A new mayor who's still living on an allowance from her parents? What could possibly go wrong?

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David Strom makes a bold prediction

Seattle's New Socialist Mayor Will Be Worse Than Mamdani

Everybody is rightly worried about what damage Zohran Mamdani will do to New York City. It is, after all, the financial capital of the world. 

However, the truth is that many of the things he has promised to do will be blocked in Albany due to some complexities in the relationship between the city, the state, and multi-governmental organizations. Mamdani will be able to do a lot of damage, of course, but likely more along the lines of being a worse Bill de Blasio than a Fidel Castro. 

New York City has so much wealth that it will take a long time and a lot of effort to do irreversible damage, I suspect. Mamdani will be flashy and do damage, but not kill the city. I think. I hope. 

Seattle, though, may not be so lucky. New York City is a colossus, so it can sustain quite a bit of injury. Seattle may be wealthy by most standards, but its success has shallower roots and its institutions are likely less resilient. 

The election of Katie Wilson, who barely ousted the incumbent Mayor Bruce Harrell, takes the city out of the frying pan and directly into the fire. Harrell has been struggling to bring the city back from the disastrous COVID/CHAZ/CHOP years, which devastated the city. Microsoft, based just outside Seattle, no longer holds its big Build conference there because the city has become intolerable at times for visitors because of homelessness and drug use. 

Harrell was trying to address those issues by rebuilding basic institutions like the police. 

Wilson's pitch to bring Seattle back is to become more socialist. Ideologically, she is very Mamdani-like, but intellectually, she is Mamdani-light. Or, perhaps I should say, Mamdani without the looks or charm. 

…. Ancient Rome could endure many bad policies because there was a lot of wealth to consume before it collapsed. New York City is like that. Seattle doesn't have the economic depth and power to endure a lot of horrific management. Having a mayor whose sole experience is running a tiny nonprofit, whose husband is an unemployed baker, and who can't even support herself, I'm pretty sure you are screwed. 

How will all this largess be paid for? Aww, c’mon, you know how a communist tackles problems like that.

And while you might think that the best way to keep grocery and drug stores open in the most blighted area of a city would be to reduce crime and make it safe for customers to shop and enable store owners to make a profit, Katie has an easier, perhaps even brilliant approach: “we’ll pass a law and make them stay!”

As for “the people”, they can relax, maybe play a couple of tunes when the weather’s nice.