A socialist mayor for New York. What could go wrong?

OK, New York City is thisclose to electing a communist Marxist socialist mayor.

My first reaction: Eek! Let’s do something to make sure this doesn’t happen. (Even though my socialist parents are looking down from heaven with huge smiles on their faces.)

Then I am thinking — so what?

It is the vote of the (low turnout) Democratic voters of America’s largest city. They made the call. They own it. They will benefit — or be crippled by it. 

Who knows? 

Let’s find out. Let New York be a test case, the canary in the coal mine, for Zohran Mamdani’s radical ideas.

From his own website, here are his policies (Not all are explicitly spelled out, but they include these):

*Defund the police 

*Close the prisons

*Ban guns and private health insurance

*Legalize sex work and drug possession

*Free childcare up to the age of 5

*Free bus transportation

*City-run grocery stores that will pay no rent or property taxes 

*Freeze the  rent on 2 million apartments

*Raise the minimum wage to $30 an hour by 2030

*Pay for it by taxing corporations and the 1%

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That’s not pie in the sky. That’s a whole damn bakery. That’s my opinion, but also of most moderate Democrats who are looking at The Zohran like dog poop on their shoe.

And that”s before I get into his alleged anti-Semitism in the most Jewish city on earth. (New York City’s Jews number 960,000, followed by Jerusalem’s 570,100.)

The Zohran was born and raised in Kampala, Uganda, to academic Mahmood Mamdani (now a Columbia prof), and Indian-American filmmaker Mira Nair, who is best known for “Mississippi Masala”and “Monsoon Wedding.” 

The family moved to New York City when Mamdani was 7, he became a U.S. citizen in 2018.

He would be New York’s first Muslim mayor, and the first failed rap music producer.

“While mourning the loss of Israeli and Palestinian lives, Mamdani condemned Israel's decision to cut electricity to Gaza and the occupation in a statement the day after the attack on Israel,” NPR reported. 

But he didn’t condemn the attack itself until later, then calling it a "horrific war crime." Critics have pointed to The Zohran’s anti-Israel opinions even before Oct. 7.

NPR reports that “includes his long-standing support of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement (he's declined to say whether he would advocate for the policy as mayor), and a 2023 bill he drafted that would prohibit New York nonprofits from supporting Israeli settler activity. The legislation was widely criticized by Democratic lawmakers — who called it ‘a ploy to demonize Jewish charities’ — and did not pass.”

Can you oppose the Israeli government and not be anti-Semitic? The answer is yes, because vast numbers of Israelis oppose the Benyamin Netanyahu government. A majority of U.S. Jews do not like Bibi.

Why? Most American Jews roost on the Left, and Bibi governs from the Right, and has a few nasty ultra conservationists in his government.

But when you oppose Israel, that’s when the line gets crossed.

If you endorse “globalizing the intifada,” as The Zohran has, when that is widely interpreted as destroying the world’s only Jewish state, that is anti-Semitic. Even the left-wing The Atlantic found that to be a call for violence. Not to mention a holy war.

Does all this make him an anti-Semite? Let’s say anti- Semite Lite ™.

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Turning to politics, is The Zohran the new face of the Democratic Party? Will his brand of anti-capitalist populism be the antidote to Donald J. Trump’s authoritarian populism?

Let me rephrase the question: Is New York remotely similar to anywhere else in America?

Only to the really big blue cities, which Trump lost on his way to victory in both the electoral count, and the popular vote.

Haven’t the Dems learned that defund the police is a loser? 

Prisons are a necessity and most people who have private health insurance like it, even if it is expensive.

Free buses? SEPTA is thisclose to decimating the system because it can’t get enough operating funds out of Harrisburg.

As writer P.J. O’Rourke said in another connection, if you think it’s expensive now, wait until it’s free.

Ditto the free child care, promised by The Zohran.

Yes, it is expensive to live in New York. Not everywhere in the city, but in most nice places. So the offer of free stuff is very appealing.

How will he pay for the freebies? 

By slapping heavy taxes on corporations, and rich people, mostly in white neighborhoods, he actually said. 

But that’s not racist, he said, seemingly unaware of what constitutes “racism.”

That’s the genius of socialism, to redistribute wealth from the rich to the unrich, sometimes known as the poor.

One little problem, as noted by former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, as you see above.

Another nit — The Zohran does not have the authority to raise taxes on corporations, the rich, not even the white.

But what do I know? 

Let him try to make a case for socialism in New York. Could he be worse than the Giants?