New York Mayor: This Commie Is No Dummy

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If socialist Muslim assemblyman Zohran Mamdani wins New York City’s mayoral election in November of this year – an outcome which is extremely likely on the heels of his resounding victory in this week’s Democrat primary election – several things are going to happen in the Big Apple.

None of them good…

Taxes will climb, public safety will deteriorate and the ongoing exodus of income earners and businesses from the city will accelerate. New York City has already seen significant population declines in recent years – and a Cornell University study published last fall projected even bigger declines over the next quarter century. Mamdani’s election – roundly pilloried by the right – could turn the recent exodus into nothing short of a full-scale abandonment of America’s largest and richest city.

“It’s finally happened, the Democrats have crossed the line,” U.S. president (and New York City native) Donald Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform this week. “Zohran Mamdani, a 100% Communist Lunatic, has just won the Dem Primary, and is on his way to becoming Mayor. We’ve had Radical Lefties before, but this is getting a little ridiculous.”

It’s not just the Trumps and Marjorie Taylor Greenes of the world predicting the city’s impending collapse, though… even Democrats are sounding the alarm.

“I love New York. I root for it,” former Miami Beach mayor Phillip Levine wrote this week for his hometown paper. “And as a centrist Democrat, I don’t believe a left-of-center leader spells doom for a city. But Mamdani isn’t left of center. He’s left of reality.”

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According to Levine, Mamdani’s agenda “reads like a Berkeley dorm room manifesto: a $30-an-hour minimum wage, free public buses, city-run grocery stores and a $100 billion social housing scheme,” all of which will be subsidized by “massive tax hikes on businesses and high earners like millionaires and billionaires – the people who create jobs and power the city’s economy.”

It’s no secret how these policies ultimately play out, but what Mamdani lacks (or purposefully ignores) in terms of causal, common sense thinking – he more than makes up for in terms of exploitative adeptness. He also has a surprising inspiration for his socialist populism: Trump.

While the president was assailing Mamdani on social media, the socialist leader was crediting Trump with inspiring his approach to identifying the core concerns of everyday voters – and convincing them he cares about improving their lots in life.

While other progressive politicians were tripling down on Trump derangement syndrome, Mamdani was hitting the streets of his city in an effort to understand the roots of the New Yorker’s decisive 2024 victory…

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Why did so many working class New Yorkers vote for Donald Trump last week — and even more not vote at all?

I went to Hillside Ave in Queens and Fordham Rd in the Bronx to find out. pic.twitter.com/1dXmnP01A4

— Zohran Kwame Mamdani (@ZohranKMamdani) November 15, 2024

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“Both Donald Trump and our campaign can see the disillusionment in politics, the inability for so many to celebrate crumbs that cannot feed themselves and their families,” Mamdani told reporter Emma Fitzsimmons of The New York Times following his shocking Democrat primary victory on Tuesday (June 24, 2025).

According to Mamdani, though, the difference is “Trump seeks to exploit this sentiment with no actual desire to address it.”

Mamdani seeks to address the sentiment, alright – but there’s a catch. His “solution” doesn’t work, has never worked and will never work.

Why not?

“Socialism typically abolishes or severely restricts private property,” wrote Madsen Pirie, president of the Adam Smith Institute. “Without private ownership and the ability to reap personal rewards from effort and innovation, productivity declines, and economic stagnation follows.”

There’s also the inherent inefficacy of the bureaucratic model.

“Government-controlled economies lack the flexibility and efficiency of market-driven ones,” Pirie added. “Central planners cannot account for the complexity of supply and demand, leading to shortages, waste, and inefficiency. Socialism often requires government control over many aspects of life, including employment, wages, production, and even personal choices. This erodes individual freedoms and forces conformity to state dictates.”

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Those dictates are invariably enforced “from the barrel of a gun,” as the founder of communist China once noted.

Pirie also pointed out how socialist leaders reflexively indulge in the same greed they claim to intrinsically abhor.

“When the state controls the economy, political elites gain enormous power over resources and wealth,” he noted. “This leads to corruption, as those in power use their position to enrich themselves while suppressing dissent.”

Economic populism rooted in socialist principles is nothing new for Democrats, though. Had they not rigged their 2016 primary, socialist U.S. senator Bernie Sanders would have been their nominee for president – and early 2028 polling shows socialist congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is the frontrunner for the upcoming Democrat nomination.

Both Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez endorsed Mamdani’s candidacy, incidentally. And in the aftermath of his victory this week, so did a host of “establishment” Democrats in the Empire State.

“Incredibly proud of the unity and leadership NY Dems are demonstrating in this moment,” Ocasio-Cortez wrote on X. “We can rise above our differences and unite to support working people and welcome new, promising leaders.”

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Promising… yes. But what they are promising is critically important to bear in mind… along with the inherent inability of such promises to be kept.

Mamdani is no fool, though. Like Trump – and every other politician in America – he knows he doesn’t have to keep the promise, he just has to make it. He also knows it’s incredibly easy for his opponents to call him a socialist, but much harder for them to explain to people what that means – and why it matters.

Most of all, Mamdani understands the pure capitalism (i.e. freedom and free markets) which “Republicans” claim to support has been bastardized by a quasi-socialist regulatory/entitlement behemoth – and a corporate welfare complex – which has led proximately to the very privation he and Trump are vowing to alleviate.

Which leads us to the most important lesson of all: the pressing need of those who purport to stand against socialism to show us, not just tell us what is wrong with the new populism of the progressive left. Because if the new populism of the conservative right was getting the job done… such a lesson wouldn’t be necessary.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR…

Will Folks is the founding editor of the news outlet you are currently reading. Prior to founding FITSNews, he served as press secretary to the governor of South Carolina. He lives in the Midlands region of the state with his wife and eight children.

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