“Imagine going back in time to September 12, 2001 and telling New Yorkers they’d eventually go on to elect a Muslim socialist for Mayor of the city,” marveled podcaster Isabel Brown. Never forget, right?
Right?
That bizarre scenario may come to pass after Zohran Mamdani prevailed in yesterday’s Democrat primary in New York City. Caveat: Former Governor Andrew Cuomo conceded after pulling just 36% to Mamdani’s 43%, but New York’s ranked-choice voting system means the final results won’t be known until at least July 1. Election workers must tally late-arriving mail-in ballots and second-choice votes, which Mamdani needs to reach 50%. He’s also not guaranteed to win the general election — he faces beleaguered and now independent incumbent Eric Adams, Republican Curtis Sliwa, and perhaps an independent Cuomo.
Mam-who? you may be asking. Mamdani is of Indian descent, but was born in Uganda and moved to the U.S. at age seven, becoming a citizen in 2018. Now 33, he was elected to represent Queens in the New York State Assembly in 2020. He’s a democratic socialist backed by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Bernie Sanders, and he essentially ran on a platform of high taxes and “free stuff.” That’s because, as he once put it, “Taxation isn’t theft. Capitalism is.”
Oh.
“We have won because New Yorkers have stood up for a city they can afford,” Mamdani declared at his victory rally last night. “A city where they can do more than just struggle.” He clearly doesn’t mean to relieve their struggle with crime. “We don’t need an investigation to know that the NYPD is racist, anti-queer & a major threat to public safety,” he said amidst the Black Lives Matter surge in 2020. “What we need is to #DefundTheNYPD.”
He also promised to “reject Donald Trump’s fascism,” which proves he, like most public school-educated people in our nation, has no idea what fascism means. At least in part, Mamdani means stopping “mass ICE agents from deporting our neighbors.”
This may sound like something that doesn’t need to be said, but enforcing immigration law is not fascism. Ironically, Mamdani’s race- and class-based government policies are far closer to fascism than anything Trump ever uttered.
Meanwhile, he may not be kidding about the “our neighbors” part. “40 percent of New York City’s population is foreign born,” notes podcaster Matt Walsh. “Not just second and third generation immigrants. Foreign born. Almost half the city wasn’t born in this country. NYC isn’t an American city anymore by any reasonable definition of the term.” Estimates are that roughly half a million illegals reside in the sanctuary city of New York.
Mamdani promises “to govern our city as a model for the Democratic Party.” Given that the party is currently embroiled in a virtual civil war, what would that model look like?
Chicago.
That’s what the Chicago Tribune editorial board wrote on Monday. “Mamdani wants to freeze rents, open city-owned grocery stores, provide bus service for ‘free,’ tax corporations and the 1%, and increase the minimum wage to $30, among other left-wing positions that differ greatly from Cuomo. Most of Mamdani’s ideas are shared (at least in principle) by Mayor Brandon Johnson, and many of them are popular in blue cities. But experience has taught us here that far-left candidates do not make for effective or popular municipal executives in today’s stressful economy.”
Indeed, under Johnson’s, er, “leadership,” Chicago is a wreck. Among many problems, it’s overrun by illegals, beset with a persistently high murder rate, plagued by failing schools run by Johnson’s union cronies, and staring down the prospect of publicly funded grocery stores bread lines. That’s what happens when you don’t have a Republican mayor since 1931 and you “fix” what Democrats broke by electing a socialist.
Never forget that New York last had a Republican mayor (Rudy Giuliani) in 2001. No, I’m not counting Michael Bloomberg. The Big Apple may be asking to look more like the Windy City.
Running against the Cuomo juggernaut, Mamdani was a punchline not long ago, so how did he pull it off? By winning the votes of wealthy white women. People earning under $50,000 a year voted for Cuomo by 19 points, but Mamdani won $50,000-$100,000 earners by six points, and those earning six figures by 13 points. It’s certainly interesting that the people who voted against him are the ones who stand to “benefit” from government grocery stores and rent control. Go figure.
Maybe affluent white women like him because he’s all in on transing the kids, planning to “invest” $65 million in taxpayer funds to help mutilate gender-confused individuals of all ages.
Ultimately, Mamdani’s win was a reaction against an entitled politician who was part of the old guard. Cuomo had the Democrat establishment’s backing, and New York voters seem to have had enough of that, especially given what was, by all accounts, a thoroughly lackluster campaign by the scandal-plagued former governor. Mamdani was simply the shiny new thing, and New York Democrats jumped at it. If he wins in November, the nation’s largest city will suffer for its own poor choice.
