New York’s Future Under Mamdani

Well, the unthinkable happened in New York City.

Democrat Zohran Mamdani, an open socialist fond of quoting Karl Marx, defeated his rivals to take command of the Big Apple. New York politics have often veered to the Left, but it’s still a stunning moment even if this outcome has been expected for months.

Mamdani’s victory will certainly have a major effect on the Democratic Party nationally.

Mamdani’s triumph is a victory for Democrats who think that the problem with their party is that it isn’t leftwing enough and that victory all comes down to messaging rather than their nationally unpopular ideas. It’s certainly a major win for the Bernie Sanders/AOC faction. While Mamdani can’t run for president it shouldn’t be a surprise if someone from that orbit made a serious run at the White House in 2028. Party leaders might not be able to tamp down on this impulse anymore.

And what’s the future of the “financial capital” of the United States under the leadership of a Democratic Socialists of America member?

A city as large and complex as New York isn’t likely to suddenly and entirely unravel overnight. That would be placing too much importance on a single election. But there will be some bad immediate short-term effects and some far worse long-term ones.

Mamdani’s rent-freeze idea will likely just cause renters to withhold inventory as they’ve done in the past, making the “affordability” problem worse. Maybe he eventually sets up a government-run grocery store or two, no doubt to great fanfare. He’ll certainly have a slick social media video to promote the opening (though not the likely eventual closing after years of mismanagement).

The clearest change for the Big Apple that will almost certainly happen under Mamdani is a deterioration of the small gains in law and order the city has experienced in the last year.

Police deployments to crime hotspots in the city are likely to decline. Many long-time NYPD officers will almost certainly leave the force. Whether Mamdani and the city council actively defund the police or not may be of little consequence since the mayor will have a great deal of control of how the police will be used.

Many causes of crime and disorder will be catered to rather than curtailed. For instance, Mamdani’s answer to the street vendor issue on Canal Street, that became a national story when ICE cleaned it up and detained those suspected of being in the country illegally, was essentially to decriminalize the practice.

Mamdani has promised to turn the subway into something akin to a homeless shelter and will undoubtedly make travel on it increasingly dangerous. You are probably more likely to be stabbed or assaulted on a bus ride going forward, but at least they will be “free,” I guess.

His plan to address crime in the city is to hire more social workers. It’s similar to former Mayor Bill de Blasio’s ThriveNYC program that turned out to be a failure and a scam. Not that Mamdani or his enthusiastic supporters care too much about the lessons of history.

And maybe most ominous of all, the mayor and the already radical city council will most likely put the demands of activist class at the top of the queue of priorities. He owes them.

Here’s far-left activist Linda Sarsour saying she will “hold Zohran accountable” and keep him to his promise to eliminate NYPD’s Strategic Response Group, which is an elite counterterrorism unit and handles the policing of riots in the city.