Conservatives warned of a mass exodus if the democratic socialist won, but experts, and property data, paint a very different picture
The warnings were stark. If Zohran Mamdani were to win the New York City mayoral election, his plans to raise taxes – slightly – on the city’s wealthiest residents would cause millionaires to bolt en masse, decamping to lower-tax states such as Florida and Texas.
The New York Post, a conservative tabloid owned by Rupert Murdoch, told readers on an almost daily basis through October that New York would effectively become a ghost town under Mamdani’s mayoralty, a propaganda campaign that concluded the day before the election with the bombastic claim that “nearly a million” people were planning to “flee”.
But a month after Mamdani’s historic win, there is no evidence that rich people are leaving the Big Apple. In fact, they seem to be committing to staying in New York.
This is basically what they did in feudal Japan.
Like, a potential rival that lives near your capital, is given the opportunity to pay for the development of a massive wall to protect it, along with bragging rights that they’re powerful enough to help the city, and that they have close ties with leadership as an ally
This drains them of capital they could use to raise an army, and also installs a big fortification that makes it harder to attack.