What Trump does in D.C. and what Mamdani might do in NYC will have national implications. But there is more to this great nation than its political and economic ...
O ne could be forgiven for thinking, based on much of the news coverage of the past year or so, that there were only two cities of any significance in the United States: Washington, D.C., and New York City.
The nation’s actual capital, once again dominated by Donald Trump from the White House, has absorbed much media attention. And the nation’s financial capital and largest city, now facing the prospect of having, in Zohran Mamdani, its most left-wing mayor ever, has taken up a goodly portion of the rest.
For a variety of reasons, it is safe to assume that this pattern will continue through the rest of this year and into the next. My own life over the past decade or so, split between these two places, is but one small demonstration of why. But as I leave D.C. for NYC (again), it is worth remembering that America isn’t just a tale of these two cities.
That does not mean we can ignore either place, of course. The federal capital is right there in the Constitution. The business of the federal government has to happen somewhere. But the dramatic growth of the centralized state over the last near-century has made D.C. something quite different from what the Founders envisioned. This growth has come at the expense of the states and localities in which the Constitution vested considerable powers, raising the stakes of national politics.
Yet the head of this engorged leviathan is not Congress. That body, which is the proper channel for most of the deliberation and action on which our politics depends, has largely shirked its responsibilities. The abdication by this intended vessel has only increased popular frustration. It has turned the business of government into a strange contest between the courts, the anti-constitutional administrative state, and the president. And now that the lattermost office belongs to Donald Trump again, he has launched an all-consuming assault not just on the government of D.C., but also the government in D.C. Trump’s ultimate aspiration is to leave his mark on the capital.
This effort has made Trump, the colossus bestriding the Beltway, one of its most implacable foes. He is a head of state to some extent at war with the state — at least parts of it.
Meanwhile, a drive up I-95 or a train ride along the Acela Corridor, anti-capitalist (and fellow Millennial) Zohran Mamdani aspires to govern the center of American — and global — capitalism. Mamdani’s inane plans for government-run grocery stores and free busing are downright quaint alongside such city-destroying proposals as rent freezes (which would do nothing but freeze the existing supply of housing) and tax increases on the wealthy (and perhaps specifically on white people). And these proposals themselves seem downright milquetoast measured against his past fondness for language straight out of the Marxist vernacular, such as his call to give “each according to their need, each according to their ability” and his affinity for “seizing the means of production.”
What these two men do in these two cities will have national implications. So long as Congress remains impotent, and Trump retains his uncanny ability (and thoroughgoing desire) to center national politics around himself, he will push the powers of the presidency as far as he feels like. Political currents and media coverage will follow. And assuming Mamdani does, in fact, make it into Gracie Mansion (the likelihood of which has not been meaningfully decreased by the departure of incumbent Mayor Eric Adams from the race), it will be impossible to ignore what he does to the nation’s largest city, its 8.5 million people, and its more than $1 trillion economy. If he gets anywhere close to doing what he wants, the city’s wealthiest residents will think twice about residing in it, thus depriving him of the cash cow his grand designs take for granted. Quality of life will suffer for everyone else — and not just because of capital flights.
These are not ideal options for those who have cast their lot in the Acela Corridor. That is, those like me. It was about ten years ago that I moved to Washington, D.C., with the hope of working in journalism. After a few years of a journalism-adjacent job, I realized a lifelong dream by coming to work at National Review. Realizing that dream required moving to New York City, which I did . . . six weeks before the Covid madness began. I returned to D.C. shortly after, staying at NR until this week. Soon, I will be heading back to NYC, straight into the maw of Mamdani, for a new opportunity. My timing could be a little better.
D.C. is a little more my speed. It’s smaller and more manageable, and I have simply grown accustomed to life here. Until recently, my brief stint in NYC — a vast, complicated, and multifaceted place I had barely figured out before leaving — seemed like some bizarre aberration, not meant to be replicated aside from short business trips. For all the vicissitudes and undulations of Trumpian governance, he has at least brought a great countervailing force to its typically leftist environs. There will be no such force in Mamdani’s NYC. Even he, however, will have a hard time destroying completely the city’s many charms and advantages. Though he will do his best. And I will have a front row seat.
Trump’s D.C. and Mamdani’s NYC will be hard to ignore for the immediate future. Media concentration alone would assure that. Yet as I continue, like many young people in this country, to tie my fortunes to these domineering places, I will do my best to remember that there is a vast and great country beyond these two cities. The rest of the nation can never fully separate itself from either, to be sure. Yet every day, things of great significance happen outside of them, even if those things don’t get quite as much national attention.
For now, I remain directly tied to the fates of each city, as I have been for the past ten years. I look forward to the day when that is no longer the case.