In Mamdani's New York

Zohran Mamdani has been in office for less than two months. Already, what the mayor called “the warmth of collectivism” has left a chill of dread among New Yorkers.

Consider:

• In New York, home to roughly 600,000 dogs in a $1.5 billion annual business, an ally of the mayor has called for the elimination of all dogs. This is New York, home to the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show (above). But under Islamic law, explained pro-Hamas activist Nerdeen Kiswani, man’s best friends are considered unclean. In keeping with this Islamic hold on the city, Muslims are not going to mosques for worship but have taken over the once-iconic Times Square for prayer.

  

• Speaking of prayer, Christian faithful are fuming that Mayor Mamdani snubbed the city’s 2.5 million Catholics by not attending Ronald Hicks’ installation as New York’s new archbishop, on Cardinal Timothy Dolan’s retirement. The mayor claimed a scheduling conflict. At a packed historic ceremony at St. Patrick’s Cathedral, Hicks became the 11th archbishop of the New York Archdiocese. Every mayor since Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia in 1939 has attended.

• As a blizzard approached the city, the mayor — assailed during the last storm for letting 20 homeless people freeze to death — closed the city and put out a call for workers to plow the snow. Apparently few heeded the call. Perhaps because they were required by NYC’s Department of Sanitation to present photo ID, Social Security card, and proof of citizenship. This in a state, yes the whole state, that expressly outlaws asking voters for any proof of citizenship or ID.

These are cultural touchstones, likely to mark the flash points of the Mamdani reign. But it is his economic policies, arriving quickly and cruelly, that could define his term.

Once, he campaigned on a platform that might be summarized as “Tax the rich, fix the MTA, make buses free.” Now, perhaps noticing California’s mass exodus of billionaires in fear of a wealth tax, Albany is frowning on his proposal to soak the rich (anyone making over $1 million). If state legislators run from his confiscation and wealth transfer, Mamdani says he’ll have to hike property taxes on the middle class.

“We are not part of your negotiation package,” fumed James Johnson, one of several homeowners in Queens who held a protest over the mayor’s reneging of his pledge to keep hands off the middle class. “Zohran Mamdani you are out of your mind.”

But Mamdani knows exactly what he’s doing. He is following the communist manifesto. He knows that if he raises taxes on landlords, they will pass the additional costs to their renters. And then he can come after them for price gouging. As the mayor’s new Tenant Director Cea Weaver, who is white, explained, “Private property ownership is “a weapon of white supremacy.” Instead, it needs to be “a collective good, not a private one.” Here it is again, the warmth of collectivism.

All this comes against the backdrop of epic mismanagement of the city’s budget. In a city where Wall Street sits at the corner of Wall and Broad streets in Manhattan’s financial district, New York City’s budget is $127 billion — about that of Greece or Thailand, or, as Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis pointed out, “Florida’s budget — for the whole state — is $117 Billion. FL = 23+ million people NYC = 8 million people.”

Some leftists are starting to shout the alarm. Fareed Zakaria, CNN’s international specialist, argued, “New York is really a prime example of a problem Democrats seem unwilling to confront. Blue cities are out of control. Promising more, spending more, delivering less, and pushing off the fiscal problems to some future day.”

Dem commentator Stephen A. Smith put it this way: “If AOC, and Mamdani... take over the Democratic party... The Democratic party is toast. Or America is.”

Some conservatives think this will only speed the return of rationality.

“Mamdani’s ideas, cheered on by Sen. Sanders and AOC, are the antithesis of the American Dream—and they’re not new,” posted Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA). “They’re just the same old failures from Stalin and Lenin with better PR.”

But Dem victories for ‘sheep in wolf’s clothing’ candidates — see Abigail Spanberger, who campaigned as a moderate in Virginia’s gubernatorial race and is governing as a socialist — are cause for concern. Either way, if Sen. Kennedy is correct, the communist experiment will eventually fail, much as it did in the Soviet Union.

Or, as British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher once said, “The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people’s money.”