TJ Walker analyzes New York City's new Democratic Socialist mayor Mondamini, whose early polling shows New Yorkers optimistic about the city's future. Real estate values are rising, contradicting predictions of economic collapse. Walker argues that political talent like charisma and communication skill can transcend ideology.
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Ultimize. New polling data showing that a huge percentage of New Yorkers are very optimistic about the future under Mondomini, the new mayor, the Social Democrat, the member of the Socialist of America political party. Why is this interesting? The other factor that's in the news is real estate values up. In New York City. Now, we were told again and again and again last year leading up to this campaign, if Mondame wins, it's the end of New York City. Uh, there'll be murders on every street corner every hour. Every person making more than minimum wage will flee the city and move to Florida, and it will be absolute Armageddon. It will be an apocalyptic nightmarish scenario in New York. That's what we were told again and again and again by Rupert Murdoch's New York Post, by Fox News Channel, by all the usual commentary pundits of right-wing persuasion. And truth be told, a lot of Democrats were kind of nervous too, because most Democratic strategists get a little nervous about the S-word. Socialism, socialist. And yet here we are. Mamdani appears to be making a lot of friends. He's making friends in the business community. He's making friends in finance, in big media, everywhere. So what's the real lesson here? You've got to learn how to filter out nonsense if you want to have an accurate sense of what's going on in the world. And too many people are just triggered. You put this word out there, socialism, and a lot of people stop thinking. They only think of, well, this is Fidel Castro and we're all going to starve to death. And they don't realize many of the most successful capitalistic nations consider themselves socialistic as well. France, Scandinavia, They have socialistic elements to their society. They have strong socialism parties. They have socialistic leaders from time to time. Now, I'm not in favor of what most people think of as pure socialism. I was certainly skeptical of this guy running under the banner of Democratic Socialist and Socialist of America. I don't particularly think it helps the the national brand of the Democratic Party. But that's not his problem. His problem is how does he make a city of 8 million people, New York City, work? And it's too soon to say, oh, well, he's great, he's going to be the most successful mayor ever. I'm not saying that. But he's now registered his first 100 days. And by all accounts, he at least hasn't committed any huge blunders. He hasn't screwed up anything royally. He hasn't angered the great orange leader in Washington to the point where stormtroopers and ICE officials have shut down New York City, which was one of the initial concerns. So, here's the thing that is frankly going to offend some of my friends in the Republican Party, as well as some of my friends in the Democratic Party, and libertarians as well. There is such a thing as raw political talent, raw political skills that are completely separate from ideology. There's strong communication skills. There's simply being charming. There's the ability to get people who don't agree with you to like you and give you the benefit of the doubt. There's the ability to work hard, long hours. There's the ability to be creative. There's the ability to communicate daily on a regular basis what you're trying to do. Those are all skills completely devoid of any political ideology. I would argue Ronald Reagan, the former Republican president, had that. I would also argue that Bandhani has that as well. And here's the point where politically correct conservative commentators are afraid of offending their base. So they are afraid of saying anybody who has different politics could possibly have these other good apolitical skills. And that's when they're just lying to you. They're saying because someone has a policy I don't like, like raising taxes on the wealthy, They therefore have to be an unmitigated disaster at every level. Now, truth be told, there have been successful mayors across America's history who were libertarians, who were very, very conservative Republicans, and did not have a conservative Republican political base or an electorate. And there have been successful socialist mayors. Now, you might not be a big fan of Senator Bernie Sanders, but by all accounts, he was a beloved mayor of Burlington, Vermont. Got along great with the business community, got along great with the local Rotary Club, got along well with people across the political spectrum. Now, I think that's essentially what's happening to Mondani. He has raw political talent. Last time I was in New York City, which truth be told has not, it has been since I think of this is third day in office, New York City never looked better. The biggest problem I have with New York City is the hotels are so high. Well, let me tell you something, Detroit wishes it had a problem like that. Baghdad wishes it had a problem like that. Most countries, most cities in the world would love the fact that their biggest problem in life is that everybody in the world wants to come and visit because they think it's So interesting, fun, and cool. So that's the biggest problem. It's not really a problem. And you can't have it both ways. You can't say, well, Mondame didn't bring business rents down, and at the same time say, we're predicting he's so awful for business, every business will flee and every building will be abandoned. You can't have it both ways. And that is unfortunately what we are seeing with the Mondani critics today. So I say let's continue watching this guy. If you are a politician or you like to follow politics, figure out what's he doing well that maybe you want to see other politicians who share your beliefs doing, because the guy continues to be a master communicator. He understands what, frankly, Donald Trump understands, which is In modern politics, it's not just about running the best 30-second ads 30 days before the election and then getting down to the serious business of governing behind closed doors. He's publicly communicating with voters on a daily basis, continuing to post social media, continuing to be widely accessible to the media everywhere, and that's what's making him, at least so far, highly successful as the mayor of New York City. Let me just throw this out there for a second. If you've been listening to this show for a while, you already have more information than most people ever act on. That's not the problem. The problem is nothing is reinforcing it tomorrow or the next day or the next day. That's why I built Ultimize, to give you something you can use repeatedly, not just hear once and forget. So if this is resonating at all, just go to ultimize.com, grab the free course, communication skills, habit building, whichever one you want, and actually start putting this stuff into practice. It's free, no downside. Just go to ultimize.com. Ultimize.
