Zohran Keeps Proving Why Socialists Are Better For Small Business Than Centrists

[00:00:00]There's, you know, all this talk from capitalist billionaires that Mondaire is horrible for innovation, for small business, and socialism, and this kind of, you know, more aggressive posture towards corporate greed is just going to hurt innovation. The reality is that Zohran Mamdani was really smart in his campaign about gearing it towards the needs of small businesses and appealing to small business owners on that level because there are a lot of onerous things that small business owners have to deal with here in the city.

[00:00:35]And cracking down on major corporations is very different than, say, the bodega that has to deal with the city very directly and oftentimes with with really small margins.

[00:00:50]So, here is Zohran Mamdani talking about the removal of unnecessary permits and licenses for small businesses. And he explains why this is important.

[00:01:01]>> Now, there are few pleasures quite as simple or satisfying as a chocolate milkshake on a hot day.

[00:01:07]Yet, for thousands of small business >> Okay, capitalist.

[00:01:12]>> Do you pay use money to buy that?

[00:01:14]>> Yeah, it sounds like, "Okay, Jeff Bezos over here using all that filmmaker money."

[00:01:18]>> Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[00:01:20]>> Yeah, he gets to be a politician cuz he's a nepo baby.

[00:01:23]>> Nepo baby.

[00:01:25]>> pleasures quite as simple or satisfying as a chocolate milkshake on a hot day.

[00:01:29]Yet, for thousands of small business owners, behind the simplicity of a sweet treat, complexity often lurks.

[00:01:36]For too long, restaurant owners and street vendors have been forced to apply for not >> We should do a for too long counter.

[00:01:42]>> I mean, he didn't even do the for in there. I So, he just said for too long.

[00:01:46]Oh, wait, he did. He did.

[00:01:47]>> it again. All the DSA candidates who won their primaries have They have inherited that as well.

[00:01:53]>> Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. So, he'll say for far too long or and sometimes for too long. That's a tick of his.

[00:01:58]>> And for so many New Yorkers.

[00:02:00]>> Oh, yeah, right. In this city, that's the other thing.

[00:02:03]>> so many, for far too long.

[00:02:05]>> Where Zora is all wrong.

[00:02:06]>> Anyway, we're supporting Zora.

[00:02:07]>> We love you.

[00:02:08]>> Zora, but I'll never drink a milkshake on a hot day.

[00:02:11]>> That's the chocolate chocolate milkshake on a hot day is not what I would have gone with, but >> I mean, I like milkshakes, but I don't particularly think like, "Oh, a hot day, I need to go get a >> A dairy bomb for your belly.

[00:02:25]>> Murks, for too long restaurant owners and street vendors have been forced to apply for not one, but two permits if they want to serve warm food and cold dairy desserts at the same location.

[00:02:38]Today, my friends, we are lifting the freeze that too many New Yorkers must contend with as we launch open for small businesses. Open, which stands for overhauling procedures and expanding navigation, is a package of more than 50 reforms that cut red tape, eliminate redundant fees, and streamline the permitting process. In a win for every ice cream lover across New York City, we will work with the state to do away with the frozen dessert permit that requires restaurants to seek out a superfluous second permit for what they're already doing, serving food.

[00:03:10]No more treat-sploitation, as we say.

[00:03:14]Right now, barber shops need three licenses to cut hair. One to be a barber, one to own the shop, and one from the city on top of both. This state of affairs is frankly anti-fade, and we will not stand for it, which is why we will work with the state to streamline these licenses as well. And to the bingo enthusiasts out there, for too long the potential earnings of a hot streak at bingo >> Drink your milkshake.

[00:03:38]>> by arcane rules that no longer reflect how the game is actually being played.

[00:03:42]With Open, DCWP will remove unnecessary regulations, including prize limits.

[00:03:48]These are just a few of the improvements we are proud to announce today as we make it clear we are in the pocket of big abuela.

[00:03:55]Our Our reforms touch virtually every sector. From bodegas that have to apply for a license to sell identical goods outside versus inside their shop to the child care providers who have to navigate three different agencies overlapping processes before they can actually get up and running.

[00:04:13]Most of all, Let's We can We can clap for the CHILD CARE PROVIDERS.

[00:04:21]YOU KNOW, IN THIS CITY WHEN THERE IS something that we see that we want to celebrate, we say that it's a miracle, that these are miracle workers.

[00:04:28]We don't want to have to ask people to be miracle workers.

[00:04:32]>> Mhm.

[00:04:32]>> We want them to just be able to do what they should have always been able to do, which is work with a city government that's responsive.

[00:04:38]Because most of all, OPEN will not only make it easier to run a small business, but to open that small business, to reach for that most American of dreams here in New York City.

[00:04:49]To understand how these were >> Um I mean it it's just uh >> I love this so much.

[00:04:57]>> It's just such good politics and also you mean you have these like centrist types that are praising him like, "Okay, like reform of rules, I'm okay I'm listening." I saw Sarah Longwell was like, "Oh." You know, the abundance crowd loves this, but they pretend like these are false or these are distinct visions that the socialist left or the DSA left doesn't want to get rid of red tape this. Mondani is in is proving in real time how that has always been a false choice that is presented. Um and that actually in fact an economy that's more geared towards working people and including like small business owners in the context of New York City, which is, you know, uh uh that's not working people, right?

[00:05:43]I mean they own their own business technically, but they're >> petty bourgeois >> But petty bourgeois in in in Marxist terms, but that would Mondani also has this understanding that these small businesses, as I mentioned earlier, operating on such small margins, and it and they're still working incredibly hard and not necessarily taking home these great returns and aren't rich themselves because they are also susceptible subject to these large like market consolidating forces that are keeping our wages down um as well. So, he's bringing those New Yorkers into the fold, and that's where his, you know, more expansive definition of working people is just really good politics.

[00:06:25]>> He's eating the sort of centrist lunch because they can't actually deliver on the stuff because they're too beholden to the big corporations that benefit from the massive bureaucracy, frankly. Like like Yeah, it would be nice if the Sara Longwell types ever got around to doing this stuff as actively as Zoran is, but Zoran isn't pulled in multiple directions by it. He just supports small businesses. Um and the small businesses I I remember in the campaign starting seeing Zoran flyers up. This is a guy like conservatives don't understand like how does the guy who's talking about a public grocery store have all the support of the bodega owners and stuff like that? It's cuz of stuff like this, and because they're not actually providing the like uh uh groceries without like government support themselves.

[00:07:11]>> Yes.

[00:07:12]>> this is policy, and we just have a massively wasteful one because because we like previously have been corrupted by bigger business, but you can just do these sorts of things.

[00:07:24]>> And it's why, you know, he's really a social democrat. Like he's a member of or governing as a social democrat, and and um he's a socialist, yes, in his ideology, but there's an understanding in the practicality right now with democratic socialists that in the near term this is the kind of like, you know, good governance that is beneficial for more socializing policies as opposed to, you know, uh uh the more long-term goals of a socialized economy. This is just good politics beneficial for his agenda as well and great messaging.

[00:08:00]>> Yeah, by the metrics of the typical politician, he's winning. By the metrics of like a social revolutionary, it's how does this translate into ultimately overthrowing capitalism and having a socialist economy?

[00:08:13]That is an open question that will have to take a lot of like work by people who like join DSA and that sort of thing.

[00:08:19]But, in terms of like being a a politician in the current state of affairs, like Zoran is better than there's a reason his popularity is up and Spanberger's is down. And uh >> Yeah.

[00:08:32]>> Nita can cry about it as much as he wants.

[00:08:34]>> And he understands that delivering on his agenda here is the most important thing that he could do for the socialist movement as a leader in this country right now. Governing in a way where you see, like I saw local reporters in Detroit take took a photo of Zoran merch being sold at the AOC Bernie Abdul El-Sayed rally. Like he is a national figure for this reason. I was actually talking to this guy who uh works at a a place near my apartment and he was saying that he was just in Ireland for a wedding and that everyone was talking about Zoran. Oh, you're from New York? You're from New York? God, we love him. I mean, he and AOC are really international figures um right now. And I think, you know, that's what gives me optimism.

[00:09:24]Uh in these dark days.

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