WEBVTT - The Challenges Facing the Mamdani Administration 0:00:01.680 --> 0:00:08.760 All Zone Media. Welcome to that and here podcasts about 0:00:08.800 --> 0:00:11.240 things falling apart and how to put them back together again. 0:00:11.440 --> 0:00:16.080 I am your host, Na Wong. So a week ago 0:00:16.440 --> 0:00:20.720 we did some episodes about the election of Zoran Mam 0:00:20.840 --> 0:00:26.280 Donnie and a lot of the very funny reactions to it, 0:00:26.840 --> 0:00:29.080 and you know, on Executive Disorder, we've talked about what 0:00:29.120 --> 0:00:32.320 this sort of means for politics. But now I want 0:00:32.360 --> 0:00:35.120 to do a slightly different kind of episode, which is 0:00:36.080 --> 0:00:40.360 looking at the challenges that Montdomney is going to face 0:00:41.320 --> 0:00:44.960 attempting to implement his agenda, attempting to stay mayor just 0:00:45.360 --> 0:00:48.559 taking him very seriously at his word, in his attempt 0:00:48.720 --> 0:00:52.120 to you know, make the cost of living lower and 0:00:52.159 --> 0:00:57.280 make people's lives better. And there are unfortunately, very significant 0:00:57.880 --> 0:01:02.600 challenges to this agenda, and those challenges are a mix 0:01:02.840 --> 0:01:07.399 of structural problems and I don't know the president of 0:01:07.440 --> 0:01:11.920 the United States right. We're going to focus on a 0:01:12.040 --> 0:01:15.800 few of them today, and before we really start this, 0:01:15.959 --> 0:01:17.600 I think I want to I want to start this 0:01:18.000 --> 0:01:21.680 to some extent with the conclusion, and the conclusion of 0:01:21.720 --> 0:01:24.360 this episode is not to say that these things are impossible, 0:01:24.880 --> 0:01:26.720 right and to not say they can't be done. But 0:01:26.760 --> 0:01:31.679 it's to remind people that the way that actual politics works, 0:01:32.120 --> 0:01:36.800 electing one person does not immediately make everything better. Right, 0:01:36.880 --> 0:01:39.960 you can't stop organizing because someone has been elected. And 0:01:40.000 --> 0:01:42.840 in fact, if you actually want to see the things 0:01:42.880 --> 0:01:46.920 that you you organize to you know, happen by electing 0:01:46.920 --> 0:01:49.480 this person, do you have to organize even harder once 0:01:49.520 --> 0:01:52.800 they are in power and mobilize even more to allow 0:01:52.880 --> 0:01:55.559 the things that you fought for to actually happen. Because 0:01:55.600 --> 0:01:59.960 there are significant opposition to anything you know, getting better 0:02:00.200 --> 0:02:03.600 for anyone in this country, and that opposition is powerful, 0:02:03.800 --> 0:02:09.040 well funded, well organized, and structural, and also, as we 0:02:09.080 --> 0:02:11.120 saw with the election of Aunt Donnie in the first place, 0:02:11.680 --> 0:02:16.520 it can be defeated. So we're going to start with 0:02:17.120 --> 0:02:20.240 the bond market. Now, many of you may be asking, 0:02:20.280 --> 0:02:22.960 b what does the bond market have to do with 0:02:23.800 --> 0:02:28.120 make buses free? And to do that we need to 0:02:28.160 --> 0:02:33.560 talk about funding mechanisms. So most plans in the US 0:02:33.919 --> 0:02:36.840 for sort of social democratic policy, for how you implement 0:02:36.880 --> 0:02:39.359 welfare state policies, how you implement policies that make people's 0:02:39.400 --> 0:02:44.000 lives better, tend to start from the federal governments and 0:02:44.040 --> 0:02:47.720 the national level, right, and there are very obvious reasons 0:02:47.800 --> 0:02:52.000 for this. Unlike the federal government, city governments don't issue 0:02:52.040 --> 0:02:56.000 their own currency, which means the modern monetary theory things 0:02:56.000 --> 0:02:58.440 that you would normally use to fund welfare programs with 0:02:58.480 --> 0:03:02.720 at a national level don't work. The federal government, again, 0:03:03.120 --> 0:03:07.440 has control of its own debt and money supply, city 0:03:07.440 --> 0:03:10.079 governments don't. That means the city governments, if you want 0:03:10.120 --> 0:03:13.560 to find money to do something, you have to find 0:03:13.680 --> 0:03:17.919 that from somewhere. And as wonderful as it would be 0:03:18.760 --> 0:03:21.720 if you could simply do that by just Okay, we 0:03:21.840 --> 0:03:25.440 raise taxes, and the taxes go to the policy that 0:03:25.480 --> 0:03:28.720 we want to implement, that's not how the system actually works. 0:03:29.680 --> 0:03:32.639 The way the system works if you want to pay 0:03:32.639 --> 0:03:35.800 for things at a city level is the bond markets. 0:03:37.000 --> 0:03:39.400 David I. Backer has a very good piece about this 0:03:39.560 --> 0:03:43.800 the Baffler that I deeply recommend people read. The main 0:03:43.800 --> 0:03:46.000 thing that's important here for our purposes is that for 0:03:46.120 --> 0:03:50.360 funding significant portions of anything that you want to do 0:03:50.720 --> 0:03:54.640 as mayor, you are legally required to go through the 0:03:54.760 --> 0:03:59.320 bond markets. And this means that the city is forced 0:03:59.320 --> 0:04:02.600 to beg for money from Wall Street investment banks and 0:04:02.640 --> 0:04:06.080 then also pay those same banks exorbitant fees and interest, 0:04:06.600 --> 0:04:09.040 and a significant amount of money has to go to, 0:04:09.480 --> 0:04:12.680 as Backer points out, a whole bunch of you know, 0:04:12.880 --> 0:04:16.280 lawyers and finance people and consultants and all of these 0:04:16.320 --> 0:04:20.760 you know, sort of mafia of finance schools who are 0:04:21.279 --> 0:04:26.040 standing in between the normal mechanism of you have money 0:04:26.040 --> 0:04:29.359 and you pay for things. And that's assuming again that 0:04:29.400 --> 0:04:31.120 you even have the money in the first place, which 0:04:31.120 --> 0:04:34.440 you quite often don't because cities are very very often 0:04:34.480 --> 0:04:38.520 cash strapped. As Backer points out, using these bond mechanisms 0:04:38.560 --> 0:04:42.960 to pay for programs is legally required. Now, Backer is 0:04:43.120 --> 0:04:47.320 mostly focused on the structural constraints created by servicing debt, 0:04:47.560 --> 0:04:52.560 which can consume increasing portions of a city's budget until 0:04:52.680 --> 0:04:54.479 you know there's nothing left. This is sort of what's 0:04:54.480 --> 0:04:58.960 happened to Detroit to a large extent, and also the 0:04:59.000 --> 0:05:02.680 bank's direct control over the payment mechanism, even when the 0:05:02.680 --> 0:05:06.400 city government brings in tax money. Right, so, even if 0:05:06.400 --> 0:05:08.360 you raise taxes and you bring in money, because you 0:05:08.400 --> 0:05:10.600 have to go through the bond market, it means that 0:05:10.720 --> 0:05:13.000 a bunch of that money is going to be funneled 0:05:13.040 --> 0:05:17.360 into servicing debt and paying interest on debt. But there's 0:05:17.400 --> 0:05:21.680 also a secondary problem here, which is that in very 0:05:21.720 --> 0:05:25.200 extreme cases, and I'm not saying we are immediately facing this, 0:05:25.320 --> 0:05:28.039 but I want to put this on the table as 0:05:28.040 --> 0:05:31.200 something that if you were attempting to run a social 0:05:31.200 --> 0:05:33.680 democratic program in a city, you do need to be 0:05:33.760 --> 0:05:38.640 significantly worried about the bank's direct control over payment mechanisms. 0:05:38.640 --> 0:05:41.039 Means that the banks, you know, the people who buy 0:05:41.080 --> 0:05:43.839 the bonds that you need to use to get to 0:05:43.920 --> 0:05:46.000 fund these things. So let's actually take a step back 0:05:46.000 --> 0:05:48.799 here and explain what a bond is, right. A bond 0:05:48.839 --> 0:05:51.400 is basically you selling a piece of paper that is debt. 0:05:51.720 --> 0:05:54.920 So you go into the market and you sell sell 0:05:54.960 --> 0:05:56.680 a bank of bond and they give you a bunch 0:05:56.680 --> 0:05:59.200 of money right now, and at the exploration of the bond, 0:05:59.279 --> 0:06:01.800 you pay that money back plus interest. This is how 0:06:01.800 --> 0:06:04.760 you have to fund things, because that is what's legally required, 0:06:04.800 --> 0:06:07.359 and also because cities need a way to get extremely 0:06:07.440 --> 0:06:10.680 large amounts of money. But this also means that cities 0:06:11.040 --> 0:06:14.080 that you know, banks and investors can simply not buy 0:06:14.080 --> 0:06:16.680 your bonds if they don't like what you're trying to do, 0:06:17.800 --> 0:06:20.440 and at that point, very little can be done to 0:06:20.440 --> 0:06:24.320 oppose them. The most dramatic version of this problem came 0:06:24.400 --> 0:06:27.080 to the New York City bond crisis in nineteen seventy five, 0:06:27.920 --> 0:06:30.400 where New York City had to sell a bunch of bonds. 0:06:30.400 --> 0:06:33.960 It was significantly in debt, and there's a very famous 0:06:34.000 --> 0:06:38.280 scene in I Think It's I Think It's a hyperd normalization. 0:06:39.080 --> 0:06:41.080 You know, there's film of like the city goverment officials 0:06:41.080 --> 0:06:42.880 who are sitting in this room waiting for the banks, 0:06:42.920 --> 0:06:44.520 like people, for the banks to show up to buy 0:06:44.520 --> 0:06:48.320 the bonds, and no one shows up, so suddenly they 0:06:48.360 --> 0:06:52.960 don't have any money. And then President Ford at the 0:06:53.000 --> 0:06:55.720 time tells the city to eat shit and die and 0:06:55.839 --> 0:06:58.119 refuses to buy any of New York City's bonds, refuse 0:06:58.200 --> 0:07:01.240 to give them any money, and this leaves the city bankrupt. 0:07:01.360 --> 0:07:03.239 Right it gets to a point where they have fired 0:07:03.400 --> 0:07:06.200 the teachers. There's no one to collect a garbage because 0:07:06.200 --> 0:07:08.200 they literally don't have money to pay anyone because no 0:07:08.240 --> 0:07:12.440 one will buy their bonds. And eventually this crisis is 0:07:12.480 --> 0:07:16.200 sort of mitigated. But the problem is that, you know, 0:07:16.360 --> 0:07:18.680 the task force that was set up to mitigate this 0:07:19.000 --> 0:07:20.800 right to like, you know, get there to be people 0:07:20.800 --> 0:07:23.600 buying New York City bonds. Again, those people were able 0:07:23.640 --> 0:07:26.880 to come in and New York City had a functional 0:07:26.880 --> 0:07:29.040 welfare state, right, had a sort of mini social democratic 0:07:29.120 --> 0:07:32.800 welfare state. And in order to reopen the governments and 0:07:32.840 --> 0:07:35.440 have schools and garbage collection again, in order to get 0:07:35.440 --> 0:07:38.720 that money, the city was required to dismantle it. And 0:07:39.160 --> 0:07:41.240 you know, the financial situation of New York is obviously 0:07:41.320 --> 0:07:44.760 significantly better than it was then, right, And the odds 0:07:44.760 --> 0:07:49.040 of having this kind of just full on macro scale 0:07:49.440 --> 0:07:54.480 crisis is not as high as it was then. But 0:07:54.840 --> 0:07:58.280 because of the fact that this is the legally mandated 0:07:59.280 --> 0:08:02.080 way that you have to do these payments, and because 0:08:03.080 --> 0:08:07.200 unlike the federal government, there are constraints on spending that 0:08:07.280 --> 0:08:11.480 in some ways function like needing foreign exchange currency. You know, 0:08:11.600 --> 0:08:14.120 you can't just issue this money. You have to get 0:08:14.160 --> 0:08:16.400 it from somewhere. And because of someone's usually the banks, 0:08:16.960 --> 0:08:22.080 it means that you have to constantly negotiate with the 0:08:22.120 --> 0:08:24.680 banks and with capital in order to keep the city's 0:08:24.720 --> 0:08:27.520 lights on. And this is a constant threat that they 0:08:27.600 --> 0:08:30.800 have sort of you know, hanging over the head of 0:08:30.840 --> 0:08:35.040 anyone who wants to be governor. And as Backer points out, 0:08:35.080 --> 0:08:37.000 you can even just tax your way out of the problem, 0:08:37.000 --> 0:08:39.559 because payment structures for government projects work out of the 0:08:39.600 --> 0:08:41.800 bond system, so that money just goes to debt payments. 0:08:43.080 --> 0:08:44.880 And you know, one of the other things that Backer 0:08:44.920 --> 0:08:48.000 points out. And obviously the situation in Chicago is different 0:08:48.000 --> 0:08:50.839 in the situation in New York. But the Chicago Teachers 0:08:50.920 --> 0:08:55.920 Union did elect a mayor who was, you know, their guy, right, 0:08:55.960 --> 0:08:58.120 The cholot teachers Union spent a significant amount of money 0:08:58.160 --> 0:09:01.160 and resources and effort getting their guy elected, and once 0:09:01.200 --> 0:09:03.800 he came into office, he basically ended up doing the 0:09:03.840 --> 0:09:08.000 same thing in their negotiations with the teachers union that 0:09:08.000 --> 0:09:10.280 the previous administrations had done. And the reason that happened, 0:09:11.000 --> 0:09:12.920 you know, and the reason that you started to see 0:09:13.280 --> 0:09:16.760 cuts to school services that we're not supposed to happen 0:09:16.840 --> 0:09:20.240 but anyways, was because the bond market stepped in and 0:09:20.280 --> 0:09:22.320 said this is what's necessary in order to do this, 0:09:22.920 --> 0:09:27.280 and they have that kind of power. Now, obviously Chicago 0:09:27.360 --> 0:09:29.520 was in a worse financial situation than New York is. 0:09:30.120 --> 0:09:34.120 Mom Dominie is significantly further left than Brandon Johnson is. 0:09:35.000 --> 0:09:39.160 But these are real constraints, and the social democratic solution 0:09:39.280 --> 0:09:40.959 to this has always been to get money from the 0:09:41.000 --> 0:09:45.360 federal governments. But the federal government won't give money out 0:09:45.400 --> 0:09:47.480 to the things that is legally required to give money 0:09:47.520 --> 0:09:50.400 out to you right now, because obviously it is run 0:09:50.440 --> 0:09:54.400 by one Donald Trump, and obviously Trump in and of 0:09:54.520 --> 0:09:59.160 himself is a significant problem to doing this right. There's 0:09:59.240 --> 0:10:02.640 always a chance that Trump will see something like mean 0:10:02.760 --> 0:10:05.280 about Mondani on Fox News and decide to send the 0:10:05.360 --> 0:10:08.840 National Guards to New York or something, and you know, 0:10:08.920 --> 0:10:12.560 he will probably continue immigration raids. He can, you know, 0:10:13.160 --> 0:10:17.240 just fuck with people's ability to get medicaid payments, which 0:10:17.280 --> 0:10:21.680 is a really significant issue. There will continue to be 0:10:21.800 --> 0:10:24.200 lots of creative and terrible things that the federal government 0:10:25.160 --> 0:10:27.079 can and will do to this administration that will have 0:10:27.120 --> 0:10:29.040 to be fought and can be defeated, but we'll have 0:10:29.120 --> 0:10:32.960 to be organized and fought against. But for our purposes 0:10:33.040 --> 0:10:37.439 right now, the big issue here is that you can't 0:10:37.720 --> 0:10:43.000 get money out of the federal governments. So okay, where 0:10:43.040 --> 0:10:45.640 are you getting money out of then? And the answer 0:10:46.120 --> 0:10:49.160 is the state governments. Now, do you know what else 0:10:49.200 --> 0:10:53.280 gets money out of state governments? Probably not these products 0:10:53.280 --> 0:11:07.600 and services. I don't know who knows, who knows we 0:11:07.840 --> 0:11:15.199 are back. So, okay, let's talk about the state government now. Again. 0:11:15.360 --> 0:11:17.880 This is even with the city the size of New York, 0:11:17.920 --> 0:11:21.360 there still is always significant negotiations in org do things 0:11:21.400 --> 0:11:24.280 in the city that require the aide of the state 0:11:24.320 --> 0:11:26.840 level government. And part of the problem here is that 0:11:27.120 --> 0:11:31.640 the New York State Democratic Party is significantly responsible for 0:11:31.720 --> 0:11:34.760 the Republicans control of the House, particularly in the twenty 0:11:34.800 --> 0:11:37.480 twenty two cycle. There's a whole long story here about 0:11:37.480 --> 0:11:39.880 how a a bunch of the Democrats wanted to form 0:11:39.920 --> 0:11:43.120 this sort of moderate caucus thing, where the sort of 0:11:43.160 --> 0:11:46.720 independent caucus that would caucus with the Republicans in order 0:11:46.760 --> 0:11:49.960 to give the Republicans the ability to stop any sort 0:11:50.000 --> 0:11:51.839 of liberal or left wing thing from happening in the 0:11:51.880 --> 0:11:53.679 state governments and handle a whole bunch of seas over 0:11:53.679 --> 0:11:56.360 to the Republicans because of it. But just you know, 0:11:56.800 --> 0:12:00.480 setting all of that aside, the place that you can 0:12:00.520 --> 0:12:05.599 get money from would be from the governor's office. Unfortunately, 0:12:06.120 --> 0:12:10.040 that significate problem. So here's Holcial's response to Momdami's plan 0:12:10.120 --> 0:12:13.600 to make buses free. Quote. I cannot set forth a 0:12:13.640 --> 0:12:15.920 plan right now that takes money out of a system 0:12:15.960 --> 0:12:18.400 that relies on fares of the buses and the subways. 0:12:18.720 --> 0:12:20.320 But can we find a path to make it more 0:12:20.320 --> 0:12:23.400 affordable for people who need help? Yes, of course we can. 0:12:24.640 --> 0:12:28.240 Social does not want to raise taxes. Any proposal that 0:12:28.240 --> 0:12:31.080 would involve raising taxes probably has to run through New 0:12:31.160 --> 0:12:34.840 York City's City Council, and thus through her. I'm going 0:12:34.920 --> 0:12:38.440 to quote this some Spectrum news about Montdammie's proposal to 0:12:38.520 --> 0:12:42.680 expand universal childcare. Culchel said she's also looking at expanding 0:12:42.679 --> 0:12:46.440 a universal childcare program statewide, but the total price tag 0:12:46.520 --> 0:12:50.160 is fifteen billion dollars childcare I already committed to, she said, 0:12:50.200 --> 0:12:52.600 I'm committed to this as a mom governor, I get it. 0:12:52.679 --> 0:12:55.440 But also to do it statewide, it's about fifteen billion dollars, 0:12:55.440 --> 0:12:58.800 the entire amount of my reserves. Culcial says she prefers 0:12:59.200 --> 0:13:02.520 to phase an expansion first within certain AIDS groups and 0:13:02.600 --> 0:13:07.600 geographically underserved communities. So, okay, what is happening here in 0:13:07.600 --> 0:13:10.560 a macro sense is that Cultural is trying to slow 0:13:10.640 --> 0:13:13.480 roll both of these things. She is outright opposed to 0:13:13.520 --> 0:13:16.320 making buses free. She wants to do weird means testing 0:13:16.320 --> 0:13:19.080 stuff to it that will make it very difficult to do, 0:13:19.280 --> 0:13:22.319 and extremely annoying bureaucratic layer meant to deny people services 0:13:22.320 --> 0:13:24.480 that you have to do instead of just having them 0:13:24.520 --> 0:13:29.040 be free. The childcare thing she probably does want to do, 0:13:29.200 --> 0:13:33.840 but again, because she is not a democratic socialist, because 0:13:33.920 --> 0:13:38.439 she is a regular Democrat, she wants to do it slowly, expanded, 0:13:38.480 --> 0:13:41.640 through a whole bunch of phases and taking a whole 0:13:41.640 --> 0:13:46.800 bunch of time. And this is a pretty significant problem 0:13:47.040 --> 0:13:50.480 because you know, at every step of this, not only 0:13:50.520 --> 0:13:52.040 are you going to have to be negotiating with the 0:13:52.080 --> 0:13:54.800 banking system, you're going to have to be negotiating with 0:13:54.960 --> 0:13:59.240 the statewide Democratic Party. And the statewide Democratic Party is 0:14:00.160 --> 0:14:04.000 fairly conservative. Hotel is not as conservative, and she can 0:14:04.679 --> 0:14:07.600 be sort of dragged kicking and screaming into good policies 0:14:07.600 --> 0:14:10.880 like what happened with congestion pricing, and if something works 0:14:10.920 --> 0:14:13.480 and is really popular after you do it, she will 0:14:14.520 --> 0:14:17.480 sign on to it. But it's a significant hurdle that 0:14:17.559 --> 0:14:21.200 you have to deal with. I want to move from 0:14:21.240 --> 0:14:24.080 this into a kind of related problem that's a more 0:14:24.120 --> 0:14:30.200 structural constraint on on Dommy's time in office, which is 0:14:30.240 --> 0:14:33.120 that he is now in charge of running a capitalist economy. 0:14:34.000 --> 0:14:36.840 When you take a position in a capitalist government. It 0:14:36.920 --> 0:14:39.520 is now your job to make the economy run, and 0:14:39.560 --> 0:14:44.320 that means maintaining economic growth. But okay, what does economic 0:14:44.400 --> 0:14:47.320 growth actually mean in a capitalist economy. It means that 0:14:47.360 --> 0:14:49.880 corporations make more money than they did the year before. 0:14:50.560 --> 0:14:52.840 And this is a structural problem for all of us, 0:14:52.920 --> 0:14:55.480 because we all have interests that are diametrically opposed to 0:14:55.520 --> 0:15:00.360 corporations making more money every year because their profit comes 0:15:00.400 --> 0:15:05.920 directly from our exploitation. Right, we have fundamentally opposed interests 0:15:05.920 --> 0:15:08.280 from the corporations and the capitalists and the billionaires. But 0:15:08.280 --> 0:15:10.640 in order for there to be capitalist economic growth, those 0:15:10.680 --> 0:15:13.560 people have to keep making more money every year. And 0:15:14.240 --> 0:15:19.160 obviously you can make arguments about how redistribution enhances economic 0:15:19.200 --> 0:15:23.320 growth by creating a larger consumer base, and that's obviously true. 0:15:23.400 --> 0:15:27.880 We're in an extremely deformed economy right now. Where as 0:15:27.920 --> 0:15:29.960 I keep saying on this show, fifty percent of all 0:15:30.000 --> 0:15:32.600 consumer spending is happening from five percent of the population, 0:15:33.000 --> 0:15:36.320 which is just a completely unsustainable way to run an 0:15:36.360 --> 0:15:39.360 economy and is also absolutely miserable for every single other 0:15:39.400 --> 0:15:45.080 person who's in that bottom ninety five percent. And you know, 0:15:45.120 --> 0:15:49.960 there are things that you can do to some extent, right, 0:15:50.640 --> 0:15:52.840 but at some point you are going to have to 0:15:52.960 --> 0:15:56.560 choose between workers and capital. And if you're the mayor 0:15:57.080 --> 0:15:59.720 of New York City, your job is to make capital 0:15:59.760 --> 0:16:03.840 more money. And this is a structural constraint that every 0:16:03.840 --> 0:16:07.440 social democratic government has faced. And it's worth noting that 0:16:07.480 --> 0:16:11.600 we are not in a world that is surrounded by 0:16:11.680 --> 0:16:14.600 social democratic governments. And part of the reason why, again 0:16:14.680 --> 0:16:16.920 is that they need the economy to keep growing, and 0:16:16.960 --> 0:16:22.400 that their reliance on finance institutions to make money. And 0:16:22.480 --> 0:16:25.440 the most grim versions of this tend to happen at 0:16:25.440 --> 0:16:28.080 a sort of national scale. But if you look at 0:16:28.880 --> 0:16:31.400 morally in Jamaica and the seventies, where you have a 0:16:31.440 --> 0:16:34.840 democratic socialist who gets elected and is running Jamaica and 0:16:34.880 --> 0:16:37.440 then has to implement austerity because the country runs out 0:16:37.440 --> 0:16:41.560 of money and the IMF comes in, right, these things 0:16:42.160 --> 0:16:48.320 can get really bleak. Now they don't have to, right, like, 0:16:48.360 --> 0:16:52.240 sufficiently well organized populations can force the hand of capital 0:16:52.280 --> 0:16:54.280 to do things that they don't want to do. Significantly 0:16:54.320 --> 0:16:59.480 well organized populations can you start trying to fundamentally redistribute 0:16:59.520 --> 0:17:06.120 economic but it's difficult, and the difficulty is magnified by 0:17:06.880 --> 0:17:10.320 the third really massive constraint, and that constraint is the police. 0:17:11.680 --> 0:17:13.639 One of the other big structural problems that comes with 0:17:13.720 --> 0:17:16.440 running a state is that it relies on armed men 0:17:16.480 --> 0:17:19.840 to enforce the laws. And those men, especially in the 0:17:19.920 --> 0:17:23.400 United States, are at best one step removed from straight 0:17:23.440 --> 0:17:25.480 up neo Nazis. A lot of them straight up are 0:17:25.720 --> 0:17:30.200 neo Nazis. The cops are the most consistently right wing 0:17:30.240 --> 0:17:33.439 group in the entire country. They are a bunch of 0:17:33.520 --> 0:17:37.040 racist shitheads who exist to perpetuate right supremacy and protect capital, 0:17:37.119 --> 0:17:42.880 and they're also again a fundamental organizational unit of the state. Right. 0:17:43.640 --> 0:17:47.240 Without the violence of the police, laws are just suggestions. 0:17:48.040 --> 0:17:50.280 And if you're going to run a capitalist government, and 0:17:50.320 --> 0:17:52.320 if you're going to run one in the US, you 0:17:52.359 --> 0:17:55.640 have to deal with the fact that your power depends 0:17:55.640 --> 0:17:59.119 on the loyalty of a bunch of Nazis, and these 0:17:59.560 --> 0:18:03.960 people will riot if you attempt to do oversight of them. 0:18:04.720 --> 0:18:08.040 They very famously did this in nineteen ninety two. They 0:18:08.040 --> 0:18:11.439 had this whole giant riot, right, They had the thing 0:18:11.480 --> 0:18:13.000 I was supposed to be a protest rally where they 0:18:13.040 --> 0:18:14.880 all went on strike, and then the cops who were 0:18:14.920 --> 0:18:19.159 supposed to be policing the protest obviously didn't do anything 0:18:19.359 --> 0:18:23.400 because again, there are also cops. And in nineteen ninety 0:18:23.400 --> 0:18:26.639 two they did this for a really really really minor 0:18:26.720 --> 0:18:30.960 oversight attempted oversight, right, and obviously they actually didn't win 0:18:31.119 --> 0:18:33.760 that direct fight, but they were able to cause enough 0:18:33.760 --> 0:18:36.960 of a political ship storm that they were able to 0:18:37.000 --> 0:18:40.160 force the last sort of like vaguely social democratic mayor 0:18:40.320 --> 0:18:43.720 out of power and install like Rudy Giuliani, who is 0:18:43.920 --> 0:18:49.400 a weird face melty dipshit righth was an incredible tough 0:18:49.400 --> 0:18:51.680 on crime right winger. And obviously Mamdani has been trying 0:18:51.680 --> 0:18:53.760 to kind of trying to do his best to negotiate 0:18:53.800 --> 0:18:55.480 with the police and not to overtly threaten them, but 0:18:55.480 --> 0:18:59.000 that kind of doesn't matter because they just hate him, 0:18:59.160 --> 0:19:02.399 like they think that a Muslim socialist is just inherently 0:19:02.720 --> 0:19:06.960 an illegitimate person, and they think that anyone who is 0:19:07.000 --> 0:19:10.399 even vaguely liberal is someone who is their enemy and 0:19:10.440 --> 0:19:14.680 who is their target. And we have seen them take 0:19:14.800 --> 0:19:18.560 actions to just directly threaten mayors fairly recently. Right in 0:19:18.600 --> 0:19:23.000 twenty twenty, they kidnapped Bill Deblasio's daughter, at a protest 0:19:23.080 --> 0:19:25.639 and then sort of like paraded her mugshot around and 0:19:25.680 --> 0:19:28.560 posted it everywhere and did this whole big show of 0:19:28.600 --> 0:19:31.240 how they were holding her. To say it was a 0:19:31.320 --> 0:19:39.000 thinly veiled threat is a dramatic understatement of how incredibly, 0:19:39.760 --> 0:19:45.879 incredibly blatant this threat was. Right, they kidnapped the mayor's daughter, 0:19:46.480 --> 0:19:48.760 Dreen a protest movement, and that was Bill de Blasio, 0:19:48.840 --> 0:19:51.439 who was not some kind of like wild anti police 0:19:51.520 --> 0:19:56.080 radical right, and especially now as sort of fascism is 0:19:56.119 --> 0:20:00.119 on the march and with the backing of the US 0:20:00.160 --> 0:20:06.439 federal government, right, the police form a very significant threat 0:20:06.640 --> 0:20:10.240 to Mandami's ability to do anything. Both on a sort 0:20:10.280 --> 0:20:13.080 of political level, they are going to be constantly, you know, 0:20:13.200 --> 0:20:16.920 putting out giant press releases about how Mamdami's like turn 0:20:16.960 --> 0:20:19.160 the city into a Liverpool hellhole and how they can't 0:20:19.200 --> 0:20:22.320 do their jobs, ceda, et cetera. And also just in 0:20:22.400 --> 0:20:25.160 terms of just directly threatening him and trying to influence 0:20:25.160 --> 0:20:27.840 his policy, they're going to be a real problem and 0:20:28.359 --> 0:20:31.840 his ability to prevent them from, for example, smashing in 0:20:31.880 --> 0:20:34.200 the skulls of pro Palestime protesters even if he wants to, 0:20:34.359 --> 0:20:37.359 was going to be very limited because the police have 0:20:37.600 --> 0:20:43.600 become a kind of semi autonomous fascist force in this country. 0:20:44.400 --> 0:20:49.320 They have always been a ticking time bomb on statist democracy, 0:20:49.440 --> 0:20:53.360 and that clock is closing in on zero in this 0:20:53.520 --> 0:20:57.720 in this sort of moment of assented fascism. Now again, 0:20:58.320 --> 0:21:01.119 I want to close this by saying, these are not 0:21:01.240 --> 0:21:04.560 all the challenges that he's going to face, but Comma, 0:21:05.000 --> 0:21:07.320 none of this also means that the things that he 0:21:07.359 --> 0:21:09.439 wants to do to make people's lives better are impossible. 0:21:09.600 --> 0:21:13.159 Every single one of these problems are problems that you 0:21:13.520 --> 0:21:16.920 can defeat by organizing. Right, you can put enough pressure 0:21:16.960 --> 0:21:19.800 on capital to prevent them from doing a kind of 0:21:19.840 --> 0:21:21.920 like capital striker or a bond strike, right to force 0:21:21.960 --> 0:21:25.600 them they continue to fund things. Right, with enough public pressure, 0:21:26.400 --> 0:21:29.600 you can make a whole lot of things happen. You 0:21:29.640 --> 0:21:32.880 can make the police, you know, at the very least, 0:21:32.880 --> 0:21:35.879 be acting on a kind of defensive front to where 0:21:35.920 --> 0:21:39.200 they're not, you know, rioting and trying to run city politics, 0:21:39.240 --> 0:21:43.240 but are kind of forced by mass popular and mobilization 0:21:43.320 --> 0:21:48.639 and pressure to at the very least not be openly 0:21:48.960 --> 0:21:52.639 attacking the mayor. You can put massive political pressure on 0:21:52.760 --> 0:21:55.480 Kathy cultel to you know, do things that are good, 0:21:55.520 --> 0:21:58.200 which which is how we got how New York got 0:21:58.200 --> 0:22:00.840 congestion pricing in the first place. Right, like, that was 0:22:00.840 --> 0:22:03.960 a result of a masses like organizational campaign that went 0:22:03.960 --> 0:22:07.080 extremely well, and husholds like tried to sabotage it because 0:22:07.080 --> 0:22:09.200 she thought it would be unpopular, and eventually it got 0:22:09.200 --> 0:22:12.720 implemented and it's really popular now and now she's really 0:22:12.720 --> 0:22:16.480 in favor of it. So these people can be pushed around, right, 0:22:16.560 --> 0:22:19.639 They are not invincible, Their victory is not inevitable. They 0:22:19.720 --> 0:22:23.720 can be defeated, and they can be forced to accept that, 0:22:23.960 --> 0:22:26.919 Oh wait, hold on, the extremely sensible policies that we 0:22:27.000 --> 0:22:30.400 want that make our lives better are good, and that 0:22:30.480 --> 0:22:34.080 requires mobilization. But you know that's not impossible. We know 0:22:34.119 --> 0:22:36.840 how to organize. We've been doing it for ages, and 0:22:36.880 --> 0:22:38.800 it was you know, what had to happen to make 0:22:38.840 --> 0:22:41.680 all of us possible in the first place. And so 0:22:41.760 --> 0:22:45.479 instead of demobilizing now and going, oh, our jobs are done. No, no, no, no, no, 0:22:45.640 --> 0:22:48.239 our job our jobs have just begun. But you know, 0:22:48.359 --> 0:22:50.280 the better organized VR and the more we're able to 0:22:50.320 --> 0:22:51.760 push this, and the more we're able to push all 0:22:51.800 --> 0:22:55.000 of these people, the better our lives will get, and 0:22:55.560 --> 0:22:59.520 this election to begin with is a reminder that another 0:22:59.560 --> 0:23:01.600 world is as possible and it could be better than 0:23:01.640 --> 0:23:07.800 this one. We just have to build it together. It 0:23:07.840 --> 0:23:10.240 Could Happen Here is a production of cool Zone Media. 0:23:10.400 --> 0:23:13.440 For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website 0:23:13.520 --> 0:23:17.119 coolzonmedia dot com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, 0:23:17.200 --> 0:23:20.760 Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can 0:23:20.800 --> 0:23:23.119 now find sources for It Could Happen here, listed directly 0:23:23.160 --> 0:23:25.440 in episode descriptions. Thanks for listening.