For months, Mayor Zohran Mamdani has been stuck in a hostile stand-off over taxes.<\/p>\n
Mamdani ran on further taxing Gotham\u2019s already well-soaked rich, but he\u2019s struggled to deliver.<\/p>\n
His efforts to hike taxes on high earners and corporations fell flat, and his fallback \u2014 a proposed\u00a0property-tax increase<\/a>\u00a0across the five boroughs \u2014 found few backers in the Legislature and\u00a0City Council.<\/p>\n Last month, though, Gov. Kathy Hochul stepped in to provide some respite, reviving\u00a0a long-standing \u201cpied-\u00e0-terre tax\u201d proposal<\/a> on New York City second homes worth more than $5 million.<\/p>\n Mamdani\u00a0declared victory\u00a0in a gloating video <\/a>filmed in front of investor Ken Griffin\u2019s apartment.<\/p>\n It was par for the course for a mayor who\u00a0routinely\u00a0casts small changes as big victories \u2014 a habit that characterizes both Mamdani and his voters, the downwardly mobile elites clamoring to be told they don\u2019t have to try in order to succeed.<\/p>\n It\u2019s a perverse politics all its own.<\/p>\n Of course, maybe Mamdani never really expected to be able to \u201ctax the rich\u201d outright, even though he ran on the idea and pushed for it repeatedly in budget negotiations.<\/p>\n Still, it\u2019s not hard to see the pied-\u00e0-terre tax proposal as a kind of consolation prize.<\/p>\n He wanted a wealth tax, and he\u2019s going to get something that sort of looks like one if you squint at it the right way.<\/p>\n That dynamic is not unfamiliar.<\/p>\n Mamdani\u2019s style has become characterized by performative gestures designed to make it look like he\u2019s done far more than he actually has.<\/p>\n He has bragged about improving crime statistics, without admitting that he\u2019s mostly reaped the rewards<\/a> of keeping Jessica Tisch on as police commissioner.<\/p>\n He reversed himself almost immediately<\/a> on homeless sweeps.<\/p>\n Even Mamdani\u2019s excitement about filling 100,000 potholes<\/a> is, on closer inspection, small beans: Mayor Michael Bloomberg did as much or more with fewer workers and less funding.<\/p>\n Which has not stopped the adulation for Mamdani among his hyper-online base.<\/p>\n To many on X or Bluesky, the mayor is proving that everything skeptical older voters told them is wrong: Democratic socialism really is the way of the future.<\/p>\n The mayor was propelled to Gracie Mansion by a wave of highly educated, downwardly mobile<\/a> urban millennials.<\/p>\n These (decreasingly) young people look at the rising cost of living in the city compared to their declining earning potential and conclude that they\u2019ve been denied something they\u2019re owed.<\/p>\n When Mamdani tells them that, indeed, the system is rigged against them, and that the top 1% is hoarding wealth that is rightfully theirs, these scions of the top 10% are eager to agree.<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\tGet opinions and commentary from our columnists\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tSubscribe to our daily Post Opinion newsletter!\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\tThanks for signing up!\n\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n Which is why it doesn\u2019t matter that the pied-\u00e0-terre tax isn\u2019t going to do much actual taxation of the rich.<\/p>\n What matters to these constituents is the sense of a win, however insubstantial that win may actually be.<\/p>\n It\u2019s hard not to think of the proverbial participation trophy to which every millennial child was allegedly entitled as a youth.<\/p>\n Yes, sure, Mamdani can\u2019t really get anything done in Albany.<\/p>\n Yes, sure, he has filled a routine number of potholes.<\/p>\n Yes, sure, the real adults are running the show at NYPD.<\/p>\n But the important thing, for Mamdani but especially for his base, is to feel like you\u2019re winning \u2014 to be told that public policy really can put you at the front of the line, where you always thought you were supposed to be.<\/p>\n Perhaps that\u2019s better than if Mamdani were actually to succeed at his most radical designs.<\/p>\n