To his credit, for it is both smart and responsible, the shock winner of the Democratic primary and the presumptive mayor-of-NYC-to-be, Zohran Mamdani has been having interviews with everyone who will sit down with him….well, except for Fox News and its ilk, at least so far. As the fawning interview with MSNBC’s Jen Pasaki shows, the guy is smart, articulate, engaging, charismatic, and, I would say, a skilled demagogue.
Oh-oh.
He is also a socialist or a communist, depending on your definitions. He says straight up that he hates capitalism. That is the watermark of an anti-American; there is no way to spin it. The U.S.A. has achieved what it has in great part because of the free enterprise system; there is no denying it. The Left has been trying to convert the U.S. to a socialist (or communist) nation for over a century. As always, it sounds so good. Neither communism nor socialism has ever delivered on its promises, however, because it is idealistic utopian hogwash, and, to those capable of critical thought and possessing a modicum of historical perspective, obviously so.
One thing obvious from the interviews is that Mamdani is slippery, and quick enough to talk his way out of negative (but reasonable) interpretations of his positions. For example, he says that he is not anti-Semitic or anti-Israel, then says Israel is engaging in “genocide” for setting out to prevent the terror-supporting and Jew-hating Gazans from ever attacking the country again, but calls the October 7 terror attack “horrific,” and says Israel has a right to exist, but must obey “international law,” which has become relentlessly anti-Semitic, along with the United Nations.
He handles questions about defunding the police in similar fashion. He proposes creating a “Department of Community Safety,” separate from the Police Department, to free up “police resources to increase clearance rates for major crimes.” Although he called for major cuts to the department’s budget during his 2020 campaign for State Assembly, Mamdani now says he supports keeping the police force at its current size, but would cut the department’s overtime budget…which amounts to substantially defunding the police.
The truth is that Mamdani has minimal experience as an elected executive and, at 33, sounds like a visionary with distorted vision. Asked by one interviewer if he has the experience to run New York City, he replied,
A campaign gives a glimpse of how one would run the city. And the campaign that I’ve run has been the most competent and innovative of any in this cycle.
No, a well-run campaign says virtually nothing about how well an alleged leader will perform once elected, though running a bad campaign does suggest incompetent at management and organization. This was Obama’s argument too. He ran a slick campaign, but he was an ineffective, feckless, incompetent POTUS, “all hat and no cattle.”
….And we’ve shown that our commitment is to competence. It’s to outcomes. It’s to excellence. And ultimately, any leader is defined by the team that they put together. And I’m lucky that the team that I have put together in this campaign is one of the best and the brightest. And ultimately, that’s what I would bring to City Hall… I think there is nothing that can truly prepare you for running the city of New York. What can prepare you, however, are moments that you have to meet time and time again, ones that increase in scale and challenge. And one of the most meaningful things to me over the course of this race has been meetings that I’ve had with deputy mayors and commissioners from a wide variety of mayoral administrations in understanding just what this team could look like.
Slick! But meaningless. Having meetings isn’t governing, but this is the kind of rhetoric that fools some of the people all of the time.
So many of his statements should set off alarms, such as his embrace of the sanctuary movement, which is an offspring of the nullification doctrine that led to the Civil War. Then there is this: “There must be a better distribution of wealth for all of God’s children in this country. And it gets to the heart of the matter, which is inequality, and my belief that every New Yorker should have what they need to live a dignified life. It shouldn’t be something that they can be priced out of.” The act is redolent of Robert Redford’s character in “The Candidate,” who kept saying, “There has to be a better way.” Wouldn’t it be wonderful if everyone could afford a nice place to live, to have a family, to eat three meals a day, and not have to be smart, ambitious, honest, or industrious, while the hard-working, creative, productive people never hesitate to labor away to support them? Yeah, go ahead, John…
Maybe Zohran is a con artist, or maybe he’s just deluded. But as Harry Reid reminds us from Hell, if it works, it’s OK, right? A lot of younger voters are swallowing Zohran’s “authenticity” and “messaging” and saying, “Yum yum!”
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Sources: NYC ABC 7; NewYork Times
Ethics Alarms 
Would you go back to New York Cty (the city of my birth, education and evelopment) I am often asked?
My answer, since I left in 1968, has been and will remain a resounidng NO.
That NO grows louder everytime I read who my ex-compatriots elect or in this case are about to elect, as its leaders.
NYC has always been a place attracted to glitter. What is often forgotten is that glitter devolves into litter, after it ihas been strewn about.
NYC has also always beeen a city attracted to hustle, which this man certianly has. However, all hustles are, in fact, cons.
Yes on NYC and “the hustle.” Investment bankers on down to street performers. It is also useful to remember re Don the Con. When I first became aware of him as “the Donald” (which I think was in the transition between Ivana and Marla, when he was really working the tabloids hard using his fake Barron persona) I had no idea just how good a con man he would become, and I certainly would have been astonished to be told that the people who would fall hardest for his biggest con, even treating him as a quasi-deity, would be rural folk who tend to distrust city slickers. People are just remarkable, aren’t they?
It’s an American archetype: The Salesman. Trump is the purest example among our Presidents, because of his background, but we’ve had others, including Lincoln, who fits in that category. Also both Roosevelts, Reagan, Clinton, and Obama. The dominance of mass media explains the greater frequency of the type in the recent past.
Trump’s a real estate developer, which means he’s in large part, a visionary. The come up with a project that doesn’t exist, sell it to investors and lenders, and bring it to fruition. The entire economy depends on visionaries. If we only had investment bankers (glorified business brokers) and traditional lenders (who are not visionaries and are bred to say “no”) nothing would ever get done and the economy would grind to a halt. Love ’em or hate ’em, guys like Trump are indispensable. And it’s fascinating he’s trying to bring this sort of visionary behavior to the presidency. He’s saying, “Imagine a Middle East where people aren’t slaughtering each other. Wouldn’t that be great? Let’s see if we can get rid of the bad actors and then incent rational people to act in their own self-interest to live decent lives.” What a concept. Better get rid of this guy.
“It’s an American archetype: The Salesman.“
To quote the inimitable Herb Tarleck,”I’ve Only Been In Sales All My Life;” and not a wheel turns ’til something gets sold.
PWS
Welp…at least Mamdani’s not afraid to say the quiet (READ: RAYcist) part out loud:
NYC Socialist Mamdani Calls For Shifting Heavier Tax Burden To WHITER NEIGHBORHOODS
PWS
So, in short, all the hipsters in Park Slope, as well as The Senator from Wall Street, will pay more in property taxes. Hah! I doubt that’s going to fly. I bet this guy won’t win the general. Eric Adams will be rehabilitated.