Zohran Mamdani as mayor of New York won’t be that bad, right?
After all, he won’t be able to do everything that he wants to do. This is still America, and a full-on commie like this guy will encounter all kinds of roadblocks.
Won’t he?
At the same time, many Americans regard the prospect of Zohran Mamdani becoming mayor of New York as the triumph of the best aspects of our nation. An immigrant, the son of immigrants, comes to this country and is not only welcomed, but quickly rises to the leadership of our greatest city. Xenophobia and racism are thereby rebuked, and America lives up to its reputation as the land of equality and opportunity where any person who excels can rise to the top.
Well, yes, but the full story of Zohran Mamdani is even worse than what is generally known, as I show in my new book, Intifada on the Hudson: The Selling of Zohran Mamdani. He is indeed an immigrant, but he stands openly and unapologetically for policies that, if implemented even in part, would not show off what is best about America. Instead, they would plunge New York City into new depths of economic and social misery. The reason why this can be stated with certainty isn’t hard to find: Everywhere socialism has been implemented, the results have been the same.
Socialism has not been beneficial either for individuals or societies. Those who would invoke the soft socialism of the Scandinavian countries should note that not even those countries have implemented all the socialist schemes Mamdani has said he wants to bring to New York City. And the primary ingredient that Mamdani needs to implement these schemes is money from the wealthy people he despises, who will almost certainly make it impossible for him to realize his plans and dreams as they simply leave the city.
Yet that does not render Mamdani harmless. Even if he loses the mayoral election or ultimately lacks the funding his projects require, he will have done a great deal—with his glibness, slickness, and charm—to bring his dangerous ideas into the American mainstream. These ideas are not new to him or to the world. When Zohran Mamdani talks about providing free buses, the buses aren’t really free. Even slaves didn’t provide free labor—they had to be fed, clothed and housed. Someone has to pay for the buses to be powered with gasoline or electricity, to be maintained, to be stored somewhere when they aren’t in use, and more.
New York City taxpayers will pay for this, and thus the buses are not really free at all. Rather, their cost is distributed not just among those who pay a fare for riding them, but among all those who live in the city, or all those who can lawfully be ensnared by the city’s tax system. Socialism is a large-scale exercise in confiscating wealth from those who have earned it and concentrating it in the hands of those who hold political power, who then distribute it as they see fit. When fully implemented, which would require government seizure of the means of production (a goal Zohran Mamdani has stated is worth pursuing), it reduces citizens to serfs. They work not for themselves and their loved ones, but as slaves of the state, which disposes of the fruits of their labor as it sees fit.
We have seen where this leads. Must we conduct yet another experiment to demonstrate that socialism is a failed system? It requires coercion, and that means terror. Socialist states such as the Soviet Union, Communist China, and Democratic Kampuchea worked on this basis, with individuals who refused to cooperate being imprisoned, tortured, or killed. In New York City, Zohran Mamdani will not have means of coercion at his disposal, so he is most likely to bankrupt the city and see it become an unlivable pesthole of corruption and crime.
Related: Mamdani Marks Second Anniversary of Oct. 7 Jihad Massacre as Only He Can
Couldn’t we just read a history of the Soviet Union and absorb its lessons?
Meanwhile, those who say, “It’s New York City, leave them to their fate!” should bear in mind that what happens in New York City doesn’t stay there. If Mamdani bankrupts New York, the rest of the country will suffer. American politics will become even more polarized as leftists demand that the city be bailed out and patriots oppose doing so. The destruction of New York will spread to the surrounding areas and, ultimately, to the entire nation.
Even if Mamdani manages to have a reasonably non-destructive tenure as mayor, he will have normalized socialist policies and rhetoric to the extent that the same scenario will play out in other cities, and inevitably, the results of socialism that we have seen everywhere will be seen again. This is already in the works, as Mamdani is not singular; there are other politicians like him, and there will be more.
Americans are notorious for voting on the basis of the most narrow of self-interests. Yet shouldn’t one of those interests be self-preservation?
Zohran Mamdani is just a symptom of a deeper malady. At PJ Media, we work hard daily to expose all the damage that socialists and their allies are trying to do to our nation. We give you the intellectual ammo you need to fight back in the best ways. Stay informed—join today with promo code POTUS47 for 74% off VIP membership.
