{"id":83823,"date":"2025-12-29T19:48:13","date_gmt":"2025-12-29T19:48:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/83823\/"},"modified":"2025-12-29T19:48:13","modified_gmt":"2025-12-29T19:48:13","slug":"trump-might-like-zohran-mamdani-but-i-went-to-see-one-long-island-republicans-last-stand","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/83823\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump might like Zohran Mamdani, but I went to see one Long Island Republican\u2019s last stand."},"content":{"rendered":"

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Only days remain until Zohran Mamdani ascends the throne of New York City, and nearly all his great opponents have given up. Andrew Cuomo, vanquished. Financier Bill Ackman, reduced to congratulations for the mayor-elect and even offers of support<\/a>. Donald Trump, singing his praises after inviting him over to hang. Maybe the great socialist boogeyman isn\u2019t so scary after all.<\/p>\n

But not everyone is in the mood for total defeat. In a recent interview with Fox News<\/a>, Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman in Long Island announced a novel approach to combat the threat of socialism bearing down from America\u2019s largest city: He is building a wall.<\/p>\n

Mamdani, he said, \u201ctalks like he\u2019s pro-criminal, not pro-victim.\u201d And as such, in a last-ditch effort, Blakeman is going up with a wall on the border of Queens and Nassau counties, where New York City ends and what most think of as Long Island begins.<\/p>\n

This makes plenty of sense. All truly great civilizations have a signature wall. China, for example. Also Donald Trump\u2019s America. So why not Long Island? And this is not some archaic cinderblock and mortar contraption: It\u2019s a top-of-the-line, high-tech fabrication.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are installing technology along the border of <\/a>New York City<\/a> that will read license plates, that will have facial recognition, that will have video cameras,\u201d Blakeman said in late November. \u201cNassau Exec Bruce Blakeman plans a wall of surveillance at NYC border after Mamdani win,\u201d boasted<\/a> the New York Post. So maybe not a Great Wall of China exactly, but certainly a wall with Chinese characteristics, given that an estimated 90 percent<\/a> of surveillance cameras are made in China.<\/p>\n

I appreciate the great works. But my request for a tour of the construction site was shot down; the county exec\u2019s office gave me the elliptical redirect to watch Fox News. No one could tell me whether the wall was up or not. And the clock was ticking. So I headed for the borderlands, to watch the county batten down the hatches for the impending arrival of pro-criminal socialism, or else to delight in the last few days of open borders, Long Island\u2013style.<\/p>\n

I spoke with numerous sources in Long Island politics to pin down just where this wall might begin. The Queens\u2013Nassau border is no small tract. To make matters worse, the border is effectively a stretch of highway, the Cross Island Parkway.<\/p>\n

I began my tour at Bellerose Terrace, which I was told might be singled out as high priority. I got off at Jericho Turnpike. No surveillance wall in sight.<\/p>\n

I stopped by the Bellerose Village Hall and asked for directions to the wall. A very kind woman working behind the desk straightened me out: I was being too literal.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think they\u2019re talking about cameras,\u201d she told me. But even so, she couldn\u2019t point me to any new ones. \u201cWe haven\u2019t seen any of that yet. They didn\u2019t tell the village anything.\u201d<\/p>\n

The wall would be a crowning achievement of Blakeman\u2019s tenure as county executive in Nassau. He has, in some sense, made Long Island into one of the world\u2019s policing laboratories. In August, the county unveiled<\/a> a $70 million police training village, replete with New York City\u2013style homes, a church, a courtroom, a bar, and even a Long Island Rail Road\u2013style station, where police run around doing what look a lot like combat exercises. Blakeman has also chartered a militia, hiring and deputized armed citizens for mobilization during emergency declarations<\/a>. And now the wall.<\/p>\n

Some would say that astronomical financial commitments to policing have gotten results. A 2024 U.S. News and World Report <\/a>study found that Nassau County was one of the safest counties in America. Others would say that that same survey also found that the rest of the New York metropolitan area\u2014aka crime-infested hellscape teeming with socialist policies\u2014was similarly safe. Ten of the top 25 safest counties in the country were in New York metro, including Queens County and Brooklyn. The next year Blakeman announced even more police hires<\/a>, and no more tax hikes to pay for them.<\/p>\n

I got back on the Cross Island Parkway and headed for Elmont. This was another town, I was told, that had been identified for wall construction.<\/p>\n

Again, I saw nothing.<\/p>\n

I saw a Nassau County Police Department squad car and talked to the officer inside. \u201cThat is coming from way more higher up than me,\u201d he told me, of the wall implementation. He, too, was at a loss as to where I could identify some of these new cameras. \u201cI mean, they could be up in any of the towers,\u201d he said. Street lights and telephone poles and electrical wires were all fair game.<\/p>\n

This abstracted wall, hung high in civilian infrastructure and currently invisible, couldn\u2019t come at a more important time. With Elise Stefanik summarily bounced from the New York gubernatorial race after a swift falling out with Republican national political leadership, Blakeman is now likely to be the Republican standard bearer, in a race Republicans continue to tell themselves they can actually win because of the unpopularity of Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul, the fantastic ineptitude of the New York Democratic Party, and some anti-socialist backlash to the Mamdani ascendance. Republicans love to point out Blakeman won his most recent race by close to 12 percentage points in a county with over 100,000 more registered Democrats than Republicans. Trump has already endorsed him.<\/p>\n

The result of Blakeman\u2019s police push is that, obviously, the police budget is gargantuan. The 2025 budget of $4.2 billion doesn\u2019t raise property taxes for the fourth year in a row, even though it adds over 50 new cops; over $1 billion of that is going to the<\/a> police. He has boasted that he has hired 600 law enforcement officers<\/a> and vetoed over $150 million in tax hikes, which would seem to spell financial trouble in the long run.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

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\n This Content is Available for Slate Plus members only<\/p>\n

Well, That Is One Way to \u201cProtect\u201d Against Zohran Mamdani\u2019s Lawless New York
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When asked how he would foot the bill for it all, Blakeman told Fox News it would come from civil asset forfeitures, an extremely controversial practice that allows law enforcement to seize property\u2014including cash, cars, and assets like homes\u2014from people merely suspected of being linked to crime, even without being charged or convicted. Some might say that they were going to pay for the wall by stealing from people in New York City.<\/p>\n

I drove down to Valley Stream. Same story, no construction cones, no earth-moving, no camera crews. I stopped by another Nassau County Police Department office, where they instructed me to call the public affairs contact, who told me not only that he didn\u2019t think they\u2019d even started yet, but that he wasn\u2019t \u201ceven sure they\u2019re even gonna be allowed to do that.\u201d<\/p>\n

So maybe it was open borders after all. What else was there to do? I got back on the Cross Island Parkway, drove it north and south, crossed freely into Nassau and back into Queens. I counted preexisting security cameras as I went: three on a large gray tower on the west side of the parkway. One on decommissioned road work sign. One on a streetlight near the off-ramp. One more on another gray tower. Did I commit crimes all the way? Wouldn\u2019t you like to know.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

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