We used to be taught that communism/socialism and our constitutional republic were incompatible. Individual freedom vs. top-down control, market economies vs. command economies, and of course the big one...the inexorable slide into totalitarian excess, the least of which is a surveillance state devoid of privacy and liberty. The worst? Genocide! And lots of it! And socialist countries have a penchant for invading their neighbors to spread the glories of their failed political philosophy. Korea and Vietnam are the big ones, but the USSR didn't leave Eastern Europe after WWII, so that counts as an invasion.
Yes, they are, or will be, all failures, but the parallels between communism/socialism and Islam are mutually beneficial, at least in the short term. They are communitarian, they obsess over the manipulation of language, they are superb at mobilizing their shock troops, whether that is in the street or in the academy. And most of all, they provide a template for the ignorant and uninformed to live a life that at first glance seems to be a good alternative to the uncertainty of freedom and liberty. So it isn't surprising that they have found common cause, and are cautiously working together toward the same goals.
What are those goals? The destruction of the West. The destruction of all other religions. The destruction of free will and individualism. The destruction of free market economies.
And then it gets interesting! Islam wants a worldwide Caliphate, and the entire population of the world either Muslim, dead, or under the yoke of its harsh rules for unbelievers. Communism/socialism wants...well...pretty much the same thing, except that the religion is collectivism. They won't play well together, so the real question is: Who wins? The loser dies, so it isn't an academic question.
Mamdani and the Muslim Invasion of New York
The Queens district that Mamdani used as a springboard to seize power in New York had formerly been held by Aravella Simotas, a fairly typical representative of the next generation of old school Democrats, before being ousted by Mamdani using Muslim bloc votes.
On paper, both Simotas, a child of a Greek-American family who had lived in Africa, and Mamdani, the son of Indian Muslims also out of Africa, were both young ‘progressive’ Democrats who had all the right left-wing positions. Mamdani was backed by the Democratic Socialists of America while Simotas was backed by the Queens Democratic Party.
There was virtually no difference between their actual positions forcing Mamdani to adopt increasingly insane leftist positions that are now coming back to haunt him to stand out..
“I’ve worked with Aravella, and I’m not quite sure how you could be more left-leaning than she is,” a councilwoman said.
Pace Daniel Greenfield, but Mamdani's lunatic political positions are not "coming back to haunt him!" On the contrary, his anti-Israel and anti-West pronouncements endear him to his sizable Muslim voting bloc, while also pleasing the lunatic left, which is reflexively anti-Israel and anti-Semitic. And his nutty economic policies absolutely thrill the large numbers of hard left who live in NYC, while not being off-putting to the straight-off-the-boat Muslims. The wealthy progressives on the Upper West Side and Park Slope just love the idea of voting for a leftist, which they get to do every year, but he is also a Muslim, and that sends a delicious shiver up their spines. Imagine...sticking it to the man TWICE with one vote!
Absent some calamity, Mamdani is going to win. Oh sure, Eric Adams might drop out if the bribes are big enough, and maybe either Curtis Sliwa or Andrew Cuomo will too, leaving one of them to try and capture the halfway sane Democrat vote plus the few Republican votes in a rabidly leftist city. But that is improbable.
So NYC will be governed for the next four years by a crypto-Islamist communist. We will see socialism plus Islamism in action, and it is going to be a wild ride. The governor has a fair amount of authority over NYC, so she might control his more insane impulses, but there is a huge amount of damage that he can do in four years, including cementing Islamist control over a huge voting bloc, and easing the way for open anti-Semitism to flourish in America's largest city, with its huge Jewish population.
New York City is going to be an ugly place, as corporations relocate to avoid confiscatory taxes and anti-business policies. And a fair number of people will leave, because it isn't a particularly safe place now, and Mamdani's explicitly anti-police attitude won't make that any better. NYC's tax base is going to take a hit, and it might be heading to Detroit/Oakland territory!
And that is sad, because it once was a great city. But the people will speak in November, and they will get what they are voting for...or, sadly, not bothering to vote!