New York City, Governed by Vibes

Mamdani’s singling out of Ken Griffin is part of a dangerous pattern.

Courtesy Timothy A. Clary/AFP/Getty.

When New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani singled out hedge fund CEO Ken Griffin in a viral social media video earlier this month, it wasn’t because Griffin had done anything wrong. Rather, Mamdani’s jab at Griffin—announcing the new pied-à-terre tax in front of Griffin’s apartment—was a political stunt, part of Mamdani’s broader push to make the “ultrawealthy” pay their “fair share.”

The episode reflects a broader change in New York politics: the emergence of a politics of vibes. City officials appear less interested in the substance and hard work of policymaking—grappling with tradeoffs, setting neutral rules, and evaluating long-term consequences—than in advancing policies that feel morally satisfying in the moment. The result is governance that is less serious, more arbitrary, and prone to targeting disfavored groups.

Successful policymaking relies on the government promulgating general, knowable rules applied equally to all. It requires acknowledging tradeoffs: that raising taxes may discourage investment, that regulating property affects how it is used, and that policy may have unintended consequences. It also demands a willingness to accept those tradeoffs openly and justify them on coherent grounds.

Vibe politics does the opposite. It privileges short-term gains over long-term consequences in service of whatever feels right in the moment. Policies are judged less by whether they work than by whether they align with prevailing notions of fairness or justice.

Mamdani’s pied-à-terre tax is a case in point. Second-home owners already pay full property taxes while consuming relatively few city services. Driving them to sell may shrink the tax base rather than expand it. And because such properties account for less than half a percent of the city’s housing stock, the policy is unlikely to make any meaningful dent in housing affordability.

What it does do is signal disapproval of a particular kind of property use that doesn’t fit the current political mood. Yet private property, absent clear harms to others, has traditionally included the right to decide how and when it is used, even if that means leaving it vacant or using it intermittently. Once that principle gives way to shifting political preferences, the door opens to ever-expanding interventions based on whatever politicians deem socially acceptable at a given moment.

Mamdani’s attack on Griffin was far from an isolated incident. His administration’s first major move was to single out the Pinnacle Group, a real-estate investor, by attempting to block the sale of part of its portfolio in the name of tackling “negligent landlords.” (Mamdani lost.) Elsewhere, the state’s housing agency has abandoned decades of precedent and is retroactively seeking to reimpose rent stabilization across Peak Capital Advisors’ portfolio—another attack on “bad vibes” landlords.

New York’s current vibe politics tends to single out the well-off, asking them to subsidize an expanding list of public initiatives—from government-run grocery stores to childcare programs—without clearly defining either the problem being solved or the limits of redistribution. Terms like “fair share” and even “rich” remain deliberately vague, allowing policymakers to adjust them as needed to suit the moment.

As my colleague E. J. McMahon recently highlighted, just 0.7 percent of New Yorkers already pay 41 percent of the state’s personal income taxes, despite earning only 26 percent of total income. Yet there is no obvious limiting principle behind proposals like the $5 million cutoff for the pied-à-terre tax. If the goal is simply to tax what “feels” like excess wealth, the threshold can always be lowered.

Perhaps most concerning, the current vibe politics shows little interest in whether proposed solutions address real problems in the first place. Consider the push for city-owned grocery stores to combat so-called “food deserts” in one of the most transit-rich cities in the country. Or the broader expansion of public programs without serious engagement with their costs, tradeoffs, or alternatives.

In a city as large and diverse as New York, residents inevitably disagree about priorities—whether to fund childcare, transit, housing, or public safety, and how to balance those goals. Serious policymaking requires confronting those disagreements and making difficult choices. Vibe politics sidesteps that responsibility, leaving decisions to political actors who allocate resources based on their preferred prevailing narratives.

The consequences are already becoming visible. Following Mamdani’s comments, Citadel’s chief operating officer signaled that the firm might reconsider its planned $6 billion redevelopment of its 350 Park Avenue headquarters—an investment tied to roughly 15,000 jobs.

If New York hopes to remain attractive for capital, talent, and opportunity, it must return to a model of governance grounded in general rules, serious policymaking, and equal treatment under the law. A politics of vibes may deliver momentary satisfaction. But over time, it replaces a city governed by rules with one governed by whims. It can’t be both.