Posted on 01/02/2026 5:09:01 AM PST by MtnClimber
When Jan. 1 rolls around, New York City will have its first self-avowed socialist mayor. As a New York resident and a keen observer of Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani’s rise to power, I thought it worthwhile to write what I expect of him in the new year.
A lot is riding on Mamdani’s success for the Left. He’ been touted as the way of the future for the Democratic Party. He’s the Barack Obama for a new generation, just as the old Obama becomes passe.
Whereas Obama carefully laid the groundwork for the radical turn in American government and institutions leading up to the Great Awokening of 2020, my feeling is that Mamdani will be more open and aggressive in the way he promotes his agenda.
Obama insisted he was neither a Muslim nor a socialist. His replacement proudly says he’s both and is hardly concerned about being lumped in with some seriously radical folks. He wants to show everyone that real socialism is going to be tried this time, and it will work great when the cameras are rolling.
While Mamdani can’t run for president, given that he wasn’t born an American citizen, he will almost certainly have a huge amount of influence in state and national politics. The media will amplify his every action, downplay his setbacks, and tout every policy as a remarkable and incredible success.
Gov. Kathy Hochul, who was already browbeaten into endorsing him, will have a difficult time refusing Mamdani’s demands. Any attempt by New York state leaders to constrain his ability to act will likely be treated as a betrayal of the energized voters who put him in office.
Universal childcare, free buses, and even the government-run grocery stores he promised will need significant funding and approval from the state government. Will Democrats who effectively run the state be able to tell him “no” when the money runs out or isn’t there to begin with?
And if at any point the city, state, or federal government refuses to foist over money to pay for his numerous programs, he’ll have a built-in excuse for why they failed and enemies to pin the blame on when they do.
Though I’d almost certainly bet on Mamdani’s project ultimately failing in New York, let’s not set the bar too low here. This is perhaps in part why President Donald Trump held his fire when Mamdani came to visit the White House. It never helps to be hysterical.
The expectation should be that things will work out. After all, New York is one of the great cities of the world, the heart of American finance, and has proven to be quite functional when managed successfully.
You can be sure that if the city doesn’t immediately turn into a real life “Escape from New York” the day Mamdani enters office it will be spun as proof that his critics were wrong. That shouldn’t be the standard.
If Mamdani’s socialist ideas are so great and can make an unaffordable blue city a suddenly affordable socialist paradise, his standard for success shouldn’t just be modern Venezuela with worse weather.
I suspect that Mamdani won’t be pleased just to keep the free buses running on time. His 400-person transition team is so filled with loonies that you could post a list of the names on a wall, throw a dart at it, and expect to find someone who demands the police be abolished on a committee for safety, a transgender rabbi working on a committee for health, or a literal career criminal among a crowd of Democratic Socialists of America organizers, radical academics, and staffers of the previous disastrous regime of former Mayor Bill de Blasio.
The best thing that could be said about Mamdani’s transition team is that perhaps he is simply awarding campaign loyalists and will simply jettison them later when he doesn’t need them. More likely, he will be using the New York government apparatus as a training ground for his activist army.
But there are other signs that Mamdani really means to carry through with the far-left’s war against human nature.
In early December, Mamdani announced that he will stop shutting down homeless encampments in the city. In 2022, the soon-to-be former Mayor Eric Adams wisely decided to shut down the homeless encampments that were popping up in the city and provided opportunities for those on the street to enter homeless shelters.
I hesitate to elevate this move the level of “wisdom.” It was simply common sense. Pockets of homeless people, where drug use was rampant, were popping up through the city.
Mamdani apparently saw that and thought that he’d rather turn New York into San Francisco, where open air drug markets and tent cities are the norm.
This doesn’t seem like a person who will suddenly tack to the center and work on bringing high quality, competent governance to the city. That would be the shrewd thing to do. Promise socialism but make sure it works by not following through and pretending it did.
That outcome seems unlikely. I’d expect Mamdani to use every tool at his disposal to ensure that the perception is that he’s ushering in an irresistible tide of socialism in America.
He will do television appearances, he’ll make slick social media posts about how he’s stopping Trump, and he’ll do his part to ensure that the Democratic Party’s socialist faction emerges triumphant in 2028.
He will also push through with his most high-profile programs and make a grand show demonstrating that they “work” as the city slowly deteriorates. That’s what I predict is in store for the Big Apple’s new mayor.
The city is in for some interesting times.
He is doomed to failure and he doesn’t know it.
Buckle up, New York City denizens. You are about to get what you voted for.
Lot’s off anti-Semitism!
“Gloom, despair and agony on me.
Deep dark depression, excessive misery”???
H/T Hee Haw
“He is doomed to failure and he doesn’t know it.”
He won’t measure success by his results. He will measure success in how he can exalt himself. He is the quintescent con artist.
It’s unfortunate that Ma’amdami is taking office while MN corruption scandals dominate the headlines. Ma’amdami’s regime will be crippled by corruption scandals as well. The DSA socialists can’t wait to get their hands on the pay to play graft jackpot. His gold digger diva wife is going to quickly become an albatross too.
We’ll be watching from afar with great interest. Well maybe occasional interest at least.
Popcorn.
More popcorn!!!
Trying to somehow rope New York City residents into an even more impossible taxing scheme is on the order of herding cats. The denizens of that tormented city will find many new and ingenious ways of concealing wealth and income, the tax receipts will rapidly be decimated, and the city’s bond rating will be in the tank. Sure, the hungry and homeless may have some short-term succor for their needs, but this will quickly evaporate once the inexorable law of supply and demand kicks in.
A dysphoric future awaits New York City. Very well described in the movie “Soylent Green”, where the punch line is “Soylent Green is people!”
The problem of NYC being unaffordable is due to there being too many people who want to live in NYC and too little NYC. The only thing he can do about that is make it so that no one wants to live in NYC. He may well succeed.
Unfortunately you’re correct. The problem is the people who didn’t vote, which apparently was the majority of the voters. Madman Mamdani didn’t get a majority, he got he got a majority of like 50% of the voters.
May NYC get what they voted for. And may this dude never rise above “mayor”.
There are alternate theories. his constituents will blame Albany and Washington for the failures. That theor is that the chaos is what Mamsani wants.
“He is doomed to failure and he doesn’t know it.”
I’m sure he does know it. Someone asked Obama why he was increasing a tax when it was proven math he’d collect less money. His answer is the same reason as here, “Sometimes it’s more about fairness than reason.” (Something along that line.) The Left doesn’t use logic, reason or math. They’re concerned with “their truth” and “fairness.”
The quest is for forced equality
There is no cure for inequality
The plan is working
Watch how fast his net worth increases. So strange how that goes these days.
Replacing individualism with collectivism is a terrible idea
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