Mayor Mamdani & the Kennedy airlift

 

The Kennedy airlift is the name given to the program which gave scholarships to hundreds of East Africans. It began when Tom Mboya, a Luo Trade Unionist from Kenya, toured America to raise funds for a scholarship program which would produce the next generation of leaders who would replace the British colonial administrations. If that was its aim, it failed. Mboya was killed ten years later. Obama's father- who didn't benefit directly from the scheme, he got scholarships independently from US Universities- did hold a senior post in Kenya but was an ineffectual alcoholic. Mayor Mamdani's father, who became a Communist while studying in the States, was thrown out of Uganda by Idi Amin because he was of the wrong colour. However, he remained connected to the region as an academic. Indeed, in so far as the airlift changed anything, it strengthened University departments in the region. But Universities has little influence. Thus, strange to say, it was American politics which was materially affected by the Airlift.

 Obama's African connection was tenuous. Still, the very notion that he might be some sort of African Communist 'sleeper agent' contributed to his first electoral victory. He wasn't just any niggah. He was a Commie niggah whose African father had a PhD from Harvard.  A Commie niggah going apeshit in the White House would scare Wall Street straight. Sadly, 'no-drama Obama' preferred to bail out the Banks.

 Will Mamdani too prove a paper tiger? Mayors aren't all powerful. But voters may have already 'priced in' this information. Mamdani's election is a strong signal. It is in everybody's interest if he delivers some clear economic benefits to working New Yorkers without killing the golden goose. Moreover, the  other Democratic victories achieved today will put pressure on 'TACO' Trump to once again chicken out and end the Federal shutdown on terms favourable to the Dems. This gives them 'big mo' for the mid-terms in a year's time. Trump starts looking like a lame duck. His honeymoon period is well and truly over. Industry may turn against him on tariffs. Even SCOTUS may see which way the wind is blowing. Trump's favourite toy- tariffs- may be taken away from him. Raising and lowering them may be great fun but it creates uncertainty which big Companies don't like. Trump's 'plebiscitary Presidency' may be over as more and more Republicans rebel. 

Mayor Mamdani, like some other South Asian origin Leftists in America, does sound more like his father- an unreconstructed Marxist from the Nineteen Sixties- than his mother, who got a scholarship to Harvard in the late Seventies and became a  successful film maker. But, it is she he takes after. She isn't ideological but has charisma and knows how to entertain. Mamdani, a former rap artist, is what Willie Brown calls an 'entertainer' just like Trump. But Trump got elected because he offered to protect the working class from low-wage competition through tariffs and very tight controls on migration. The problem here is that both approaches can backfire. They can throw the baby out with the bathwater and thus create supply bottlenecks, fuel cost-push inflation, and greatly increase macroeconomic uncertainty. That is why job growth and consumer sentiment are so low. 

Mamdani is promising three things- 

1) rent freezes

2) fast and free buses

3) universal childcare. 

Will the Democratic party focus on these 'kitchen table' issues in its battle to win the mid-terms?  Will Governor Hochul, who faces a challenge from Stefanik next year, risk the wrath of tax-payers across the State in order to help Mamdani? If this happens, it would represent a big ideological shift in the party. 

What about Trump? How will he react? He has threatened to send the army into NYC and inflict all sorts of economic damage. But, surely, that would tank his own property portfolio and that of close allies? Thus, a deal must be done. Let us see if Mamdani is a better deal-maker than the Donald. It may be that Obama will play a role. No harm in appearing the Apprentice of the man who first reminded the world about the Kennedy airlift.