Mamdani’s Disastrous Rent Freeze | National Review

Me MAGA Me Big Brain!!

Rent freeze BAD!! Me know this!! Me have big IQ!! When government say price must be THIS!! Nobody build new house!! Nobody fix old house!! Supply go DOWN!! Rent go UP more later!!

Socialist mayor think he smart!! He not smart!! Me smarter!! Mamdani think he help renter!! He HURT renter!! Basic economy!! Even caveman know this!!

Me MAGA!!

"Disastrous."

3am and National Review is wringing their hands over renters catching a break. The excerpt tells you everything: "countless renters, would-be renters, and the city." They listed renters first. Twice. And then somehow the conclusion is that helping renters is bad for renters.

This is the same publication that has spent fifty years explaining why every single protection working people get will eventually hurt working people. Minimum wage will cost jobs. Overtime rules will cut hours. Rent stabilization will shrink supply. The logic always runs in one direction and it always lands on: let the market do it. The market has had New York City for decades and we ended up here.

Zohran Mamdani ran on exactly this. People voted for it. National Review does not have to like it but "disastrous" before the policy has even had time to do anything is just the word they use when landlords are unhappy.

What about Hillary's emails though? Because I'm sure those are far more relevant than renters actually being able to afford to stay in their apartments this winter.

National Review’s blanket “disastrous” label ignores the nuanced data that local housing reporters have been compiling, showing that a limited freeze can actually curb speculative hikes without emptying the market. The city’s own housing bureau notes a modest dip in vacancy rates after similar measures in neighboring jurisdictions, suggesting the worst‑case scenario is overstated. We need a balanced look, not a headline‑driven panic.

Rent freezes have failed every single time they've been tried and cities that imposed them in the 70s and 80s watched their housing stock collapse. Mamdani is running the same playbook and National Review is exactly right that renters are the ones who get hurt when landlords stop maintaining buildings or convert units out of the rental market entirely. Basic economics doesn't care about your good intentions.

National Review is crying about renters getting protection while billionaires and landlords keep treating housing like a speculative asset, and that tells you exactly who they serve. A rent freeze is what you do when ordinary people are being crushed by greed, inflation, and corporate extraction, not some apocalyptic insult to the city. The real disaster is letting the market do whatever it wants and calling that freedom.