Self-described socialist Zohran Mamdani has easily won the Democratic Primary for mayor of New York City. Since two-thirds of New York City voters are registered Democrats, Mandani is very likely to become New York City’s next mayor. Mamdani has a history of taking left-wing stances, such as calling for the defunding of the police. In one post on social media, he denounced the New York Police Department [NYPD], writing, “We don’t need an investigation to know that the NYPD is racist, anti-queer, and a major threat to public safety. What we need is to Defund The NYPD.” More recently, he called for pulling police out of high crime areas.
Zohran Mamdani has called for having the government run grocery stores, even though such stores have ended up with rotting food of certain types and shortages of other types of food. Socialist Mamdani also proposed arbitrary, extreme restrictions on rent that would leave landlords with too little money to maintain housing units, which could turn much of New York into a slum. Mamdani is a card-carrying member of Democratic Socialists of America (DSA).
It is not clear if voters fully understood Mamdani’s radicalism. As a lawyer points out, “During the Democratic primary campaign, Zohran’s plans to get rid of gifted education in elementary and middle schools in New York got very little attention.”
Mamdani is surrounded by even more radical people who will likely serve in his administration. As journalist John Podhoretz points out, Mamdani’s campaign political director Julian Gerson “out-and-out supports cold-blooded murder in the person of Luigi Mangione,” who is currently being prosecuted for killing a healthcare executive.
As Politico explains, Mamdani’s victory signals a “seismic shift” to the left in national politics:
Zohran Mamdani has surged so much in his upstart New York City mayoral campaign, he stands to win one of the biggest political prizes in America. With that victory comes a major test for his socialist movement….A win [will] inspire like-minded lefties to challenge establishment figures.
It would also shine a spotlight on Mamdani and the Democratic Socialists of America, forcing them to answer one of the most pressing questions of their movement: Can leftist ideologues effectively govern a major metropolis?
As mayor, Mamdani would wield power over a $115 billion budget and more than 300,000 employees, run the nation’s largest police force and immediately be tasked with plowing snow and filling potholes. He would also occupy the greatest bully pulpit in the economic capital of the world’s largest economy, something he highlighted as the chief role of a mayor in a recent interview. That split, which at times frustrated Bill de Blasio when he became mayor, represents the tension between extreme ideology and mundane municipal tasks.
