Perspective with Heather du Plessis-Allan: Will Mamdani be the next big thing or the next big disappointment?

I think I am more interested in seeing how Zoran Mamdani goes than any other Democrat that I can remember in a very, very, very long time, because I genuinely am not sure if this is gonna go brilliantly for him. And he's the next big thing, or he's the next big disappointment, because there is no way, is there? Like, no way at all he's gonna be able to do everything that he's promised. I mean, he might be able to do a rent freeze in New York City. Sure, that's an easy thing to do. That's a stroke of a pen. Off you go. But it might backfire. Like it might lead to fewer housing units being added, which ultimately makes the problem worse.

He can pick something else to do. He could do free childcare, hugely expensive. He could add a 2% tax on incomes over $1 million, but he may find those incomes start disappearing from his city. Either way, he's gonna have to pick some of his pet projects and go with just a few of them, because doing absolutely everything is just not gonna happen. And that's gonna lead to disappointment surely for the voters who truly believe he can do all these things.

My gut though says that the disappointment will not be great, because if there's one thing we learned from Donald Trump, it's that breaking promises doesn't actually really matter that much if you represent something to voters. Donald Trump represented the anti-establishment, so people stuck with him even when he broke his promises. Mamdani represents the anti-Trump, so I think people will stick with him even if he breaks his promises.

I actually suspect, by the way, that this is going to be very good for Donald Trump. I think he's going to love having Mamdani around because he will be able to use everything that Mamdani does to berate him and the Democrats. Every time a promise is broken, he's going to, because Mamdani is the opposite of him, right? So Mamdani just becomes the bad guy in all of his stories from here on and he pumps himself up.

However this goes for Mamdani, I think we can all agree this is now turning into a must-see show.

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