New York City’s plutocrats are coalescing around defamed Mayor Eric Adams in a frantic, last-ditch effort to stop recently victorious Democratic nominee Zohran Mamdani from taking office.
Semafor has reported that the city’s wealthiest citizens are throwing their money and support behind Adams after Mamdani thoroughly trounced their first vessel of centrist neoliberalism, former Governor Andrew Cuomo.
Kathy Wylde, CEO of Partnership for New York City, noted that all of these rich guys are unsurprisingly “struggling to understand the implications of Mamdani’s victory,” because he accurately touched on “the financial insecurity young people feel and their anger that the established political class has done nothing to fix it. It’s not an endorsement of socialism but rather a rejection of the status quo, which threatens to bring on the kind of political instability that business hates.”
Now these businessmen are casting Adams as their last hope. Last month his popularity was at 20 percent, an all-time low.
“There is going to be overwhelming support in the business community to rally around Adams,” said Richard Farley, a partner at Kramer Levin Naftalis & Frankel LLP who said he’s organizing a fundraiser for the mayor and has been speaking with some of Cuomo’s biggest donors. “This will be a street fight all the way to November.”
Trump supporting billionaire Bill Ackman (who wasted $500,000 on Cuomo’s campaign) also joined in with on the Mamdani derangement syndrome, ominously positing that he found someone to challenge in the general election.
“I have a great idea on NYC. I will share it as soon as I can. I was a bit depressed when I woke up this morning, but I am now optimistic. We are looking into legal issues,” Ackman wrote on X the morning after Mamdani’s victory. “Legal issues concerning the potential for another candidate to run now. Not me.” The New York Post reports that Ackman will line up behind Adams, but the billionaire says it’s fake news and he’s still undecided.
While predictable, it’s troubling that the ultra-rich, from Bloomberg aides to Bill Ackman, are more opposed to a young, charismatic candidate who identifies as a democratic socialist then they are of two candidates who are embroiled in shameful scandals, with Cuomo having countless sexual assault allegations and ethics violations, and Adams being federaly indicted on charges of bribery, wire fraud, and soliciting political donations from a number of foreign nationals connected to the Turkish government. Expect more libel and Islamophobia all the way until November.
The post New York Billionaires Have Found Their Savior: Eric Adams appeared first on New Republic.
