.
“People have this idea about it. It was fun, but I was in my 20s in the ‘70s, so that I do know, that it’s absolutely more fun to be in your 20s in the ‘70s than your 70s in the ‘20s.”
She recently voted for Zohran Mamdani in the mayoral elections but says he has little chance of enacting many of his polices.
“Most of the things he said he’s going to do, he cannot do. And I don’t mean he personally is incapable. They’re not within the purview of the mayor.
“I mean, one of his big things is free buses. Well, the mayor doesn’t run the transit system, the governor does. I mean, the mayor should, I think, but that’s not the way it works here.”
Her motivation was also in part because it riled the Democrat Party establishment, she says.
“I liked the fact of how angry and upset the old Democrats were. I mean, I’m an old Democrat, I’m 75, and I’m not a socialist.
“But I like the fact that they were all hysterical. Because truthfully, the people in public office in this country are too old. They’re just too old.”
Fran Lebowitz unleashed Saturday Morning
The “human species” is not good enough for the kind of democratic socialism Mamdani ran on, she says.
“The human being is a horrible species. A horrible species. And not good enough for socialism. Socialism is an idea better than the species.”
Lebowitz, who is coming to Auckland next year for the writers’ festival, also has withering a take on the current Trump administration.
President Trump’s introduction of tariffs on various countries it imports from amount to no more than a “huge tax”, she says.
“Tariffs are like a 19th century idea. You know, some of his ideas go way back further than that. I mean, a lot of people that I know say, you know, he wants to make it the 1950s again. And that is just not true. He wants to make it the 1850s again.”
“Nothing at all” works in America, she says.
“And this is because all the people in charge of everything are people that are not even incompetent. Incompetent would mean they did this job before, but they were bad at it. That’s not what we have here. We have people who’ve never done, forget the job they’ve been given, but any job, as far as I could see.”
The modern Republican Party hates “any kind of competence, any kind of skill, any kind of education, any kind of know-how, any kind of ability of any sort at all”, she says.
“How do these people live their life? Do they call their friend and say, oh, I have a horrible leak in my apartment? Do you know someone who’s not a plumber?
“Because that is how they run the country.”
She also fears for a generation coming along whose lives have been shaped irrevocably by technology, particularly AI.
“I’m really much more worried about human intelligence, you know, it seems to be receding ever more quickly.”
Reaching her age, however, does have some positives, she says.
“Luckily, it’s not delightful to be 75, but the upside is by the time these people are actually in power, I’ll be dead.”
