# Understanding Mamdani Date: 2025-07-12 --- --- ### Understanding Mamdani Zohran Mamdani proposes [NYC run grocery stores](https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/mamdani-city-run-groceries) and Chicago leans toward [public farmer’s markets](https://chicago.suntimes.com/chicago/2025/02/12/chicago-plan-open-city-grocery-store-changed-favor-public-farmers-markets). > Mamdani’s proposal reflects the reality that food access cannot be left entirely to private enterprise. When profitability becomes the determining factor for whether people can eat, large segments of the country are left behind. In neighborhoods where chains cannot turn reliable margins, stores close. Where customer data indicates low discretionary spending or high SNAP usage, suppliers scale back. The grocery industry, like any other, is designed to maximize return. It is doing what it was built to do. But the outcome is a landscape filled with price inflation, scarcity, and abandonment. That proposal and others has resulted in an alphabet soup of accusations of communism, socialism, and a bunch of racial / zenophobic slurs. However the heart of Mamdani’s governance is [this](https://drive.google.com/file/d/14-aM9DKG337SDMilmfQtLRR-pDwyWSTc/view): > After Trump slashed taxes for the wealthiest Americans, states and cities have raised taxes on the wealthy to make sure everyone pays their fair share, and to keep providing the public goods that Trump wants to starve. Under the Mamdani administration, New York City will follow suit. … > In the wake of COVID-19, state legislators including Zohran Mamdani successfully fought to raise New York State personal income taxes on incomes over $1M, creating new brackets of 9.65 percent, 10.3 percent, and 10.9 percent for those making over $25M Taxing the rich is part of all civilizations that have ever existed. A civilization that allows the rich to control ever more resources will eventually fail — full stop. Whether the rich were willing to give to charity or the government had to step in can be debated, but as things currently stand Mamdani raising taxes on wealthy Americans is outside of any ism other than survivalism. In fact all of Mamdani’s proposals can be understood in terms of NYC’s survival; cities must have people living in them. If Mamdani were actually communist he would cut the [7% of the NYC’s budget spend](https://council.nyc.gov/budget/wp-content/uploads/sites/54/2025/05/New-York-Police-Department-1.pdf) on the police department, as a communist would see that as just a class warfare cost. Mamdani is more looking to [better mitigate](https://drive.google.com/file/d/14-aM9DKG337SDMilmfQtLRR-pDwyWSTc/view) the fallout of class warfare than to stop it (stopping it is a bit much to expect of a city mayor even NYC): > Currently, the City neglects a housing-first solution in favor of jailing people. [More than 2,500](https://www.csh.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/Reduce-Homelessness-for-People-Impacted-by-the-Criminal-Legal-System.pdf) people held on Rikers Island each year need access to supportive housing. The city spends $1.4 billion to incarcerate them, while it would cost just $108 million to provide them with supportive housing — less than 8 percent of jail expenses. By expanding supportive housing beds, and deploying DCS officers to help direct people experiencing homelessness into them, we can greatly reduce homelessness and save money. There is really nothing in Mamdani’s proposals for a rich New Yorker to object. **This is how** [**voters saw it also**](https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/06/25/nyregion/nyc-mayor-election-results-map-mamdani-cuomo.html)**:** ![Image](https://disrael.github.io/blogs/assets/understanding-mamdani-a226535daf.png) Higher income clearly saw Mamdani positively, but, if the NY Times analysis is to be believed (not a good idea but don’t have any other data) not lower income. This is an important point to understand about even FDR and his policies. FDR wasn’t about stopping class warfare — he just wanted America to survive at a time when the Great Depression had made survival in doubt. FDR of course wasn’t a communist, his policies were about making sure America would survive communism. [Saikat Chakrabarti](https://www.saikat.us/en/policies) is another example of a rich ($100 million plus) American who wants America to survive. Hopefully there will be an increasing number of pragmatic rich people that prefer the country that made them wealthy continue to exist. Again that’s not any ism — just a feature of any society that doesn’t disintegrate.