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It's not just that it's a place about a deep blue city on a deep blue site, it's that the site routinely censors opinions contrary to the mainstream. I am genuinely surprised that Reddit is allowing opinions in favor of Penny and hasn't banned them under the guise of, say, encouraging violence. If you had asked me to predict /r/NYC's reaction beforehand, I would have 100% failed.
Meanwhile, the left-leaning person who would normally be the dissident in this case, Freddie deBoer, has come out strongly against Penny, saying:
It's almost like opposite day.
Whatever the cause, it almost gives me hope that at least the very people living in dense urban areas (whoever's left and hasn't moved out, anyway) are willing to address the problem of not just crime, but also harassment, filth, and general unpleasantness that plagues public transit, where urbanists don't want to or don't even acknowledge the problem.
Almost. The pessimistic side of me says that it's too little, too late, and support on Reddit won't change the outcome of Penny's trial, nor the broader institutional failures that even led to this situation happening in the first place.
The mods keep locking and deleting the threads (without comment). But I wasn't surprised that /r/NYC came out mostly in favor of Penny, though I wouldn't have expected it to be as lopsided as it is. People ride the subway. Pretty much everyone there has had the experience of a Neely type ranting at them; some of them not just a Neely type but Neely himself. And some there have had such people physically attack them.
Unfortunately they'll do anything about it except vote for policies and politicians who will do something about it. It took much worse than this to get New Yorkers to first vote for a Republican and then for a party-switching authoritarian.
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