June 25, 2025

Now, on to the news…

The center-right’s failure to gain traction in New York City’s mayoral race can be explained, in part, by the coalitions supporting former New York governor Andrew Cuomo and Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani. Cuomo is content with the status quo, while Mamdani wants more public spending and higher taxes.

Indeed, in New York City, center-right reform tends to follow crisis, not precede it, Eric Kober observes. Michael Bloomberg’s rezoning agenda, which emerged from post-9/11 uncertainty, and Cuomo’s pension reform in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis are good examples.

Read his take on what might be next for New York.

In collaboration with the Sun Valley Policy Forum (SVPF), several luminaries from the Manhattan Institute will speak at this year’s SVPF Summer Institute, on July 1st and 2nd. This two-day conference retreat will be held in the premier mountain town of Sun Valley, Idaho. Reihan Salam (Manhattan Institute President), Jesse Arm (Manhattan Institute Executive Director of External Affairs & Chief of Staff), Heather Mac Donald (Thomas W. Smith Fellow and Contributing Editor of City Journal), and Senior Fellows Jason Riley and Abigail Shrier will be featured in the programming, along with other notable thought leaders. As a benefit to City Journal readers, Reserve ticket bundle registrations will be upgraded to the Bronze pass level, which includes access to a private cocktail party. For more information on the program, go here; to register with MI benefits, go here.

Whoever wins New York City’s mayoral Democratic primary (voting is underway on Tuesday as of this writing) won’t coast to the finish line in November as per usual. In fact, it’s shaping up to be a strange election, with a five-way contest appearing likely.

Read John Ketcham’s take on what New Yorkers should expect this fall.

New York Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani believes that creating a network of city-run grocery stores is a good idea. Adam Lehodey spoke with business owners and customers around the city about the plan, and they’re skeptical. Almost all were concerned about corruption, with one clerk saying that the stores would just “line the pockets” of those in power.

Read more from Lehodey’s conversations here.

Christopher F. Rufo recently attended Queer Community Day at the Seattle Aquarium to take the temperature of the gender movement. Among the highlights: LGBTQ+ flags in fish tanks, Drag Queen Story Hour, and a lecture titled “The Ocean Is Queer.”

The talk framed the sea as a metaphor for the “queer community,” highlighting how male seahorses can become pregnant and clownfish can change sex. These examples are part of so-called “queer ecology,” which observes that heterosexuality isn’t the only pattern found in nature.

But attempting to ground transgender ideology in nature carries an air of desperation, Rufo observes. “One could just as easily note that sea creatures breathe underwater or sometimes eat their young—neither of which offers a useful model for human behavior,” he writes. “Perhaps this was always the central weakness of the gender cult: its reliance on euphemism and analogy to obscure the harsh realities of its practices.”

Read more about his visit here.

“The rioters are upset about robo-taxis displacing workers. How many of them place phone calls without an operator to put the call through? How many ride elevators without the services of elevator operators? How many get their propaganda on the internet rather than using the services of a paper boy to sell them a newspaper or throw one onto their front porch each morning?”

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The Retired Viking, commenting on automation’s impact on immigrants 

Photo credits: Michael M. Santiago / Staff / Getty Images News via Getty Images