What if you were told even 10 years ago that America’s largest and most complex city would likely be governed by a socialist who has called for abolishing prisons, the New York City Police Department, private health insurance, medical bills, and guns; creating legal injection sites for drug abusers; legalizing sex work; ending all cash bail laws; making all drugs legal, creating government-run supermarkets, free busing, and universal free child care; ending all deportations; and eliminating Immigration and Customs Enforcement. 

What if I also told you just five years ago that this candidate would defeat former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who was considered the most popular Democrat in America in 2020? 

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You’d say I’d gone nuts, of course. But this all just happened in New York City, where 33-year-old Zohran Mamdani easily topped Cuomo for the Democratic nominee, making him the clear favorite to win the general election in November. 

So, if we’re keeping score at home, we’ll now likely have Mamdani as the mayor of New York City, Brandon Johnson and his 6% approval rating as mayor of Chicago, and Karen Bass and her whopping 32% approval rating in Los Angeles. In other words, our nation’s three biggest cities are even more doomed than they already are. 

In Mamdani’s case, his victory is being heralded in the media as a road map for the Democratic Party. But let’s be clear: New York City, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Minneapolis, or Detroit are nothing like the rest of the country when it comes to any major issue, thereby making the argument that Mamdani has the winning formula a profoundly stupid one.  

Let’s put it this way: How would abolishing prisons play in swing states such as North Carolina or Georgia? Abolishing ICE would not play well in Arizona, either. How would abolishing private health insurance be popular anywhere? 

Abolishing guns is supported by 20% of the public, per Gallup. As for ending deportations, that would mean protecting murderers, gang members, rapists, and child molesters who entered the country illegally — because without ICE, how will these monsters be deported exactly? 

But the media found their next “it” candidate and actually believes embracing Mamdani’s policies and approach will play nationally outside of deep-blue cities. 

CNN: “With viral videos and buzzy spots, Zohran Mamdani crafts a Democratic blueprint.”

New York Times: “Mamdani’s Success in Mayoral Primary Reverberates Beyond New York City.”

Washington Post: “New York Democrats ignored party elders and chose the better candidate.”

But Mamdani’s statements are enough to scare any New Yorker who isn’t an extremist. Here are some of his greatest hits: 

“Queer liberation means defund the police.” 

“ICE has no place in a just society.”

“As mayor, I would have [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu arrested if he came to New York!”

“Speaking up for Israel comes with everything you might want, and we need to show that it’s not that way anymore. There are consequences for speaking up in favor of apartheid.”

“We don’t need an investigation to know that the NYPD is racist, anti-queer & a major threat to public safety. What we need is to #DefundTheNYPD.”

Some, albeit not many, Democrats are sounding the alarm. Rep. Laura Gillen (D-NY) said this about Mamdani after his win: “Socialist Zohran Mamdani is too extreme to lead New York City. His entire campaign has been built on unachievable promises and higher taxes, which is the last thing New York needs. Beyond that, Mr. Mamdani has called to defund the police and has demonstrated a deeply disturbing pattern of unacceptable antisemitic comments, which stoke hate at a time when antisemitism is skyrocketing. He is the absolute wrong choice for New York.”

So, who supported Mamdani? Was it the bloc of Latino and black voters whom Democrats once could always rely on? Nope. It was white, college-educated voters who also earn $100,000 a year. Meanwhile, the establishment candidate, Cuomo, won black, Latino, and working-class voters in decisive fashion. 

The Mamdani campaign harkens back memories from when my daughter ran for class president last year in elementary school. She was well liked and a good public speaker, and she promised things that were realistic, such as student fundraisers to pay for fun social events. But another child who was running simply pledged to end all homework and to add candy vending machines in the cafeteria. To any fourth grader, this sounds great, so he won. Of course, there was no way to get any of these promises approved or paid for, but it was a means to an end. 

The same goes for New York City’s probable next mayor: He’s promising to impose rent freezes, which is impossible to implement legally and would devastate the housing market. Builders would be incentivized to stop building new apartments and homes if rents are frozen. Mamdani is also promising free bus service and free universal child care, which is totally unrealistic. 

Here’s the reality: New York already faces a $13 billion annual budget gap. Mamdani says the rich will pay for his proposals (despite already enduring the second-highest income taxes in the country), but what happens when the rich (and the working class) leave, as they’ve already been doing? The tax revenue Mamdani is counting on will not be there as crime skyrockets and illegal immigration overwhelms the city further. 

Mamdani also wants to create government-run grocery stores to control pricing. The 33-year-old wasn’t alive to see bread lines in the Soviet Union in the late ’80s and early ’90s, but that’s what food price controls brought there. And to Cuba. And to Venezuela. It turns out the government isn’t very good at being a cheap food supplier. 

So if Democrats want to dismiss the center and go so hard to the left that they embrace a socialist (one could argue communist) antisemitic candidate with no executive experience to run one of the world’s largest cities, they can knock themselves out. 

And if the media think that putting up a candidate with the same worldview as Mamdani is the answer for the party when the midterm elections come in 2026 and the next election is upon us in 2028 (think Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez), also have at it. 

MAMDANI GIVES GOP OPENING TO TETHER DEMOCRATS TO SOCIALISM

While being a left-wing extremist may be enough to win in cities such as Los Angeles or New York, it is not in line with the commonsense positions that most people showed they wanted in the 2024 election. 

Good luck, New Yorkers … at least the ones who end up staying in what was once a great city.