Zorhan Mamdani, the Ugandan democratic socialist, has just been appointed mayor-elect of New York City, and his future leadership is already causing concern. The short-lived high of socialism is quickly wearing off as New Yorkers begin to realize the drastic economic effect of the foolhardy initiatives Mamdani intends to implement.
Many small business owners in the city have expressed disapproval of Mamdani’s policies, with polls showing that 39% of blue-collar workers who did not attend college voted for him, while 57% of college-educated people did. Thus revealing that the people Mamdani is protesting to support do not actually want his economically illiterate policies.
But what are his policies?
Rent Freeze
Mamdani wants to put a freeze on rent increases for rent-stabilized tenants, effectively preventing landlords from legally raising rent. However, there are significant costs associated with being a landlord that Mamdani is not accounting for. Landlords need to pay for water, sewage, heating, legal fees, property taxes, HOA fees, and many more; freezing the rent will not eliminate those costs, it will merely make them unaffordable.
If landlords cannot afford to pay such fees because the rent is set at a fixed price that cannot be raised to account for rising prices, there will be no incentive to build or own housing. Moreover, this will make the quality of those buildings go down as the owners can not upkeep them. Essentially, there will be less property available, and what is available will be in worse repair. And what’s even worse is that, no matter what happens economically, Mamdani seems determined to keep pushing his agenda.
But New York has already tried rent freezes before in the 60s, which led to burned-down buildings in the 70s and 80s. A quarter of the buildings were burned down in the Bronx due to arson, simply because it was cheaper to burn the buildings and collect the insurance money than to upkeep them. The government effectively put these building owners in that position by pulling the rug out from under them, telling owners how much they are allowed to spend, resulting in people losing money on their apartment buildings. Naturally, no one will want to buy any of the buildings after the government tanked the real estate market. Who would want to buy a money pit?
Rent freezes make it basically impossible to run a business and maintain the building. To actually help poor people get housing in the city, a proven tactic is to let the free market stop imposing so many regulations on housing, and let people build new apartments and charge their own rents. This tactic would not completely remove regulations and legal formalities; for instance, with every bit of property someone purchases, they will have more taxes and charges. It would simplify housing and allow the public to control what they buy and what they spend. To put it plainly, the way to make housing more affordable is to create more housing, but if the government is overregulating that housing, then more of it can not be built.
Free Buses
Another policy Mamdani is pushing for is to eliminate the fare on every bus line. The result of this proposal will mean that the buses will lose fare revenue, and taxes will have to be raised to compensate for the loss. Something socialism does not account for is that nothing can truly be free; someone has to pay for it, and in many cases, it is the taxpayer.
Additionally, another concerning development from this proposal will be the growing homelessness on these “free” buses. They will effectively become a mobile homeless shelter, as there will be no barrier to block them from moving into the buses. A situation like that will only make commuting in the city worse for New Yorkers, as it will become inconvenient and more dangerous.
Universal Child Care
Mamdani has also proposed the idea to “create universal child care at no cost to parents;” however, this is a fantastical concept when one takes into account the fact that, much like with the buses, nothing can truly be free. The child-care providers still need to be paid by someone, as they can not work for free. Mamdani is simply suggesting to shift the cost of who pays for the workers.
Instead of parents paying for their own child’s care, Mamdani wants the New York taxpayer to finance it. Ignoring the fact that it is not the taxpayer’s responsibility to pay for other people’s children, this idea was already tried and failed in Quebec. The result was staffing shortages and low-quality care due to more and more people dropping their kids off for the free child care, while there weren’t enough workers to support it.
Mamdani’s victory speech was also a cause for concern. He positioned himself to lean very heavily into racial identity and socialism, with communist undertones. For instance, when he infamously said:
“We will prove there is no problem too large for government to solve, and no concern too small for it to care about.”
This statement is remarkably un-American in nature, as the government running every aspect of American life was never what the founding fathers intended for the way the country would be run, and it certainly has proven throughout history to not work in the long run.
President Ronald Regan once famously said, “I think you all know that I’ve always felt the nine most terrifying words in the English language are: ‘I’m from the Government, and I’m here to help.’” Now, New Yorkers are seeing Mamdani say the nine most terrifying words.
Americans want to have a manageable government that maintains order, but a great deal of what voters have been reacting against with woke leftism the past few years has been the government overreaching into everyday people’s lives. School’s going behind parents’ backs to call children by their improper pronouns. Not being allowed to go places or work if you don’t wear a mask and get a COVID shot. The government taking children away from their parents and chemically castrating minors with hormone treatments without informed parental consent.
Mamdani also listed many third-world countries by name in his speech: “Uzbek nurses,” “Mexican Abuellas,” “Philippine Aunties,” yet he never mentioned any Americans. This was a display of what many have considered his apparent lack of interest in Americans and American culture. These transplants from foreign nations were the ones who elected him in New York City, which is why he is speaking to them directly; it is their interests, not the American people’s, that Mamdani is prioritizing.
Mamdani quoted Jawaharlal Nehru, the Marxist “founding father” of socialist India, who “crushed Hindus and empowered Jihadis.”
Another quote from his speech referenced Eugene Debs, saying:
“As Eugene Debs once said, ‘I can see the dawn of a better day for humanity.’”
Eugene Debs was the Socialist Party candidate who was jailed for sedition and ran for U.S. president several times between 1900 and 1920. He was deeply influenced by the works of Karl Marx and strongly criticized capitalism. Mamdani’s reference to him in his speech was a very deliberate choice, as he is clearly a follower of Debs’ economic views.
However, the reason why socialism can not work for New York City and has never worked is simply because human beings are incapable of changing their nature. Changing the institutions will not alter the human dichotomy. Institutions need to be designed with the intent to play into human nature — the good and the evil — in order for society to flourish. To expect people to alter their natural urges and state of being for the common good is naive and foolhardy.
Even other leftists can see the flaws in Mamdani’s thinking after his speech. In a CNN panel, Van Jones remarked, “I think the Mamdani that we saw in the campaign trail, who was a lot more calm, who was a lot warmer, who was a lot more embracing, was not present in that speech.”
Jones continued, saying, “So, I felt like it was a little bit of a character switch here, where the warm, open, embracing guy that’s close to working people was not on stage tonight. And there were some other voices on stage.”
But the question lies, should foreigners like Mamdani, who do not respect or assimilate into American culture and society, even have a place in leading it? Conservative podcaster Matt Walsh does not believe so. Saying on one of his episodes that American candidates should not speak any language other than English when running for office. He proposed that the US should prevent politicians from campaigning in other languages, as all voters should and need to understand what their candidates are saying to properly support them. That sentiment also aligns with one unified language within the country.
“Any voter who needs a candidate or politician to speak another language shouldn’t be a voter,” Walsh stated.
Americans have already seen this concept enacted, as reported by Time Magazine, when Alejandrina Cabrera ran for city council in San Luis, Arizona, but was barred from holding office by the Arizona Supreme Court due to speaking very limited English. American immigrants should be assimilating into American culture because America can not have a culture without shared values, beliefs, and yes, language. Immigrants who do not acclimate to the culture will only vote based on what is best for their native country, not America. This is what was seen with Mamdani’s election.
Recent estimates from the mayor’s office indicate that ⅕ of New Yorkers do not speak English, and that over 40% were not born in America. Fox News also reported that New York City has a population of 2.4 million, of whom 48% are foreign-born. With 160 different languages spoken. These foreigners will be incentivised to vote for the democratic party, as they will allow these migrants to enter the country illegally and provide them with free food, housing, and healthcare.
That is not to say there has never been immigration to New York City; immigrants have been coming to the city for over a hundred years. However, the migrants coming over now are from vastly different parts of the world than those who came over one hundred years ago. The US Census Bureau released statistics showing that in 1910, New York was 98% white, whereas in 2020, it is now 32% white. These demographic changes will naturally result in cultural changes.
With New York City at the nerve center of America’s economy, its collapse would affect everyone in America, which is why many businesses have already chosen to flee.
Van Jones remarked in a CNN panel: “Tax increases as far as the eye can see, which means that people who need to provide jobs to the young people that you say need jobs are going to flee as quickly as they possibly can.”
However, Mamdani does not appear to be paying attention to the capital flight of people and businesses leaving the city. What the mayor-elect does not seem to understand is that the rich can leave if they do not want to pay extra taxes and expenses, and the people left behind will be the poor, who cannot afford to escape their own economic downfall.
Thankfully, there are systems in place within America’s democratic structure to prevent some of Mamdani’s ideas from coming to fruition. But crime will certainly go up, quality of life will go down, and it will be the middle class who suffers the most. The middle class can not survive in a socialist or communist society, but it is the middle class who must thrive if New York City and America want to thrive.