One line from New York City mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani’s victory speech Tuesday seemed to epitomize the egalitarian socialist bent of his successful campaign to many.
“Thank you to those so often forgotten by the politics of our city, who made this movement their own,” he said. “I speak of Yemeni bodega owners and Mexican abuelas. Senegalese taxi drivers and Uzbek nurses. Trinidadian line cooks and Ethiopian aunties. Yes, aunties.”
Some people noted that the line indicated Mamdani still seemed to see the nation’s largest metropolis as a patchwork of identitarian groups that all coincidentally backed him.
Others — me, say — might have been tempted to borrow a line from Orwell: All Yemeni bodega owners, Mexican abuelas, Senegalese taxi drivers, Uzbek nurses, Trinidadian line cooks, and Ethiopian aunties are equal, but some Yemeni bodega owners, Mexican abuelas, Senegalese taxi drivers, Uzbek nurses, Trinidadian line cooks, and Ethiopian aunties are more equal than others.
Or, as Taylor Swift might have phrased it, commies gonna commie.
Whatever the case, it didn’t take long for the privileged son of academics to prove that the whole prolier-than-thou act was indeed an act and decamp to the Caribbean for a liberal junket.
From NY1:
New York politicians, including Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani and Gov. Kathy Hochul, made their way to Puerto Rico Thursday for the annual Somos conference.
Officially, lawmakers gather on the island each year to discuss issues important to Puerto Rico and Puerto Rican communities.
Unofficially, the conference provides a change of scenery and a relaxed atmosphere where political circles can network and plan their next steps for the year to come.
Translation: Let’s all jet off to Puerto Rico — which is tangentially connected to New York’s lawmaking thanks to the large Boricua community in the state — just as the weather gets cold for some networking.
This came, NY1 noted, as “[p]owerbrokers spent their Thursday waiting for face time with Mamdani — the star of the hour. The conference is also the official kickoff of the City Council speaker’s race and statewide contests, like Hochul’s reelection bid.”
“All eyes will be on him and his ability to deliver promises like a free bus program, universal child care and a tax hike.”
Which he promptly said he would be delivering on, of course.
“Two most straightforward ways to raise the revenue to fund our affordability agenda is by raising the personal income tax on New Yorkers who make $1 million or more by 2 percent and raising the state’s top corporate tax to match that of New Jersey,” Mamdani said.
Naturally, this means flight from New York City to elsewhere, but that doesn’t matter quite yet. The point is, no more Victory Cigarettes and Victory Vodka for him; he’s a Party Man now. Which means it’s time to party.
Not that anyone actually bought Mamdani’s act in any serious material way.
The Ugandan-born globe-trotting child of a Columbia professor and a filmmaker who was educated at Maine’s prestigious Bowdoin College — and still managed to whinge about the “white privilege” of it all — does not come by being the defender of Trinidadian line cooks and Senegalese taxi drivers naturally, but by great expended effort. I mean, for Pete’s sake, look at that CV: It makes AOC appear to be exactly the Bronx bartender she pretends to be by comparison.
At the end of Mamdani’s first term, will New York City be better off or worse off?
However, thanks to a relentless campaign by Assemblyman Mamdani within the Democratic Socialists of America — and then by the DSA on Mamdani’s behalf — he kinda sorta passed the sniff test on being one of the common people. Fine. I cannot surgically remove the credulousness of Gothamites on their behalf.
I do at least ask this of candidates, though: If you’re going to pretend like this, keep it up for at least a week before you’re talking about taxing the rich and powerful at a conference of the rich and powerful in the tropics. Commies gonna commie, however. If Mamdani were trying to look like a bona fide Soviet apparatchik, he could hardly have done better than the last 48 hours.
As the New York Post put it the day after the election, welcome to “the Red Apple.” Get out if you have the means, while there’s still time.
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