{"id":19685,"date":"2025-10-28T11:18:09","date_gmt":"2025-10-28T11:18:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/19685\/"},"modified":"2025-10-28T11:18:09","modified_gmt":"2025-10-28T11:18:09","slug":"be-careful-what-you-wish-for-in-the-new-york-city-mayors-race","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/19685\/","title":{"rendered":"Be careful what you wish for in the New York City mayor’s race"},"content":{"rendered":"

As the New York City<\/a> mayoral race looms, some conservatives are rooting for socialist Democrat Zohran Mamdani<\/a> to win it. It is a dangerous folly to do so.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The reflexes of politicians seek every advantage. They love it when the opposing party picks a radical. The logic for conservatives is that if Mamdani is chosen in New York, it would alienate voters outside the city and help candidates on the Right win seats in the 2026 midterm elections<\/a> and in 2028.<\/p>\n

If \u201cthe enemy of my enemy is my friend,\u201d and Mamdani damages Democrats<\/a> by revealing them as extreme, he can be seen as his own party\u2019s enemy and an unwitting ally of Republicans<\/a>. Or so the thinking goes. As the Wall Street Journal noted<\/a>, \u201cNobody is happier than Republicans who represent the New York suburbs.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a common fault to care more about immediate electoral prospects than about long-term damage to the nation. But it\u2019s the difference between statesmen and mere politicians.<\/p>\n

And it isn\u2019t just politicians. George Will, political and cultural commentator, told Bill Maher<\/a> he wanted Mamdani to win. His reasoning:<\/a> \u201cEvery 20 years or so, we need a conspicuous, confined experiment with socialism so we can crack it up again. Socialists\u2019 slogan used to be, \u2018Workers of the world unite; you have nothing to lose but your chains.\u2019 The new socialist slogan is, \u2018Trust us this time; it won\u2019t be a mess.\u2019\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Mamdani may bring GOP victories and remind us all of the wreckage and squalor that is socialism<\/a>. But Will said \u201cconfined,\u201d and that is debatable. Just because Mamdani\u2019s writ as mayor would not run outside the city, it doesn\u2019t mean the rot would stay inside the Big Apple.<\/p>\n

Mamdani\u2019s policies would change the policies of the whole Democratic Party, and change its tenor and rhetoric, too. He is youthful, intelligent, fluent, and persuasive, just like Barack Obama<\/a> in 2008. Former President Joe Biden<\/a> might describe him, saying, \u201cHe\u2019s the first mainstream Islamist immigrant who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy \u2026 that\u2019s storybook, man.\u201d<\/p>\n

If he wins on Nov. 4, Democrats will want some of his gilt to rub off on them. That\u2019s why New York Gov. Kathy Hochul<\/a> belatedly endorsed Mamdani. She\u2019s late to the party, but to save her political career, it\u2019s better late than never. As the City Journal commented<\/a>, it\u2019s a Faustian pact, a deal with the devil because it will lead the party toward the manifest and manifold evils of socialism.<\/p>\n

Seeing wider electoral danger, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries<\/a> (D-NY) delayed endorsing Mamdani for as long as possible but eventually surrendered, coming out with faint-hearted and equivocal support, saying, \u201cThere will be areas of agreement and areas of principled disagreement.\u201d Do you think this will impress or appease the socialists who think the party isn\u2019t radical enough? No, it will take heart from Mamdani and then take over the Democratic Party entirely.<\/p>\n

Like the Republicans of suburban New York, Jeffries and Hochul \u2014 will Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer<\/a> (D-NY) jump on the bandwagon? \u2014 are thinking short-term while sacrificing eternity, which in politics means the next generation.<\/p>\n

The late British Prime Minister Harold Wilson once said, \u201cIn politics, there is no use looking beyond the next fortnight.\u201d Wilson was a byword for cynicism, but his opinion is now the norm rather than the exception.<\/p>\n

What does it mean that Mamdani\u2019s probable victory will accelerate the Democrats\u2019 slide into overweening leftism, pushing policies of economic ruin at home and anti-Westernism and Islamist barbarism abroad?<\/p>\n

The most important thing it means is that eventually those will be the policies of the federal government in Washington. No matter how much optimists believe Mamdani and his like will be unelectable on a national level, it is in the nature of democracies that the electorate gets bored with the people in power and throws them out to give the other side a try. This happens for the novelty value, if for nothing else.<\/p>\n

A socialist Democratic president and socialist Democratic congressional majorities would become established facts, probably sooner, not later, and would not be the stuff of never-never nightmares. The socialist experiment will not be contained in New York City. When that happens, America will not be America anymore \u2014 at least not one recognizable to those who came to know it in the generations of its greatness.<\/p>\n

HUGO GURDON: THERE\u2019S LEFT, FURTHER LEFT, AND THEN MAMDANI<\/a><\/p>\n

It is harder for Republicans to beat Democrats who are moderate or center-left, not way off in distant left field. That is what voters want in their central government. It\u2019s natural that Republicans and conservatives think their best interests lie in Democrats nominating militants to stand for election. But it is shortsighted.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Eventually, those militants will get control of the whole Democratic Party. Then there will come a day when the electorate shrugs and, in a fit of absentmindedness, hands them the levers of power.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As the New York City mayoral race looms, some conservatives are rooting for socialist Democrat Zohran Mamdani to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":19686,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[651,4008,13445,9,24,55,54,56,299,5285,1211,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-19685","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york-city","8":"tag-democratic-party","9":"tag-hakeem-jeffries","10":"tag-hugo-gurdon","11":"tag-new-york","12":"tag-new-york-city","13":"tag-new-york-city-headlines","14":"tag-new-york-city-news","15":"tag-ny","16":"tag-opinion","17":"tag-republican-party","18":"tag-socialism","19":"tag-zohran-mamdani"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19685","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=19685"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19685\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19686"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19685"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19685"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19685"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}