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Mamdani, if Elected Mayor, Pledges to Order N.Y.P.D. to Arrest Netanyahu (www.nytimes.com)
submitted 1 year ago by to c/progressivepolitics@lemmy.world
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[–] 45 points 1 year ago (16 children)

I mean, that's cool and all, but the N.Y. Times latching on to stuff like that makes it easier for them to try to smear him as a "radical Muslim antisemite" or whatever and bury stories about his economic populism. When push comes to shove, it's the latter that working-class New Yorkers care about and that would get him elected.

I don't think he's wrong to take that position re: Netanyahu, but I think it's possibly a tactical error to let the media bait him into focusing on it instead of hammering on the economic message.

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  • [–] 18 points 1 year ago (4 children)

    That's clearly the NYTs intent in writing this article.

    Do you think New Yorkers will buy the "radical Muslim antisemite" line?

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (3 children)

    They already haven't. They're smarter than average red state Americans.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    Nah. No group's smarter than any other group on average.

    The difference is they actually know those people irl instead of only seeing them in propaganda films and on Fox.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago* (1 child)

    No group's smarter than any other group on average.

    Huh? This makes no sense, of course there are groups that are smarter than other groups on average.

    Are doctors not smarter than truck drivers, on average?

    NYC is pretty highly educated compared to other cities, particularly cities in red states.

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  • [–] 7 points 1 year ago (3 children)

    Smear? Fuck that makes me want to vote for him more.

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  • [–] 5 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    Perhaps, but I think his message from the debate was better: The job is to be mayor of a city, there's no reason the office should have anything at all to do with foreign affairs so long as those affairs stay out of the city.

    Like personally I appreciate calling out the atrocity, but it isn't the job of the mayor to be neck deep in that either way.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (1 child)

    I think limiting the purview of the mayor should be left to the mayor. If he wants to make his position clear on this he has every right to do that. And maybe some call that spending political capitol for nothing, I say it inspires my support.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago

    I'd say as a person, he can express his thoughts. For him to personally condemn the events is good. For him to say that if the federal government were reasonable, Netanyahu should be arrested.

    I think declaring that he would try to use his authority as mayor to pull the NYPD into it against the will of the federal government is a bit more tricky. During a debate when every single last other person pandered to Israel he made the solid point that a Mayor's job is to tend to his city, not foreign affairs. This sort of undermines that point. Admittedly, technically he still would only get involved if Netanyahu came to NYC, but by declaring this so publicly it has had the effect of provoking Netanyahu, who seemed to be inclined to test Mamdani's words by defiantly coming to NYC with Trump if Mamdani were elected.

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  • [–] 5 points 1 year ago

    On the other hand, this has been a tactic of the right, and it’s somewhat successful: Keep showing new avenues of attack, and you put your adversaries constantly on the defensive.

    What’s sad is, many voters don’t care about the merits of an issue; just the optics of power and assertion. Person X is on the defensive, criticizing a bold statement and thinking they should walk back on it, Person Y is already spouting a new message.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (1 child)

    He doesn't even need to focus on it, he just need to tangentially allude to it and suddenly a bunch of these hack rags will end up treating it like its the capstone of his policy agenda.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago*

    All the more reason to STFU about it now, and then just do it once he's in office if the opportunity presents itself.

    Speaking of which, telegraphing that visiting NYC would be a bad idea for Netanyahu under Mamdani's leadership is also exactly the opposite of what he should do.

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  • [–] -3 points 1 year ago

    It's a bad position to take. Not because it's the wrong thing to do. Netanyahu is undeniably a war criminal and should face justice. It's a bad position because only the federal government should be making foreign relations decisions. NYC can and should make itself a very uncomfortable place for Netanyahu but actually arresting him is something that the FBI should do. From that standpoint this isn't different from Texas putting the barriers in the Rio Grande. SCOTUS should have smacked them down hard for that because it usurps authority that the Constitution gives exclusively to the federal government. Of course, the court didn't smack Texas down on that and it was objectively wrong both constitutionally and morally so maybe the constitution and the rule of law in general don't really apply anymore.

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