{"id":17809,"date":"2025-10-27T02:18:06","date_gmt":"2025-10-27T02:18:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/17809\/"},"modified":"2025-10-27T02:18:06","modified_gmt":"2025-10-27T02:18:06","slug":"zohran-mamdani-is-toying-with-nyc-his-campaign-promises-are-make-believe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/17809\/","title":{"rendered":"Zohran Mamdani is toying with NYC \u2013\u2013 his campaign promises are make believe"},"content":{"rendered":"

When Zohran Mamdani <\/a>was in high school, he tried to seize the reins of (student) government power the usual way: By promising the voters free stuff. At the Bronx HS of Science he ran for student veep on a fruit-juice giveaway platform. Yep, we\u2019re looking at a career founded on tempting kids with sweets. He lost anyway.<\/p>\n

So he amped up his proposals by a few billion dollars, <\/a>and now he looks like he\u2019s going to promise his way right into City Hall.<\/p>\n

A mere decade and a half later \u2014 yes, we\u2019re about to have a mayor who was in high school until 2010 \u2014 Mamdani is wowing the party that never stops saying \u201cWhat an intriguing idea!\u201d when told it can help itself to things paid for by somebody else.<\/p>\n

Step up to the Golden Corral buffet of social services, folks! Don\u2019t worry about the costs.<\/p>\n

Zo is somehow going to make the buses both free<\/a> (meaning lots more passengers, many of them homeless) and faster (sure, bud). Buses are already pay-optional, of course: 48% of riders are fare beaters. But making the buses free is going to blow an $800 million hole in the budget. Never mind, New York: Zo has got this.<\/p>\n

New York City mayoral Democratic nominee Zohran Mamdani and New York Governor Kathy Hochul leaving the stage during the \u201cNew York Is Not For Sale\u201d rally on Sunday. SARAH YENESEL\/EPA\/Shutterstock<\/p>\n

Harsh reality<\/p>\n

Mamdani is too young to remember the dot-com boom \u2014 hell, he\u2019s barely old enough to remember 9\/11 \u2014 but he\u2019s the Kozmo.com of pols, the company whose business model was \u201cbuild brand loyalty by giving customers enormously expensive yet free one-hour delivery.\u201d After bleeding a quarter of a billion dollars of red ink, it died. Its last recorded remark was, \u201cOops!\u201d<\/p>\n

When Andrew Cuomo\u2019s dad, Mario, was running for mayor in 1977 against closeted Ed Koch, some of his supporters muttered, \u201cVote Cuomo not the homo.\u201d Today Andrew\u2019s reality-acquainted backers are essentially saying \u201cVote Cuomey not the Commie.\u201d<\/p>\n

But Mamdani isn\u2019t really a communist, nor even a socialist (despite compelling evidence to the contrary, such as him constantly saying \u201cI\u2019m a socialist\u201d). Socialists want government to take over all of the major industries, but if Mamdani\u2019s army of Bowdoinians had to wait in line at the iDMV the next time they wanted to upgrade their phones, Zohran would be as popular in this town as botulism or JD Vance.<\/p>\n

Mamdani is not<\/a> Vladimir Lenin. He\u2019s something much more recognizable: our own Bowdoin Beto of the Boroughs. He\u2019s a bluff, a hope, a whimsy, a rumor of a man who has no knowledge of anything, no experience running so much as a halal hot-dog stand and\u00a0nothing to offer except vibes.<\/p>\n

His stock answer to everything, when he even pretends to answer, is to smile charmingly and leave the details to the future.<\/p>\n

We\u2019re living through a multicultural real-life reenactment of \u201cBeing There,\u201d in which a total moron is mistaken for a Solon because people want to believe things that can\u2019t be.<\/p>\n

Mamdani shouts,<\/a> \u201cAffordability!\u201d and people go, \u201cDang, the kid\u2019s got some good ideas!\u201d<\/p>\n

Andrew Cuomo may be a grabby jerk, but having been governor for 10 years, and a close-up observer of executive power when his dad was governor for another 12, at least he has some understanding of real-world governance.<\/p>\n

Like the rest of us, he couldn\u2019t believe that Mamdani wouldn\u2019t say whether he backed the three ballot proposals meant to speed up home building, largely by taking the human roadblocks known as the City Council out of the process. At the debates, the imbalance of knowledge was such that Cuomo came across like a physics professor who had to explain to a pesky 6-year-old why he can\u2019t have a fountain of Snapple and a pet dragon.<\/p>\n

Old ideas<\/p>\n

It won\u2019t matter at all. Thanks in part to Curtis \u201cI love this city so much I\u2019m gonna help Mamdani\u201d Sliwa, a part-time assemblyman who has never held a real job is going to win easily. He successfully debated Cuomo to a draw by dismissing everything Handsy Andy said as downer vibes. Who wants to vote for frownsy old Cuo-no? Who wants to tell the kids there\u2019s no municipal Santa, and if there were, he\u2019d cite union work rules to explain why he needs every third Christmas off?<\/p>\n

New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani waves to supporters at the \u201cNew York is Not For Sale\u201d rally on Sunday. REUTERS<\/p>\n

Mamdani may be young, but his ideas are not just old, they\u2019re ancient, moldering, dead. A long time ago they were buried.<\/p>\n

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But now they\u2019re undead, and Zohran\u2019s zombie notions are stalking the landscape to the tune of sinister music. A crucial detail of his appeal: His supporters are so young they don\u2019t remember when there used to be items on the news about oxymoronic Soviet supermarkets, where you\u2019d wait in line all morning to obtain enough provisions to get you through the day: a sad sack of gray taters and a quart of vodka. At least everything was affordable.<\/p>\n

\u201cTax the rich even more than they\u2019re already being taxed, which is a hell of a lot\u201d is a bizarre policy for a city and state that are already heavily dependent on not pissing off the rich too much.<\/p>\n

The wealthy are our most precious resource \u2014 they\u2019re to our fiscal picture what the sun is to agriculture \u2014 and without them, our ways are not sustainable. Moreover, their wealth is closely linked to the fortunes of Wall Street, which could tank at any time and which a smart mayor would try to nurture instead of disparage.<\/p>\n

Millionaires are mobile. They know where all the exit routes are.<\/p>\n

Running from gov\u2019t<\/p>\n

Yes, OK, I admit if this burg actually turned into \u201cEscape from New York,\u201d it\u2019d be kind of interesting, but short of creating Alcatraz-on-Hudson, the rich do have options other than paying for Mamdani\u2019s $6 billion free child-care program \u2014 almost as expensive as the entire NYPD.<\/p>\n

Most cities have zero income taxes, but New York has a sizeable one already. At any given moment, any given corporate shark or hedge-fund bro is thinking about how much easier life would be if he could just spend 180 days in some sunnier state. Say, one with zero income tax and sane governance.<\/p>\n

Florida has begun to push to zero out property taxes. It gets more relatively attractive every day. Miami isn\u2019t exactly St. Louis. It has a lot of attractions even if it weren\u2019t much, much more affordable than New York.<\/p>\n

Yet Mamdani would raise corporate taxes a dizzying 59% and charge each millionaire another $20,000 per million in income tax. Many of them will respond with the classic Michael Corleone counter-proposal: \u201cMy offer is this. Nothing.\u201d<\/p>\n

New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani speaking at a campaign rally. AFP via Getty Images<\/p>\n

Finance, law and tech are, for the most part, industries you can participate in from anywhere. And the funniest part of Mamdani\u2019s wish-for-more platform is this: He can\u2019t raise income taxes anyway. The whole thing is just Beto bluster. Taxes are a state thing, and Gov. Hochul has already said she\u2019s against additional punishment for the rich.<\/p>\n

Bill of goods<\/p>\n

What about the housing vibes? Fewer than half of New York rental apartments are rent regulated; when Mamdani promises a rent freeze<\/a>, he\u2019s only talking about those. And what were the hikes last year? Three percent (amid a 6.5% hike in costs). The year before that it was 2.75%.<\/p>\n

Needless to say, landlords will have to raise rents even faster on their other, non-regulated apartments to cover the increasing money drain of the regulated ones. Congrats, L-train hipsters, if you\u2019re not lucky enough to have a rent-regulated place, you\u2019re voting to raise your own rent! At least you enjoyed the vibes along the way.<\/p>\n

As for Mamdani\u2019s much-vaunted city grocery stores<\/a>, which can only be called Trader Zo\u2019s, the plan is so feeble it\u2019s as laughable as the way he pretends to eat a burrito on the subway (occupying two seats, then spreading his meal out on a third, so it\u2019s guaranteed to splatter all over the floor the first time the car jolts). He merely suggests launching one store in each borough, so even if these things are so clean, efficient and cheap that they make Costco\u2019s CEO weep into his pillow every night while muttering \u201cMy whole life has been a lie!\u201d they won\u2019t do you much good unless you happen to live nearby.<\/p>\n

The best possible result is one depressing store in each borough, each of them bound to be a dingy Post Office of Produce. When have you ever been in a store and thought, \u201cI wish the government were running this\u201d?<\/p>\n

This is a New York Jets-level failure in the making. You know what would really help New Yorkers afford groceries? Ending the unspoken ban on the company that has mastered the art of selling cheap: Walmart. Even the dumocrats in DC have given up that silly fight against low prices and broad selection: There are now four of them in the nation\u2019s capital. Adjusted for population, that\u2019d be 44 Walmarts in New York \u2014 and we\u2019d still be able to boast that we\u2019re aligned with the most Democratic city there is.<\/p>\n

Globalize the infantile<\/p>\n

Mamdani still won\u2019t renounce his favorite catchphrase, \u201cGlobalize the intifada.\u201d<\/a> This is meant to be a fancy college way to say, \u201cAttack the Jews wherever you may find them,\u201d but it isn\u2019t particularly fancy. If it\u2019s global, it has nothing to do with Israel and everything to do with hating the Jews: There\u2019s no nuance or nicety here.<\/p>\n

Mamdani once rapped in praise of a Hamas funding group. Just this month he was pictured smiling and hanging out with an actual unindicted coconspirator behind the first World Trade Center attack while continuing to swear he\u2019ll arrest Benjamin Netanyahu the next time he comes to New York.<\/p>\n

Mamdani once rapped in praise of a Hamas funding group. AFP via Getty Images<\/p>\n

Sept. 11 happened when Mamdani was in fourth grade. If something like it happened again, a few things would follow in the weeks and months afterwards: the economy would crash (eliminating tax revenue to pay for Mamdani\u2019s dumb ideas), tourism would crash (eliminating tax revenue to pay for Mamdani\u2019s dumb ideas) and we\u2019d have to wonder whether our mayor was privately thinking, \u201cThis is our fault for supporting Israel.\u201d<\/p>\n

Seventy-two law-enforcement officers died on 9\/11, and we\u2019re about to have a mayor who said, just five years ago, \u201cWe don\u2019t need an investigation to know that the NYPD is racist, anti-queer & a major threat to public safety. What we need is to #DefundTheNYPD.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u00a0And \u201cqueer liberation means defund the police.\u201d<\/p>\n

And \u201cThere is no negotiating with an institution this wicked & corrupt.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the second debate, he was still proposing insane ideas like having 911 dispatchers steer callers to social workers instead of sending police. That\u2019s worse than unworkable; it\u2019s going to get people killed.<\/p>\n

Even Mamdani\u2019s supporter and fellow Democrat Kathy Hochul said, \u201cEverybody\u2019s concerned what will happen to the policing of the city.\u201d<\/p>\n

Running this city is a serious job, not an internship for a silly rich kid who wants to inflict his dopey college-seminar thinking on 8 million people.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Kyle Smith is film critic for The Wall Street Journal.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When Zohran Mamdani was in high school, he tried to seize the reins of (student) government power the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":17810,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[5301,80,154,11749,9,56,63,65,1093,563,64,299,12304,82],"class_list":["post-17809","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-city","tag-9-11","tag-andrew-cuomo","tag-curtis-sliwa","tag-jd-vance","tag-new-york","tag-ny","tag-nyc","tag-nyc-headlines","tag-nyc-mayoral-election","tag-nyc-mayoral-election-2025","tag-nyc-news","tag-opinion","tag-vladimir-lenin","tag-zohran-mamdani"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17809","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17809"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17809\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17810"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17809"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17809"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17809"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}