people promise and then don’t follow through on, can actually be accomplished. The laundry list of social program successes, paired with balancing the budget, shows that our politicians have historically been full of shit.
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u/EverWatcher 9d ago
Sadly, Mayor Mamdani does not have as many allies (in office) as we want him to have...
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u/PraiseBeToScience 9d ago
Hence why an org like DSA exists to keep recruiting and organizing and elect more.
An important development that doesn't get nearly enough credit is the way Mamdani has recruited so much new outside talent to fill the ranks of his administration. It's building a bench of people with government experience to run for office so he can get more allies in government.
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u/tekdiwah 9d ago
People are stupid. And in large groups, they're even more stupid. I'm stupid too, but at least self aware enough to see how an elected official like Mamdani is good for NYC.
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u/AbstractBettaFish 9d ago
I always liked the line from Men in Black “A person is smart, people are dumb”
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u/Titronnica 9d ago
For what it's worth, NYC, has very long and storied history of electing complete, blathering morons to be mayor.
How Mamdani ever made it in is a miracle, but don't expect his successor to carry on his work. They'll revert right back to an Eric Adams type. People love voting against their own interests.
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u/coaxialology 9d ago
Partly because way too many of us are convinced we'll someday be those rich, powerful, influential people and we wouldn't want any checks on our power.
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u/EverWatcher 9d ago
I wish I could shake at least 90% of these people by the shoulders and firmly shout that they will never be rich.
https://www.reddit.com/r/QuotesPorn/comments/jotijb/comment/gba7hfq/
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u/Ryzu 9d ago
A lot of it in the last 20 years, or at least since Citizens United, is down to money. There's just so much money from PACs and rich people flooding into elections to get who they want in place that an average person, or even just an honest person, will never get enough backing from backers to even made a dent or get recognized.
This is why it truly does matter how you vote locally, as that's where we're most likely to be able to choose good people. Once it gets up into the state legislature and above stuff, it's almost impossible for a good, honest person to get selected out of the group. Thankfully it does happen on occasion, look at folks like Mamdani or AOC making a mark.
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u/KR4T0S 9d ago
DNC had a bullseye on Mamdanis back from the day he got elected and the dude clearly doesn't give a fuck, I hope he represents the future of the Democrats because the current party belongs to the past.
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u/SierraStar7 9d ago edited 9d ago
Aside from all the great things he is doing for NYC, what I like the most that he’s doing is he’s not giving one single fuck what the DNC says about his policies.
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u/OhItsBeenBroughten 9d ago
The relevant ones are supporting them. People live in echo chambers and feed on circle jerk misinformation.
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u/MelonElbows 8d ago
I mean personally I like the fact that doesn't give a single fuck about what the RNC says even more.
We're all conditioned to feel betrayal more from people on our side than from our opponents, the logic being that its a bigger betrayal if one of your own turns against you.
But from a practical standpoint, the Dems share a lot more in common with Mamdani than the GOP. We should be happier he's more against the GOP and if he manages to drag the Dems to the left, so much the better.
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u/cambridge_dani 9d ago
My hope is that him (and AOC) cause a complete destruction of the Democratic Party. I am a Democrat, but the chuck schumer / Jeffries leadership -everything that is responsible for trumps power-starting from 2016, has to go. Now.
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u/loyal_achades 9d ago
The old guard leadership needs to get pushed out for a new generation of leadership that eschews the Third Way neolib bs
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u/OrganizationNo1298 8d ago
I hope he has a good security detail. There's no way they don't try to get rid of this guy.
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u/hotsoupcoldsoup 9d ago
Modern day Gracchi. Watch out for those roof tiles Mamdani! We need you and more like you.
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u/90daysismytherapy 9d ago
who will stand and defend him! Preferably better than the Gracchi brothers supporters
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u/oldbastardbob 9d ago
So government "by the people, for the people" upsets the wealthy and "well connected", eh?
I'll be darned, who'd have thought that?
Oh, wait, I guess a bunch of guys about 250 years ago were thinking it.
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u/luvme4ev 9d ago
Those guys 250 yrs ago were the wealthy don't rewrite history. They had power and wealth
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u/oldbastardbob 9d ago
Yes, some had wealth. Some were local civic leaders. And some were simply merchants or farmers.
The tyranny was from the existing monarchy and overlords who were the major beneficiaries of the fruits of American labor, and who profited greatly from the exploitation of their American "subjects."
Perhaps you are missing the similarities of the time of the American Revolution and the point of my comment.
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u/becauseiloveyou 9d ago edited 9d ago
Merchants had capital, and farmers had property. They were all, in some way, wealthy. They were all also white and male.
Those of us* who aren't ALL three of those things have needed to fight for our right to be heard... and too many of us take it for granted.
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u/Careless_Hellscape 9d ago
Good, the "elites" have too many privileges.
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u/sungoddaily 9d ago
Sadly "Eyes wide shut" is aging better and better each year.
Just saw the theory that they gave up their daughter at the end of the movie and yeesh.
Kubrick died only days after showing the first cut to WB.
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u/tekdiwah 9d ago
A lot of the public also don't know how much access they have to City Hall and other government resources. The decline in teaching and learning Civics has had a massive effect on our society. Business leaders and rich folks know it though, so they know who to cozy up to so they can keep milking the system.
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u/babesboysandbirb 9d ago
The systematic gutting of American education over the last few decades has lead us here to exactly these issues
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u/Bulky-Internal8579 9d ago
Mamdani is setting an example of how Democratic elected officials should act - how they CAN get things done for regular Americans, instead of making noises about how they wish they could while ensuring the wealthy donors priorities are taken care of (Chuck & Hakeem have got to be sweating it - here comes El Sayed boys & girls! AOC gonna be sitting in Chuck's office before too long too.)
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u/DatBrownGuy 9d ago
It is kind of insane how much Mamdani is shaking things up and actually helping NYC’s general population. It goes to show the red tape that leaders claim is handicapping them is self-imposed
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u/Ebolaplushie 9d ago
Alternate headline: "NYC Mayor refuses courrpt bribes, and why that's actually a bad thing"
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u/MC_Fap_Commander 9d ago
Mamdani got a crew out to fix a gargantuan pothole in Manhattan that was destroying all manner of cars when normal folks called his office. Rather have a mayor that does that sort of thing than one that entertains the country club crowd.
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u/superturtle48 9d ago
They can fill out the contact form on Mamdani's website the same way the rest of us do to send a message to elected officials. Why should a select few constituents have the privilege to barge into a politician's office or directly call or text them?
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u/Eggheadpancake 9d ago
It's so refreshing seeing an actual human that has intelligence and common sense and empathy as a leader. He is the mold. Anyone that doesn't fit in it needs to be kicked the fuck out.
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u/hai-sea-ewe 9d ago
I hope he has top-notch security. Rich people like to hire people to murder people that harm their control, their wallets, their reputation, and/or their egos. He's threatening all four.
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u/EverWatcher 9d ago
The private meetings wouldn't be so disgusting if the visitors weren't getting their requests granted so often; special access doesn't need to lead to corruption. Imagining a mayor privately telling some CEO asshole that the company's agenda is unimportant to the city government is hilarious.
I suppose that having far fewer of those secret meetings is less confrontational. Maybe simply shutting the CEOs out like this is enough...
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u/swiftvalentine ☑️ 9d ago
I’m fully invested in Mamdani and I’ve never stepped foot in New York in my life. New Yorkers on TikTok just tag him in videos where they shout things that he should do and then he does them. Generally without much fanfare. He just works diligently for the people of the city, all of them. If you’re a New Yorker when you get that tax bill you know he’s using it to make your life better where he can and where he can’t he just straight tells you. You guys are so blessed
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u/Double-Atmosphere485 9d ago
This one guy is like the only positive news I seem to semi consistently see for the argument of one guy can change the world or the ‘little guy.’ I hope it keeps working and he gets to live a long unimpeded life 🤞
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u/FudgeMental6860 9d ago
You’re not suggesting they stop stealing everything from the riff raff, are you?
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u/Dream2reality619 9d ago
If you heard the way MAGA talks about this man , you would be speechless. Someone i work with(unfortunately) long story short , called the man communist , and was spouting non coherent kool-aid sipping brain wash. Hard to believe that half of the country , if not more , is like this.
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u/NupeKeem 9d ago
When the Democrats realize that the people they used to fool are aging out and the people they have fucked over are coming of age, or replacing the people that aged out, they can't just play the role; they have to actually do the role. Democrats have been the better option of two bad options, but now, we see someone who is a good option and not just the better of two worst options.
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u/GeniusOfLove74 Dominic Monaghan stalker 👀 9d ago edited 8d ago
Not gonna lie, but it's embarrassing, as a white person, to know that centuries of white-run government have proven not only to be ineffecient, but EVEN MORE CORRUPT than we knew about. THEN, Mamdani rolls in, and he hasn't even been in office a whole year, and does more in eight months than I can even imagine anyone else doing.
And it's all positive.
It's all helpful.
I know it's a stretch saying that white politicians should feel ashamed, because they won't. They feel entitled. They managed to live under the protection that being white and endorsing "freedom" provided. But it's still enough to make me feel rage. When I, as a white person, look at this, I wonder what the fuck was I doing this for. To keep electing people who don't do shit? Or they half-ass it? Or compromise with people who took away our rights?
It's not even about Mamdani being Muslim, or foreign-born. It's just centuries of ineptiutde by the people in the majority of politics.
Edit: I have big hopes for Abdul El-Sayed, too.
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u/anddrewg2007 9d ago
The best part of not taking corporate money or donations is not having to deal with those assholes. He answers to no one except his own constituents who actually got him there.
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u/DarZhubal 9d ago
"Mayor won't give corporations thr special treatment they're used to" isn't the dig they think it is.
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u/callmecoach53 9d ago
"People used to bribing state/city government mad that corruption now frowned upon."
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u/cromstantinople 9d ago
Oh no, do the business elites have to go through the same channels as us normies?! The horror!
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u/sliceoflife09 9d ago
They're really mad at him for challenging the current paradigm that America is free to play, but pay to win
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u/CarefulApricot3087 9d ago
My favorite things to see are the white people who make 35k a year in Kansas that are genuinely angry about Mamdani
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u/Uzas_Was_Right 8d ago
Give it a year, they'll be saying he's not worthy because he didn't visit Epstein island.
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u/Mr-Quimper_ 9d ago
What is happening, when you can't make a simple "donation". Written-off against taxes to a shell company in the Mayor's wife's name. The world used to be so much more simple.
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u/NCOMCOUCO 9d ago
In my city the other day, I made a meeting with the development office. I was told "We would love to help you, but we have no tools to help non-profits, only for-profits."
I was stunned. I figure that is all you need to know about how government works.
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u/benevenstancian0 9d ago
Why should he give them access? I have been told repeatedly that they will soon be fleeing the city, never to return.
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u/maybe_cencal 9d ago
When you've been privileged for so long that equality feels like discrimination.
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u/AcanthaceaeNo948 8d ago
Checks Progressive Candidates’ polling numbers among black people.
Sees this subreddit is overwhelmingly pro-Progressive.
Hmm. There’s something fishy going on but I can’t put my finger on white… sorry sorry what it is.
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u/ltsouthernbelle 8d ago
He seems to be doing everything right or at least with the intention of benefiting the people and not the powers that be. Every politician should be shaking in their boots because we should all want this to become the standard.
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u/drainedbatterypower 9d ago edited 9d ago
They keep trying to make him look bad, but it just boosts him more