There was an odd kind of ignorance about Zohran Mamdani’s plans for New York on the part of some conservatives and moderates. They assumed (and still do) that he would adapt his positions to the political realities. Nope.
This is the standard playbook.
Mamdani is filling every office he can with radicals on a mission to advance specific positions. Now he’s pivoting to the predictable Step 2 of announcing that he can’t fulfill the wild promises that he never intended to keep without tax hikes.
His DSA allies are already preparing a protest campaign to demand tax hikes on the ‘rich’. Some of the same clueless people will dismiss this as empty posturing. Nope. This refocuses attention on class warfare and turns the whole state government into a battleground. And that was always the endgame. The ‘free buses and grocery stores’, like Lenin’s ‘Bread, land and peace’ was always a bait and switch to radicalize the public. The point wasn’t to deliver free stuff, but to promise the moon and then try to convince those who voted for him that the reason they can’t have nice things is because of capitalism.
This is Marxism 101. And it’s just beginning to roll out.
Mayor Zohran Mamdani is amping up pressure on Governor Kathy Hochul to hike taxes for the richest residents and corporations, asking the state to send billions more in aid to New York City as he faces mounting budget holes. Mamdani, the newly-sworn in democratic socialist, is arguing additional money from the state is necessary because the city faces a fiscal “crisis” created by his predecessor Eric Adams
This by the way is also Marxism 101. Incoming socialists always complain that they were left with a fiscal crisis by the previous administration. The USSR would go on blaming the ‘legacy of the Czarist regime’ well into the 1960s.
“We must raise taxes on the wealthiest few in New York City so that we can invest in the many,” Mamdani said.
“The time has come to tax the richest New Yorkers and most profitable corporations,” he said.
“What we are going to do is exhaust every option to make it clear that the time has come to reset the relationship between the city, its wealthiest residents, its most profitable corporations and with Albany.”
Mamdani also said he is open to the possibility of a wealth tax, similar to the one proposed in California, that would levy a one-time 5% tax on billionaires, if it qualifies for the ballot and is approved by voters this year.
The ‘free stuff’ isn’t coming. The class warfare is. And the larger aim is radicalization and revolution. Everything is going to be a fight with the same tiresome 99% and 1% rhetoric. Nothing will ever be achieved except the dismantling of New York City.
There will be protest rallies, riots and lots of angry rhetoric and Mamdani will explain that he broke all his promises because of all the capitalists who don’t want an equal society. Overthrow the capitalists and you’ll get your free buses and bread lines.
