Within a New York minute, in ranked-choice voting Zohran Kwame Mamdani beat out Andrew Cuomo to secure the Democrat nomination for mayor of New York.  He is now set to face Eric Adams (I) in the November election.

Who is Zohran Mamdani, and why should we care?

Zohran Mamdani is a radical Democrat Socialist (Marxist) Muslim.  He was endorsed by Bernie Sanders, AOC, and many Hollywood elites.

How radical are his intended policies?  Let me count the ways.  From his campaign website:

• Immediate rent freeze for all stabilized tenants
• Fast, fare-free buses
• Establishing a Department of Community Safety to prevent violence before it happens, investing in mental health services and gun violence prevention
• Free childcare for every New Yorker aged 6 weeks to 5 years
• Establishing city-owned grocery stores
• Adding more affordable housing
• Cracking down on bad landlords
• A 2% tax on residents earning above $1 million annually
• Raising the corporate tax rate to 11.5% (will match New Jersey)

From a “brochure” perspective, these policies will secure votes.  Who doesn’t want free stuff?  The Progressive movement (in New York) appears to have crossed the Rubicon — more net takers than net providers.

Let’s focus on the Department of Community Safety.

All New Yorkers deserve to be safe.

A laudable objective, certainly, but it is packaged to assert that non-leftist policies are to blame for the unsafe conditions prevalent throughout the city.  New York has devolved into a criminal paradise since the Rudy Giuliani era.  Mamdani proposes doubling down on and expanding already proven bad policies.

Zohran will create the Department of Community Safety to prevent violence before it happens by prioritizing solutions which have been consistently shown to improve safety.

I’d be curious to see where he believes that these solutions have been shown to consistently improve public safety.  Preventing violence before it happens?  I don’t suspect this includes locking up violent criminals.

Police have a critical role to play. But right now, we’re relying on them to deal with the failures of our social safety net — which prevents them from doing their actual jobs. Through this new city agency and whole-of-government approach, community safety will be prioritized like never before in NYC.

Read: Defund the police, and shift those dollars to community organizers and neighborhood oriented social workers.  By taking away police authority, community rules and laws will be advanced via the office of the mayor.  Any chance we’ll see the CCP re-assert its “neighborhood police units,” or maybe Islamic “sharia-based” community laws being enforced?

The Department will invest in citywide mental health programs.

As leftism is itself a mental disorder, this idea is long overdue.

Increase funding to hate violence prevention programs by 800%.

As the candidate is an antisemite, I don’t anticipate that much of this increase will go towards defending New York City’s Jews or Caucasian bodega owners.  No, critical theory victim classes will have carve-outs to state and federal laws that will expand punishment for anyone who opposes in anyway a person or group based on sex, gender, race, and the Muslim religion.

New York City appears to be set to elect a leader that they deserve — good and hard.

Image: Zohran Mamdani.  Credit: Bingjiefu He via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.