Two cities, 100 days: Socialism delivers disappointment once again |
Two cities, 100 days: Socialism delivers disappointment once again
One hundred days have passed since voters in New York City and Seattle handed their city governments over to self-described democratic socialists. Zohran Mamdani, the 112th mayor of New York City, took office January 1, 2026. In Seattle, Katie Wilson was sworn in the following day.
Both had run on sweeping promises: affordable housing, free transit, city-run groceries, rent freezes. The scorecard is in: These two administrations offered spectacular pitches, and now reality is pushing back.
Mamdani did secure $1.2 billion in state funding for universal childcare for two-year-olds, a genuine win. His administration filled 100,000 potholes by early April, an achievement greeted with enthusiasm normally reserved for a Yankees pennant race. He has real political talent. But governing is not a press conference, and the promises that moved voters to the polls are a different story.
The fare-free bus proposal has been deferred — the bus system falls under the Metropolitan Transit Authority, a state agency, not the city. City-run groceries remain theoretical. Rent freezes face the same legal and economic buzzsaw that has swallowed rent-control proposals for decades.
Meanwhile, Mamdani faces a multi-billion-dollar budget gap. He claims he inherited it — his critics say his grand plans have created and exacerbated it. His wealth-tax solution was rejected by Gov. Kathy Hochul (D). His backup — a 9.5 percent property tax hike — was blocked by City Council Speaker Julie Menin (D). Margaret Thatcher once claimed that the problem with socialism is that at some point you run out of other people’s money. Mamdani’s problem is more acute — for all his efforts, he may not get his hands on it in the first place.
His personnel choices have compounded the damage. Waleed Shahid, placed on a community organizing committee, has a documented record of inflammatory statements about Jewish media outlets. Tamika Mallory, assigned to a community safety committee, had stepped away from a national role amid concerns over statements linking Jewish people to white supremacism and her ties to Louis Farrakhan.
Catherine Almonte Da Costa resigned after her antisemitic social media posts resurfaced. Mysonne Linen — a musician who served seven years for armed robbery of taxi drivers — joined a legal system panel; the mayor called it “lived experience.”
A Marist Poll in late March showed Mamdani enjoyed a 48 percent approval rating — a net positive, but far below Eric Adams’ 61 percent at the same point in his mayoralty. Among unaffiliated voters, only 27 percent approve, whereas 41 percent disapprove.
Seattle tells a similar story. Wilson won by 0.73 percentage points — the closest mayoral race there since 1906. When asked whether she had delivered on her full campaign platform within 100 days, she laughed. Candor or confession — take your pick.
Homelessness, which she called “the most important reason why I’m sitting here,” has not materially improved. Five hundred promised shelter units have yet to materialize, even as the city prepares to host games for the FIFA World Cup in 64 days. When Andrea Suarez of We Heart Seattle noted that many homeless individuals refuse offered services because they “don’t want the rules,” Wilson called it a “mismatch of services.” That framing, like much of the left-wing policy approach to homelessness, consistently avoids harder but much-needed conversations about addiction, behavioral health, and accountability.
The deeper failure is structural. As Milton Friedman argued in “Free to Choose” and Thomas Sowell has reinforced for decades, rent controls reduce housing supply. They discourage construction, accelerate deterioration and shift benefits from future renters to current ones. Swedish economist Assar Lindbeck famously described rent control as the most effective city-destroying technique known to man, short of bombing.
Seattle has spent heavily on homeless services for years with little visible street improvement. That’s because funding cannot substitute for treatment capacity, behavioral health infrastructure, and the accountability that real resolution requires. Sowell’s axiom applies here: The question is never whether a policy has good intentions — it is whether it produces good results.
I arrived in California in 1990, when the state was thriving and the Republican Party still competed. I have watched what happens when one political philosophy dominates without opposition. Businesses depart. Those with options leave. Those without options absorb the consequences.
The corrective isn’t complicated: Enforce laws consistently, streamline permitting to encourage construction, keep taxes competitive so that employers stay, and address homelessness with treatment and accountability rather than indefinite enabling.
As Neil Peart observed, “If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice.” Deferring hard decisions on budgets, housing supply, and behavioral accountability is a choice — and its consequences arrive on schedule, press conference or not.
Fiscal discipline, the rule of law, and market-driven opportunity are not ideological luxuries. They are the operating conditions under which cities actually work. Anything less is a script history has already reviewed, and the reviews were not kind.
Jay Rogers is a financial professional with more than 30 years of experience in private equity, private credit, hedge funds, and wealth management.
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