Dear Rob, I’m a life long NYer, born, bred, raised in Brooklyn. Living for 40 years now In the borough of Queens. Daughter of Holocaust survivors from Poland, they were able to make new lives for themselves in NYC. I even received a top notch education in Brooklyn public schools and college at the City University’s flagship CCNY. I have also been a card-carrying Democrat my entire life. A party affiliation inherited from my family and my neighborhood. Working class and lower middle class first and second generation Jews. Only one single high school friend was a conservative admirer of Bill Buckley and a future Republican. We would get into intellectual sparring over politics on a regular basis. But we respected each other.
This brief bio is to demonstrate a typical “real” NYer. I was a self-professed “liberal” but never a “leftist” and I laughed at the profession of Marxist “ideals” by a few of my older relatives, also survivors, but stuck in a Europe long gone. Or so I thought. I am retired now, but until 10 years ago I was one of those outer borough people taking the subway to school and work.
The funny thing is that ever since I learned the alarming news last night of Mamdani’s nomination (despite my and my friends own best efforts) the first thing I started sending around on social media was your 2019 article on Luxury Beliefs. I saved it in my personal archive and it was so incredibly relevant that I dug it out and shared it far and wide. Then I opened my email this evening and found your substack article and, well, I was overjoyed to see how you continue to pay attention to this incredibly destructive, narcissistic, and pathological mindset among the young elite. And some old elite as well.
Thank you and keep it up. Your voice is incredibly important.
I guess one big victory for the DEI movement has been to instill an intractable sense of guilt into white progs, leading them to vote for the most progressive candidates possible in a futile pursuit of relief.
The joke's on them, though. It has turned the Democrat Party into a suicide pact. Who's bringing the Kool-Aid?
Picture one of those latte-foam influencers telling a roofer how to swing a hammer and you’ve got the Mamdani moment in a nutshell. The luxury-belief crowd is high-fiving each other for nominating a TikTok troubadour while the cleaners on the 4 train stare into yesterday’s coffee cup and wonder why the rules only ever change against them.
Your breakdown nails it. Free buses that cost real money, rent freezes that jam the housing engine, and “defund” slogans that scare the very neighbourhoods they claim to protect—each plank is another photo-op for the rich and another pothole for the people who can’t Uber around it.
Cipolla’s Five Laws of Stupidity fit this circus like a glove:
1. We always low-ball the headcount of stupid people. Every election proves the math.
2. Stupidity is democratically distributed. Fancy diplomas do not vaccinate against bone-headed ideas.
3. A stupid person hurts others and gains nothing. Think broken subway doors and still no seat for you.
4. We keep forgetting how much damage stupid people do. Watch City Hall flirt with insolvency again.
5. Stupid beats malicious on the danger scale. A crook might steal your wallet, a fool can bankrupt the whole town.
This is not left versus right, it is competent versus cosplay. If enough voters confuse hoodie theatre with leadership, the working class will keep paying admission for a show that never ends.
Talk to the cleaners, the cooks, the cabbies. Then vote like their commute is your commute, because one day it might be.
Factual errors with this though: You seem to be indirectly insinuating he's a rich nepo kid. A cursory glance shows a columbia prof + filmmaker mom family is basically middle income in NYC. He is a bit nepo, but it's a cameo in his mom's indie film ffs, not a Hollywood blockbuster. Agreed on the performative, unrealistic promises, but isn't that what people do to win elections?
You have a great article on elites vs experts, which I immediately re-read when I saw how he won elections. Broad unsubstantiated gestures and bringing people together is how he leveraged his cultural capital from his financially modest family background into winning against billionaire-backed opponents.
Columbia profs make a lot of money and have amazing benefits compared to the average New Yorker. It’s not a modest income by any means.
Mahmoud Mamdani, Zohran’s father, also had book deals and speaking gigs to top up his prof salary. I read one of Prof Mamdani’s book’s in college. So let’s not get it twisted...
Great courageous post. You are walking the walk. Yes, you will get push back and you will lose some followers. Let them go - if they don't stick with you they were pretenders anyway.
Dear Rob, I’m a life long NYer, born, bred, raised in Brooklyn. Living for 40 years now In the borough of Queens. Daughter of Holocaust survivors from Poland, they were able to make new lives for themselves in NYC. I even received a top notch education in Brooklyn public schools and college at the City University’s flagship CCNY. I have also been a card-carrying Democrat my entire life. A party affiliation inherited from my family and my neighborhood. Working class and lower middle class first and second generation Jews. Only one single high school friend was a conservative admirer of Bill Buckley and a future Republican. We would get into intellectual sparring over politics on a regular basis. But we respected each other.
This brief bio is to demonstrate a typical “real” NYer. I was a self-professed “liberal” but never a “leftist” and I laughed at the profession of Marxist “ideals” by a few of my older relatives, also survivors, but stuck in a Europe long gone. Or so I thought. I am retired now, but until 10 years ago I was one of those outer borough people taking the subway to school and work.
The funny thing is that ever since I learned the alarming news last night of Mamdani’s nomination (despite my and my friends own best efforts) the first thing I started sending around on social media was your 2019 article on Luxury Beliefs. I saved it in my personal archive and it was so incredibly relevant that I dug it out and shared it far and wide. Then I opened my email this evening and found your substack article and, well, I was overjoyed to see how you continue to pay attention to this incredibly destructive, narcissistic, and pathological mindset among the young elite. And some old elite as well.
Thank you and keep it up. Your voice is incredibly important.
I guess one big victory for the DEI movement has been to instill an intractable sense of guilt into white progs, leading them to vote for the most progressive candidates possible in a futile pursuit of relief.
The joke's on them, though. It has turned the Democrat Party into a suicide pact. Who's bringing the Kool-Aid?
Thankfully, this stupid move by Democrats will ensure Eric Adams is re-elected and then we can put this entire mistake in the archives.
Picture one of those latte-foam influencers telling a roofer how to swing a hammer and you’ve got the Mamdani moment in a nutshell. The luxury-belief crowd is high-fiving each other for nominating a TikTok troubadour while the cleaners on the 4 train stare into yesterday’s coffee cup and wonder why the rules only ever change against them.
Your breakdown nails it. Free buses that cost real money, rent freezes that jam the housing engine, and “defund” slogans that scare the very neighbourhoods they claim to protect—each plank is another photo-op for the rich and another pothole for the people who can’t Uber around it.
Cipolla’s Five Laws of Stupidity fit this circus like a glove:
1. We always low-ball the headcount of stupid people. Every election proves the math.
2. Stupidity is democratically distributed. Fancy diplomas do not vaccinate against bone-headed ideas.
3. A stupid person hurts others and gains nothing. Think broken subway doors and still no seat for you.
4. We keep forgetting how much damage stupid people do. Watch City Hall flirt with insolvency again.
5. Stupid beats malicious on the danger scale. A crook might steal your wallet, a fool can bankrupt the whole town.
This is not left versus right, it is competent versus cosplay. If enough voters confuse hoodie theatre with leadership, the working class will keep paying admission for a show that never ends.
Talk to the cleaners, the cooks, the cabbies. Then vote like their commute is your commute, because one day it might be.
You said it all, Rob and perfectly as always
Big fan of your writing rob.
Factual errors with this though: You seem to be indirectly insinuating he's a rich nepo kid. A cursory glance shows a columbia prof + filmmaker mom family is basically middle income in NYC. He is a bit nepo, but it's a cameo in his mom's indie film ffs, not a Hollywood blockbuster. Agreed on the performative, unrealistic promises, but isn't that what people do to win elections?
You have a great article on elites vs experts, which I immediately re-read when I saw how he won elections. Broad unsubstantiated gestures and bringing people together is how he leveraged his cultural capital from his financially modest family background into winning against billionaire-backed opponents.
Columbia profs make a lot of money and have amazing benefits compared to the average New Yorker. It’s not a modest income by any means.
Mahmoud Mamdani, Zohran’s father, also had book deals and speaking gigs to top up his prof salary. I read one of Prof Mamdani’s book’s in college. So let’s not get it twisted...
https://anthropology.columbia.edu/content/mahmood-mamdani
Zohran is a nepo baby promising freebies he has never had to hustle for.
Great courageous post. You are walking the walk. Yes, you will get push back and you will lose some followers. Let them go - if they don't stick with you they were pretenders anyway.