New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani is a political phenomenon you won’t find in other countries. He was born in Uganda and came to this country at about the age of seven. His father is a Harvard-educated anthropologist — Mahmood Mamdani — and his mother is a noted film maker, Mira Nair. All three are of the Islamic faith as is Mamdani’s wife.
Mamdani is a “democratic socialist,” by which I mean a quasi-communist, who admires terrorists and makes excuses for murderers if they kill Jewish people. Let me explain.
Mamdani’s ambitions won’t end with the New York mayoralty. He is only 35 years old. He could run for president and gain a big voter turnout based on his “free stuff” campaign promises.
In a 2017 rap song which he apparently composed, Mamdani sang praise for the “Holy Land 5” who were convicted of sending funds to Hamas.
Mamdani has accused Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of genocide, calling him a war criminal, and promised, during his mayoral campaign, that the International Criminal Court warrant against him would be enforced by the NYPD.
The mayor used the ICC warrant to explain his position, saying that it charges Mr. Netanyahu with crimes against humanity, including targeting of civilians, starving people, and more. The ICC ignores the Russian policy of intentionally targeting civilians in Russia’s war against Ukraine. Israel is, of course, innocent of it and there is no clearer example of that war crime, than the Russian one, in current world affairs. (READ MORE from Jed Babbin: Rubio’s Stand Against a Rogue Court)Why Are We Still Negotiating with Iran?
But Mamdani has been forced, by people including President Trump, to give up on that campaign promise for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is that we did not sign or ratify the ICC’s so-called “Rome Statute,” by which nations accede to the ICC’s jurisdiction. Mamdani has no authority to arrest Netanyahu either derivatively or directly. (Israeli security and the U.S. Secret Service would have something to say about that in any event.)
When two men were stabbed in an attack last Thursday afternoon, allegedly by one Raul Morales, Morales is accused of yelling “Allahu Akbar” while attacking the two. Mamdani has defended Morales, saying he was insane at the time of the attack. (This column should be titled, “Aloha Snackbar Part 753.”) The defendant hasn’t yet asserted that defense.
One of the victims of the attack was Jewish. Jewish leaders, long far too silent about Mamdani’s terrorist favorites, finally spoke out against Mamdani, saying he was fanning the flames of violence against Jews. And so he is.
After that attack, Mamdani went back to his attacks on Mr. Netanyahu. He said, “When it comes to my comments about Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, they are critiques not based on my personal analysis but rather on objective facts.… They are critiques of a political leader not of people of a specific faith or a religion or a background and my responsibility as the mayor of this city is to keep every New Yorker safe, no matter where they come from, what they believe in, or frankly, even if they agree with my politics. My job is to keep them safe.”
Indeed it is his responsibility but he ignores it when it is politically convenient for him to do so.
Mamdani isn’t the biggest problem: the people who voted for him are.
In his mayoral campaign, Mamdani promised everything would be free: free buses and subways, city-run grocery stores for the poor and rent control. When New York Gov. Kathy Hochul announced a new tax on second homes, Mamdani celebrated. He said, “Today, we sent notification letters to property owners, letting them know that our new pied-à-terre tax is coming soon…. The best city in the world deserves the best parks, libraries, and schools in the world. That’s only possible when we all pay our fair share.”
His idea of a “fair share” is to tax the wealthy. People should sell their second homes as quickly as possible and move to other states where they are more welcome. Many will.
Mamdani also supports strict gun controls which New York City already has. (I remember standing in my late father’s kitchen while arranging his funeral. At that moment I received a call purportedly from the New York City police threatening my arrest unless I immediately turned in his pistol.) Mamdani supports a nationwide ban on “assault rifles” which means the highly popular AR-15 and its look-alikes.
Does he support all of the Democratic Socialist’s platform? That platform includes doing away with the senate, the Supreme Court and other “elitist” parts of our government, That would bring him into the mainstream of the Democratic Socialism which is hard to differentiate from straightforward communism.
Mamdani’s ambitions won’t end with the New York mayoralty. He is only 35 years old. He could run for president and gain a big voter turnout based on his “free stuff” campaign promises. That’s a danger we don’t need to face right now but, eventually, we will if the Democrats aren’t smart enough to rid themselves of him. They won’t be.
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