I need someone to explain to me exactly how Mamdani manages to sidestep the very bureaucracy that other politicians always blame for their inability to get anything done.
Explain it to me like I’m in kindergarten.
May 16, 2026, 8:08 PM@Strandjunker Mayhaps there is no actual such bureaucracy and those that claim there is just don't want those things to happen?
People have been so beaten down and denigrated it's normal to figure everything is basically impossible. No expert can just speak, they must introduce themselves, their credentials and accolades before they even attempt to make their point. some kind of paranoid pre-buffer to any push back.
Politicians that would do something nice defeat themselves in the same way, telling themselves they don't know enough, they need to defer defer defer, ultimately just wasting time.
.
@wonka @Strandjunker I agree - I have maintained for a long time now that if there were a real political will to solve a problem it would be solved.
However once solved it’s one less thing politicians can get people angry about - and they need people to be angry.
@antjbro @wonka @Strandjunker in monster inc they needed children to be afraid. Turned out they actually didn’t, that was just the first thing they found that worked and they never tried to move past it.
@Strandjunker boost
@Strandjunker Other politicians are being paid to not make things happen by big donors. Eventually they may get to Mamdani, but for now he seems to be relatively unencumbered.
@adrianco @Strandjunker The record low murder rate is the one that seems like magic. Maybe just giving people hope?
May 17, 2026, 4:49 AM@dxzdb @adrianco @Strandjunker that’s because so many cops retired or quit. NYPD are a violent gang paid for billionaires (the fight about their secret budget is coming).
@Strandjunker He appointed actual "get things done" types rather than favors for donors. He made a task force to find the bureaucracy and reduce it. He's been talking to people for a long time to understand where their pains are. And he is very popular.
💯 !!
"He appointed actual "get things done" types rather than favors for donors. "
Im perpetually disgusted by how incompetent most of our politicians are. So when one breaks through who actually WANTS to make government work we are shocked and amazed.. and it seems like it not actually that hard. You just effin get on with it!
@sleepy62 @Strandjunker I get your point, but in many ways, this is what the system is built to produce. If you require politicians to solicit donations, then you incentivize corruption.
May 17, 2026, 2:02 PM@Strandjunker @sleepy62 @stevestreza it’s like healthcare.
@Strandjunker If I explain it to you like you are in kindergarten, Trump could understand it. Maybe we want to avoid that.
@edgeofeurope @Strandjunker No, no he wouldn’t. We’re safe. Go ahead.
@Catawu @edgeofeurope @Strandjunker we won’t show him the pictures, the squiggly lines don’t mean anything to him.
@Strandjunker cocaine?
@gmarcosanti @Strandjunker drugs man, there a hell of a drug, I tell ya.
May 16, 2026, 8:47 PM@Strandjunker Some people make excuses for their bad behavior. The Mothers of Invention had a motto ready-made for them decades ago: "We're Only In It For The Money."
@Strandjunker My guess is a lot of his appointments to other roles aren't also milquetoast. It'd explain why so far the only things he hasn't done are things he needs the Governor to sign off on.
@Strandjunker once upon a time, politicians were supposed to have charm and swagger and general likability. Mamdani is bringing it back
@cyberwitch one can only hope!
@Strandjunker he sidesteps by just wanting to do good things for people. Everyone else was just lying.
@Strandjunker balancing a budget is easy when you rob Peter to pay Paul and hard when you try to actually balance a budget
May 17, 2026, 4:02 AM@Slyence @Strandjunker Balancing a budget is easy when you don’t let the ultra wealthy socialize all the risk and privatize all the profit.
@pier @Strandjunker defunding pensions and lying about tax revenue is the ultra wealthy socializing the risk and privatizing the profit? You absolute steamed turnip
May 17, 2026, 2:08 PM@Strandjunker @Slyence @pier taxation on unused homes is increasing the wealth tax as well as taking some money from others - share the pain not just blame. Short term vs long term that is where you will see the difference.
May 17, 2026, 6:33 PM@Slyence@mastodo.neoliber.al @Strandjunker
@Slyence @Strandjunker why? Balancing a budget is simple math. Its addition and subtraction. Bigger numbers doesn’t make it more complicated.
@passwordsarehard4 @Strandjunker budgetary math causes real pain and suffering, it’s never easy
You are literally picking winners and losers
May 16, 2026, 9:39 PM@Strandjunker bad men do bad things
@Strandjunker sssshhhh... You'll spoil everything this country has worked so hard to achieve for rich people over the last 50 years.
May 16, 2026, 9:48 PM@Strandjunker Because they think they are being paid to be a figurehead instead of actually do work in figuring out the bureaucracy to make their constituintes wishes true.
@Strandjunker He's not engaging and amplifying, as a political position of power, in one of the wealthiest cities in the world, by causing more polaric vacillations via an overextended #duopoly. He wisely supports the #sustainable middle - #DemocraticSocialism - and appeals to the greater majority of BASIC HUMAN VALUES!!!
@Strandjunker There are people with wealth and influence who use the bureaucracy to interfere with the mayor getting things done. Those people opposed Mamdani during the campaign and were proven the weaker. Mamdani owes them nothing, so they have no power. (At the moment; they’re never gone for good.)
@Strandjunker On the extreme: Austin Texas is an example of a place that tries to do some good and then the state government spends their biennial sessions undoing and banning anything they did or might do.
If the New York state government was against it they'd be preventing everything he's doing, instead they're actively helping him (ex: balance the budget). If Cuomo was still governor they probably would be antagonistic.
But yeah, "bureaucracy" is shorthand for "boogyman".
@Strandjunker incentives and where the money came from and who he included. basically its where the energy came form. not what he talked about. but where the energy and money came from.
@Strandjunker Rudy Guiliani got some stuff done when he was mayor. It was mostly bad stuff.
He wants to.
@Strandjunker Whatever it is, I want whatever he is doing over here in "progressive Netherlands" too. Tax the rich, invest in education. Wild coming from a European.
Big sidenote: The Netherlands, albeit seemingly having better social programs and infrastructure, is rapidly being Trumpified by consecutive neo-liberal/libertarian governments parroting far-right populists and a general media that is hijacked by white conservatives.
White expats coming over here still laud the country for its progressiveness, but they at least do not have to experience or have lived experience with institutionalized racism.
@McWabbit @Strandjunker I only lived there for a year 1999-2000, before Pim Fortuyn and Geert Wilders, but I could already feel it, despite being a French citizen.
@Strandjunker a reasonable bureaucracy is in place to defend against dictators and royalty. Either the bureaucracy is rolling over and/or the sidestepping is illegal.
@Strandjunker i.e. things Trump does (even if courts later overturn them). Too soon to know if Mayor Mamdani’s will pass legislative scrutiny.
@Strandjunker He cares enough to try
Unions?, but guessing you'd have to look case by case.
... if you can read this reply--could you note me?
@Strandjunker Because he's popular and a current darling of some new yorker effete clique. That tends to lubricate a lot of the usual systemic resistance. Been a few others like that too if you think about it. When you're the darling of new yorks elite, well, it opens a lot of doors.
...and thats all it is.
@Strandjunker Whatever else may be in play, I believe the mayor of NYC has more ability to act directly than a lot of elected officials.
@Strandjunker he gives a shit, is not corrupt, uses all the leverage his popularity buys him, and really loves NY City.
@Strandjunker This is an interesting thread.
Because he is an original and out of the box thinker? Charismatic and convincing too?
@Strandjunker I mean, hes only been in my office a short time, these announcements are the beginning of the new process not the end, so there are lots of places where the established powers in the agencies which actually implement policy could drag their feet.
@Strandjunker at least they are pointed in the right direction and people of good conscience will advocate internally to boost these good policies, so maybe the worst case is something like the ACA, where lots has been done to undermine it but its survived long enough to do some good
@Strandjunker I guess we shouldn't get disheartened if he doesn't usher in some socialist utopia and his reforms are half undone by entrenched interests, better is still better and we can continue to build and push off that
@Strandjunker he just doesn’t care what the establishment thinks of him, and ignores the trolls. True power comes from doing the right thing even if it makes you into a “gigantic dork”. I always hated politics because it was about appearances, not results. Well this guy overcame all that.
May 17, 2026, 4:47 AMTrump. everybody in nyc, even republicans, hate him. we are the first ones to get whacked economically, not Texas or Cali. everybody is suffering but the idle rich. and many of those fuckers been warehousing apartments, houses and store fronts since the Giuliani era (1990s).
when fucking Adams came after DeBlasio and spent 4 years licking MAGA and Trump taint and stalling fiscal changes we’ve needed since the 1990s, that was it for.
so nobody is putting up a fight
@Strandjunker It turns out that in addition to being charismatic, pragmatic, and out of fucks, he's actually a very talented administrator who works with good people.
May 17, 2026, 7:22 AM@Strandjunker I live in another country, but I doubt it is any different in that respect. I also work in the administration. So this is an inside view. There are two major forces in an administration. The solution oriented group and the problem oriented group. The latter hates changes of all sorts. They will even sabotage change and use the frustrated majority to block things.
However, a politician can engage with the solution oriented people and be transparent about his/her goals for ...
May 17, 2026, 7:25 AM@Strandjunker ... the frustrated majority. Then the latter will be either positive or indifferent towards the change and then changes can happen. And when you just change the taxation and give the people who perform that task enough time to do it, it will fly.
So maybe he is doing just that. He looks like one who listens to people he works with.