Posted on 10/30/2025 7:23:58 AM PDT by MtnClimber
History shows that such leaders offload resentment onto their enemies.
New York City is poised to elect Zohran Mamdani, a self-identified democratic socialist, as its next mayor. Mamdani has run a sophisticated campaign based in part on his intersectional identity as a Muslim immigrant and in part on promises cherished by progressive whites.
Mamdani’s policy proposals are wrapped in slick advertising and catchy slogans, such as “Afford to live, afford to dream.” But his agenda is standard-issue socialism with hard-left cultural politics: free buses, government-controlled housing, platoons of social workers, and millions in funding for child sex-change operations.
Such policies may sound novel and inspiring. But if history is any guide, they will make the city more chaotic, more unstable, more violent, and, for taxpayers, more expensive.
Why, then, have New Yorkers responded so positively? First and foremost, the Left has mastered the art of hatching political stars and dominating deep-blue districts.
Mamdani built his campaign on the infrastructure of the Democratic Socialists of America. The DSA and its city allies can dispatch activists across New York and, with a network of progressive partner organizations, can mobilize young people, get out the vote, and do the work of door-to-door politics.
Mamdani’s innovation has been to harness the movement’s base—white, college-educated, downwardly mobile young people—in combination with the most radical fringes of the city’s Muslim communities. That includes a visit with an unindicted co-conspirator in the World Trade Center bombing meant to appeal to this group.
What will this yield? I can see the rise of New York socialism playing out like a film script.
In the first act, a plucky, young, charismatic candidate beats Gotham’s political machine and rides his newfound stardom to the mayoralty of America’s largest city. In his administration’s early days, he tries to implement his transportation, policing, housing, and cultural policies, notching some initial victories. He also rewards key demographics with patronage, sending millions in taxpayer cash to identity-based NGOs, which become city contractors that deliver vague “social services.”
Then, in the second act, Mamdani encounters the inertia of the political machine and financial realities. His promises—such as freezing the rent, building government-controlled housing, and making buses free—become harder to achieve. To the extent they are implemented, they generate unintended consequences. He finds that rebranding public housing as “social housing,” for example, doesn’t make the program any less disastrous for the city or its housing stock. His attempts to punish landlords, while thrilling to some young leftists, prompt many small property owners to leave the city.
On transportation and policing, he makes similar discoveries. Mamdani makes buses “free”; as a result, New Yorkers see more vagrants, addicts, and psychotics on the buses. It becomes harder for families to navigate the city safely.
He transfers some funds from the NYPD to social workers, which creates a small wave of good will among left-wing voters. But, in the long term, quality-of-life crimes increase, requiring the intervention of police—not social workers with clipboards.
Which brings us to the third act. If the second act concludes with the young mayor’s reckoning with reality—economic limits, unintended consequences, and escalating public hostilities—he may try to mask his failures by stoking resentment. We saw this dynamic many times in the twentieth century: socialists rise to power, their policies degrade the quality of life, and, as they enter the endgame, they tighten their grip on power and offload resentments onto their ideological, racial, and economic enemies.
How will the movie end? I’d love to watch a film about New York City residents coming to see the world differently. But the twentieth century taught us that left-wing voters have extraordinary defenses against reality.
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Leftists have no concept of reality, just like other categories of insane people.
FNC and FBN have lots of employees living in the NYC area. So, there is a steady diet of: “OMG Mamdani!”. I am going to enjoy watching NYC burn itself down. If, by some unfortunate circumstance, some lefties perish, so much the better.
I thought it already was socialist
not hard to imagine: de Blasio’s reign wasn’t that long ago although he was more socialist and Zohran is more communist. most NYC voters seem to be either stupid or suicidal.
They will go from Trotsky to Stalin.
It's really that simple. The progressives and their voters are cleaning house, getting rid of all the old White Dem men. Cuomo had no chance, even if he were not a failed person and elected official.
With Snake Plissken thorwing a tape into the Atlantic.
“Leftists have no concept of reality”
-
That’s exactly why I don’t believe there is much common ground with them anymore.
They possess very little if any desire to compromise at all....they’re a lot like muslims that way......you agree with them or you must be destroyed.
I think Detroit is a good example of what will happen.
This is all on the voters. All of it.
NY City is a welfare city which exists almost solely off the skimmings of Wall Street and Federal transfers. It used to produce a lot of things - but not any more. That mentality is ingrained now in several generations of citizens and politicians
But even with that, Mamdani was chosen by a very small minority of voters.
It’s a Democrat city, and Mamdani won the Democrat primary, with 27% of eligible Democrat voters participating. Even then, he only beat Cuomo 54% to 46%. Socialists and marxists did a good job of “get out the vote.”
In most NY Mayoral elections, voter participation is around 23%-25% of eligible voters. This year may be higher.
If Republicans or especially mainstream democrats can overcome general apathy and organize a successful “get out the vote” they can easily swamp the Mamdani marxists.
As you say. I think that there is not enough said, that the reason Mamdani is popular is because the NYC electorate is pro-socialist.
In fact, the whole “Chickens for Colonel Sanders” argument falls on deaf ears because the Chickens are Communists and Sanders says he is, too.
In Dearborn Michigan the muslim mayor has has signs posted glorifying a hamas sympathizer.
A Christian pastor attended a city council meeting to express his concerns about that and was told by the muslim mayor he wasn’t welcome at the meeting and should feel free to move out of town at his convenience.
THAT is who we are dealing and we had better wake up to their nefarious intentions regarding our country at large.
The author is an ignoramus. New York City has been a socialist cesspool for decades.
Imagining a Socialist New York
Or just visit Cuba
The positive aspect is that NYC will attract many of the useless leeches from other states—thereby helping many other states.
Jews in NYC vote overwhelmingly democrat.....still not gettin’ it. 🤷
10% of the SNAP benefits go to NY, so they are already migrating there. In a few years it will be 15% of the benefits going to NY.
The fear of Mamdani seems overblown given history. New York has experienced good and bad mayors in its history. Mamdani’s far left policies are not inconsistent with the left wing of the Democrat party which has members sitting in other city mayor offices, Congress, state legislatures, and in the federal bureaucracy. In addition the United States has experienced the leadership of four socialist presidents in its history.
We had a socialist president from 1932-1945 (FDR) who presided over a wholesale change in government, completely eradicating the small and limited federal government of the founders and fundamentally changing the economy by removing exchangeable gold from the monetary system, implementing federal work programs (CCC and WPA), increasing regulation of the economy at the federal level, and instituting old age pensions (Social Security). FDR also suspended individual rights under the Constitution and used the power of government to suppress freedom of the press and punish his political enemies.
Lyndon Johnson (1963-1969) was socialist president who was responsible for the “Great Society” social welfare programs which involved significant expansion of government wealth transfer through the income tax, primarily from the middle class to the lower economic strata. In addition the civil rights and voter rights legislation passed during his administration facilitated the federal government actively institutionalizing special privileges for specific groups defined by the government as worthy.
We had another socialist president from January 2009-2017 (Obama) whose stated goal was to fundamentally change America. He loaded the bureaucracy and the court system with far left socialists. He also dramatically increased government intervention in the healthcare system. He weaponized the DOJ and the court system against his political opponents. He increased the regulatory burden on individuals and business. He openly ruled with his pen (presidential orders) and phone to avoid accountability to Congress.
The regime of the puppet Joe Biden (January 2021-2025) was in essence an unknown to the pubic committee of socialists serving as president. This administration furthered the Obama agenda, increasing the regulatory burden on business and the public with climate change mandates. It also committed one of the most grievous violations of individual liberty with its vaccine mandates which impacts millions of citizens.
The socialist horse has been out of the barn for nearly 100 years. Mamdani is just one manifestation of a cancer that has spread across government at all levels, including the White House. Fixating on one candidate (Mamdani) takes voter attention away from the thousands of extreme socialists who infest the bureaucracy, serve in Congress, serve as governors and state legislators, serve in local elected offices, dictate from the courts, and have imposed their agenda from the White House. Perhaps this focus by the media is intentional. Look at Mamdani and ignore what is happening with thousands of others in elected office or positions of bureaucratic authority around the country.
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