Last week, New York State Assembly member Zohran Mamdani sent shockwaves through the political establishment after he clinched the Democratic nomination for New York City mayor. Mamdani, a self-described democratic socialist, defeated a crowded field, which included former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, by double digits. Turnout was higher than usual, especially among younger voters, indicating that Mamdani’s campaign energized New York City residents in ways few people expected.

Throughout his campaign, and especially since the stunning upset, Mamdani has faced attacks from both Republicans and centrist Democrats that paint him as far too extreme for New York City, let alone America. Part of that caricature is clearly fueled by racism — Mamdani is a Muslim immigrant born to Indian parents in Uganda — with Republicans sharing photos of the Statue of Liberty dressed in a burqa, saying Mamdani is uncivilized for eating with his hands, and calling for the 33-year-old candidate to be denaturalized and subsequently deported. It’s also part of the backlash to Mamdani’s support for Palestinian rights, as even members of his own party baselessly accuse him of peddling antisemitism.

But much of the criticism has also centered on Mamdani’s campaign promises, which pledge to make New York City more affordable in small but meaningful ways with rent freezes, city-owned grocery stores, and fare-free buses. Some of that criticism is very heated: Former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers, for example, called Mamdani’s rent stabilization proposal “the second-best way to destroy a city, after bombing.”

Many argue that Mamdani is only offering pie-in-the-sky proposals — nice policies in an ideal world, but unachievable in our not-so-ideal reality. But Mamdani’s splashy policies aren’t exactly foreign ideas, nor is he the first to try to implement them. They’ve been tried before, often with promising results.

Mamdani’s policies aren’t reckless; they’re tested

Let’s take three of his policies that have gotten some of the most attention:

1. Rent freeze

Mamdani has proposed to impose a rent freeze. That means that landlords would be unable to raise the rents on roughly 1 million rent-stabilized apartments across the city. This mostly falls within the mayor’s jurisdiction: Rent hikes (or freezes) are decided by the Rent Guidelines Board, whose nine members are appointed by the mayor. And if elected mayor in November, Mamdani can appoint members to the board who pledge to freeze the rent.

As dramatic as the negative response has been, this isn’t exactly a novel idea. In just the past decade — during Bill de Blasio’s tenure as the city’s mayor — the........

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