Surely you’ve heard by now of Zohran Kwame Mamdani, the 33-year-old soon-to-be mayor of New York City. Since we live in the Florida Reich, most of what you’ve heard is slanderous or ridiculous. His name evokes reactions to Barack Hussein Obama’s name before Obama and all his Husseins became more American than John McCain (or Hillary Clinton.)
Except that Mamdani really is Muslim, and really was born in Africa, to Indian parents. So Mamdani can’t be president. But he can be everything else. An impressive plurality of New Yorkers thinks he can be, while Republicans are calling him a Marxis-Lenninist-Islamist terrorist and standard-issue Democrats aren’t doing much better. They fear he will radicalize the party and sink its chances to retake the White House, such as those chances are. So what does Mamdani stand for besides the October Revolution and Sharia?
FDR might yawn: He wants to impose a 2 percent tax on those earning $1 million or more. He wants to raise the city’s corporate tax to match New Jersey’s (the federal rate was 52 percent in 1969. It is now 21 percent.) He wants to make bus-riding free and offer free child care for children up to 5 years old, as do most civilized nations that value children beyond bumper-sticker morality. He supports congestion pricing (already in place, and successful.)
He would freeze rents for a million New Yorkers for only a year and build 200,000 affordable housing units, much like the city did after World War II.1 In a city that would not function without migrants, he would bar ICE agents from city facilities and add to legal aid for migrants under ICE’s boots. He believes Israel is committing genocide in Gaza and is enforcing an apartheid regime on Palestinians, two demonstrable facts for which he’s been called anti-Semitic by Israel’s American Inquisition.
There are minor proposals like opening five–just five–city-owned grocery stores, one in each borough, on the wholesale, tax-free model. Nothing revolutionary about that. You see them in deep-red Kansas and reddish Wisconsin (albeit in Madison). But because a Muslim liberal in New York City is proposing it, his approach is being compared to Das Kapital.
He’s also proposing to set up a Department of Community Safety so trained mental health professionals rather than cops respond to mental health crises that fill police blotters, a proposal Sheriff Rick Staly should welcome here if we ever have leadership wise enough to propose it, because his troops are unnecessarily made to act like social workers and psychiatrists for lack of appropriate services.
For all that, U.S. Rep. Andy Ogles, the Tennessee Republican, called on Mamdani to be deported. The lunatic in the White House seconded him, also calling Mamdani “100 percent lunatic communist.” Marjorie Taylor Greene, leader of the modern-day Know-Nothing party, socialshat an image of the Statue of Liberty in a burqa–this about a candidate who’s more LGBTQ-friendly than Ed Koch was, and Koch was gay.
In Free Florida our own congressman, Randy Fine, who’s torn between letting Palestinians “starve away” and nuking them, thinks Mamdani will impose a “caliphate” on the city. Our cadaverous Sen. Rick Scott flew a banner over New York’s beaches, inviting those who “hate socialism” to “Move 2 FL.” Please, senator. We’re surrounded by enough haters as it is in our little corner of blood-red FL.
You expect all this from Republicans, who have fetishized the Southern Strategy–“an old American standard of exploiting working class grievances for elitist political gain,” as Howard Zinn put it–to fabulous successes since Nixon.2
Here was a chance for Democrats to follow Saul Bellow’s advice, accept their burden and seize the day.
Instead, New York Congresswoman Laura Gillen called Mamdani “a threat to my constituents.” She was referring to his economic proposals, but the word “threat” associated with a dark-skinned Muslim in New York–Willie Horton on the Hudson–was not lost on anyone. For additional racist measure she said he “is not the right face for the Democratic Party.” The desperate Andrew Cuomo campaign darkened Mamdani’s skin and Muslemified his beard, the way sleazy Time Magazine made OJ Simpson look blacker (30 years ago). Corey Booker, whose 25-hour speech on the Senate floor last spring echoed much of Mamdani’s platform, has refused to endorse him, as have many prominent Democrats (Obama has been more openly supportive), rallying instead to back Cuomo, who was disgraced out of office on a Niagara of scandals and predatory smut. Yes, HimToo.
That’s who Democrats are embracing while playing into the GOP’s culture-war trap by fighting Waterloos over DEI, trans and even migrant rights as a dogma when they could be proposing pragmatic alternatives. (In fairness to Biden, he tried with migrants, but Trump’s Republicans killed the bill for fear that it would block their most potent race-baiting way back to the White House.) As they cling to old orthopdoxies and fight on Republicans’ terms, Democrats further debase themselves into irrelevance and repel what remaining liberals they could depend on.
The Mamdani phenomenon will pass: he’s about to be elected mayor of New York, not more. But the reaction he’s elicited has been like an MRI of both our parties’ cancerous hopelessness.
Democrats in their wilderness should be championing energetic countercurrents who could slow the slide and focus the party on everyday challenges: unaffordable housing. Unaffordable health care, even–and especially–for companies and governments. The resegregation of schools along class and sectarian lines. The transformation of the tax code into permanent welfare dividends for the rich as our infrastructure crumbles and the research institutions that powered the former American Century are kneecapped
Instead of capitalizing on a new voice that champions the disaffected, Democrats are competing with Republicans in a race to the muckiest and showing why their party is a moribund mob of know-it-all elitists who’ve lost touch with every house next door. They’re either mute to the quashing of personal, academic and political freedoms or they feed it with doctrinaire wokism.
Democrats have embraced the asphyxiating worship of abstract, blanket orthodoxies–“founding fathers,” “patriotism,” “diversity,” “free market”–that equate doubters with treason. They salute the militarized police state for fear of being branded soft on crime. They’re complicit in the suicidal economics of governance by tax cuts, debt and tulips that have made us the most unequal Western society in the world. We are on an unavoidable big, beautiful rendezvous with British Empire-like has-been status by the time China–one of our biggest creditors–becomes the world’s biggest economy in a few years.
But city-owned grocery stores, free child care and a 2 percent increase in the corporate tax rate is the end of American civilization.
To call today’s Democrats “liberal” is as much of a misnomer as to call Republicans “conservative.” The most dominant force in the two parties is reactionary illiberalism. I’d say they deserve each other. But we deserve neither. And that’s why Mamdani is winning.
Pierre Tristam is the editor of FlaglerLive. A version of this piece airs on WNZF.
Evil in charge says
They are the same in that they are beholden to capital and represent whomever gives them more. However democrats tend to favor democracy and a government that helps humans. Republicans want only profit for a select few and total control over every aspect of life like Germany did in the 1920s and 30s. We’ve already been “blitzed” by horrible policies of a pedophile conman! Fascism is here! The republican Nazis must be held accountable!! Only one party blocked minimum wage increases 29 times! The same people that want to keep healthcare privatized and corrupt!they made propaganda news number 1 in ratings! Cable tv is not a reliable source of information!
The holocaust Aushowitz camp looks nicer than Alligator Aushowitz that Republicans just put up! Look it up!! Churches are silent on the issue lol! Silence is support for the child rapist!
Samuel L. Bronkowitz says
I think the lesson of Mamdani is that as it stands now, the democratic party doesn’t oppose fascism in any way other than a performative one. It does, however, oppose direct action against and any message that threatens its deep pocket donors.
Pogo says
@P.T.
Another day, another triumph of Platonic idealistic wishful thinking over all experience of this world.
People WILL do ANYTHING for a potato.
Beyond sad.
Bob says
The problem with the Democratic Party is that its leaders are under the sway of billionaire Democrats who are not democrats. The republican party is controlled by billionaires who either believe it should be a libertarian dog-eat-dog world because they are the biggest dogs (my apologies to dogs), or have authoritarian beliefs or theocratic leanings. Billionaires have built a society that makes “sense” to billionaires and thus “rightly” serves their interests. Humanity’s actual interests are, for the greater part, completely invisible to them. Money is power, and power corrupts.
Judy M says
Hello! Free is NOT free. Someone is paying for it. I am sure NY will see a mass exodus of the wealthy if they are going to be the ones paying for all these “free” opportunities. Mamdani has zero concern for New York, he has a whole other , not so hidden agenda. If you think the color of his skin is the problem, then YOU are the problem. Sounds like NY is a great place for the author of the article to relocate to.
Pierre Tristam says
What would that other, “hidden” agenda be, and where’s he hiding it? In his beard maybe?
Sherry says
@judy . . . why so fear and hate filled? What is the “not so hidden agenda” ? You mean that the “billionaires” should actually start paying the taxes they are assessed? What’s the matter, is he not Christian and “white” enough for you? Just like the wonderful editor that published your asinine comment. Perhaps you should change channels and seek the factual truth.
Nigel says
Pierre what is your stance onHudad law and woman’s rights
JW says
Interesting food for thought. But that is the American problem; they never learned to think (critically). They like entertainment.
To learn about the future of America, I highly recommend to read Ray Dalio’s The Changing World Order – Why Nations Succeed and Fail. (2021). He believes in studying the past in order to understand where we are and to have practical principles for dealing with what is coming at us. By the way, Fareed Zakaria wrote a similar book (Age of Revolutions – Progress and Backlash from 1600 to the present).
His history goes back to the Netherlands (the tulips in today’s article), followed by the United Kingdom and the United States and finishing what is coming to us: China!
It may not be a coincidence that a Asian person like Mamdani draws a lot of attention because Americans (safe a few) are anti China in spite of being totally ignorant about world history. I am sure if the Romans had known what was coming in the West they would feel the same but it happened anyway.
Whether you like it or not: History repeats itself!
Only Education can help us by critically thinking, but unfortunately education in America has gone downhill or never included what young people learn in other countries. Seems like we were America First many years ago, and are now moving to America Last, unless we educate ourselves, China is moving quickly and Trump seems to get it but he needs to pay attention to EDUCATION not political indoctrination.
Finally let me remind you that the countries referred to in to days article rank are as follows (RSF 2025):
3. The Netherlands
20. United Kingdom
57. United States
Republican Dave says
As a Republican, I believe that if taxpayer’s pay for a system that gives my employees an affordable, or admission free, ride to work, then I am all for it. My employee may find it too expensive to park a car in New York City. Just as feeding kids in schools helps them to think more clearly and succeed. If they succeed in school, it helps them to succeed in life, and become productive taxpayers too. I want smart, successful kids, and a means to get them to school. What works for New York, is for New York, and not for me to be concerned about in Florida.
What Mamdani did for New York is not socialism, it’s good for business. He would not have been elected had he not talked to the local businesses.
The problem with Democrats is they were too busy gossiping on what the current administration is doing. They did not tell me what they were going to do, just kept with the wide eyed gasp of what that guy is doing now! What is their plan? Who the hell cares if some trans, in New England, is swimming on the girl’s team? What are the Democrats going to do to get us back on track?
The Republicans keep up with the current nonsense, and overreach, trying to rewrite history, and scare us with dark skinned people. How does that help, really?
Who’s working for us? The issues should not be divisive, the issues are what the majority want to see worked on, such as healthcare. Such as the cost of living. Such as cost of housing. Stop picking your team over my team, and let America win!
Pierre Tristam says
@Nigel, I don’t have a “stance” on “hudad law, particularly since there is no such thing. But I’ll play, as I generally can read minds written on a cynic’s sleeve. As far as laws are concerned I consider any non-secular, non-democratically written law illegitimate. That includes Islamic, Hammurabic, Hebraic, Shinto (though Shintos were onto something Spinoza-like, or vice versa, which I like) or any laws–as the laws handed down from our own mullas on the Supreme Court increasingly are–based on the so-called “judeo-christian” conceits. “Judeo-christian tradition” these days is a dog whistle for the imposition of christian beliefs and bigotries on secular society and passing them off as somehow OK because Augustine or Thomas or whatever equally foolhardy synod thought he/she/they/it spoke for god. Laws are are written by human beings for human beings. Anything else is power play and supernatural fiction. Women’s (with an e, by the way: we like pluralism) rights? You still have to ask? But something tells me your question (dropped three times in the comment section, obviously only one of them saw light) was not really intended as a question but as a taunt or bait based on something you must’ve heard on Fox yesterday, since only yesterday Fox discovered the word “Hudud” and you are misapplying it here. حدود does not refer to any sort of “law” but to forms of punishment. Speaking of which: what is your stance on, say, ICE raids demolishing families and neighborhoods, or the form of hudud our own DeSantis loves exercising on death row inmates at Starke every few days?
Pogo says
@Trump is the diversion
… a tool, used by other criminals that are actually using him like any other patsy they’ve kept around for the moment a need arises; and arise it did. They know exactly what he is: talk about “defund the police” — shit, he’s their Barney Fife — fires the honest ones and rounds up a posse from the fetid studio set couches of Fox! The fools are eating it up; and it’s a profit center instead of an expense. The pricks behind everything are always the same ones. Where did all the money go? It didn’t go anywhere — it’s in their pockets right where it always was, always is, and will always be. They’ve got the suckers dreaming about a woke boogeyman — to keep them asleep.
Sherry says
Each and every person should read this analysis of historic trade practices and failres from the George W. Bush Center:
https://www.bushcenter.org/catalyst/opportunity-road/rooney-tariffs-rising-prices
Nigel says
Pierre I’m glad that you believe in the law … so as your request on my stance on ICE … if you are here illegally then you should and can be deported . As far as the death sentence I’m sure that that is a very hard to to put your signature on a life ending procedure much like doing the crime … No win situation
melly says
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
Y’all talk about “socialism” and “communism” like it’s never been tried before.
News flash…..awww, skip it, you won’t believe it, no matter who tries to tell you. But there will be multiple prices to pay, should this nogoodnik become Mayor of NYC.
The biggest and in my mind safest/best bet is that every single person of Jewish descent, who has any brains remaining, will relocate from NYC to other states, including the free state of Florida, where Saint Ron would be far, far more respectful of their heritage and will absolutely curb-stomp any continuing violence against them.
And then there’s Wall St, who appears to be being set up as Public Enemy Number One by this guy. If the banks bolt, the city is in big trouble. If they STAY, the city is in big trouble. That part is going to get seriously ugly.
Further, the wealthy and marginally-wealthy will continue their exodus of the city AND the state, when they see a Muslim mayor of the Apple. So…good luck with the remains, there won’t be much left other than a lot of poor people waiting around with their hands out.
Someone should warn them they’ll need to bend over instead.
Kennan says
Frankly, the two party system is all but null and void. All our tax dollars do is fund the” food fight we glaringly see today.
Zohran Mamdani is a departure from business as usual. A departure from the status quo ism that has made us the most ineffectual governmental democracy in the western world. Mom Dani cuts across the grain by simply wanting to do the job. Canvassing New York Burroughs like an encyclopedia salesman on a mission to save a city. A city built for everyone.
It is incredibly sad that far too many democratic representatives appear,Islamaphobic,and pro Israel, they attempt to hide it by calling themselves centrists while they accept” bribe money” from Jewish lobbies like AIPAC among others.
Democrats like Kirsten Gillibrand, Adam Schiff, Kamala, Harris, Dick Durbin, Hillary Clinton, Russ Feingold, and so many others take millions and millions of dollars annually from Jewish lobbies. Conflict of interest on both sides of the aisle that muddy the water and destroy any kind of objectivity. When Zohran Mamdani shows solidarity and support for Palestine while condemning Israel and their war crimes, he shows humanity while too many Democrats show no backbone, throw out” false flag” concerns about Mamdanis support for Palestinians while meticulously avoiding mentioning the 21st century holocaust Israel is administering in Gaza.
Mamdani” play the game without playing the game”. he keeps his eye on the ball. The concerns of New Yorkers and affordability are kept in the forefront while Dems and Republicans attempt in vain to bring him down while they show the world at large that they can be bought. It makes zero sense, helps no one and puts both parties humanity in a place called”NOWHERE “.
Zohran Mamdani is more than a party. He is a man, that from all accounts cares for his city and could be a factor in saving this country from itself. Oh, and he happens to be a Muslim. Get over it.
Kennan says
Just a note:
Gaza is in a full-blown famine. I could’ve told you this was gonna happen in the first two weeks of October 2023. Here we are and the whole world is worried about Zorhan being some kind of terrorist sympathizer because he’s got the wrong last name. What a raging indictment on who we are. This people, as a country. We have the audacity to tell everybody how great we are after we’ve become the Nazis that fund the atrocities, we see in the Middle East. We will split hairs when it benefits us. Humanity is just a word.
Ray W, says
I have long argued on the FlaglerLive site that the closest America has come to communism occurred when President Nixon signed an executive order freezing prices and wages.
And the closest America has come to socialism occurred when President Obama decided to direct the $770 billion in TARP funding that Congress had given to President Bush before Obama beat him in November 2008. President Obama directed the purchase of a portion of GM stock and placed government officials on GM’s board. Ford and Chrysler gained from the TARP funding, too.
In time, all three automakers emerged from financial distress, perhaps saving hundreds of thousands of manufacturing jobs. The government’s shareholdings in GM were eventually sold on the open market for a significant profit, thereby making the government enough profit to almost pay back the $770 billion that was parceled out.
The rationing of tires, gasoline and food during WWII doesn’t count in this calculus, because Congress had declared war on Japan, and then Germany and Italy. By Constitutional definition, a Congressional declaration of war gives to the executive additional emergency powers that last only so long as the emergency.
But I am old enough to remember the Republican response to President Obama’s actions. Communist! they cried. Socialist! they bellowed. Obama was destroying the country, they shilled.
Per Newsweek, President Trump just finalized a federal government taking of a 10% stake in Intel, worth according to Trump $110 billion for the shares. Newsweek reports that the $110 million figure comes from the amount parceled out to Intel over time via government pledges and funds. Intel claims that the government will not have a Board presence nor will the government gain access to company information.
Senator Rand Paul, (R) Kentucky, posted to X:
“If socialism is government owning the means of production, wouldn’t the government owning a part of Intel be a step toward socialism? Terrible idea.”
Senator Thom Tillis, (R) North Carolina, told a journalist:
“I don’t care if it’s a dollar or a billion dollar stake, … That starts feeling like a semi-state-owned enterprise, a’ la CCCP. I don’t believe that the U.S. government should be picking winners and losers because you won’t always be right.” Wrote the reporter, “He [Tillis] questioned how this ‘reconciles with true conservatism and true free market capitalism. … Does anybody really believe that any opinion except the opinion of the administration is really going to matter in boardroom discussions going forward?'”
Kevin O’Leary, businessman and Shark Tank star, posted to X:
“The U.S. government just announced it’s taking a stake in Intel, and let me be clear: I abhor this idea. America has thrived for over 200 years because the government stayed in its lane while the private sector attracted global capital and rewarded innovation. We let bad companies fail. That’s capitalism.”
Intel’s CEO said:
“President Trump’s focus on U.S. chip manufacturing is driving historic investments in a vital industry that is integral to the country’s economic and national security. We are grateful for the confidence the President and the Administration have placed in Intel; and we look forward to working to advance U.S. technology and manufacturing.”
On Monday, President Trump told reporters that he hoped for many more events like the one with Intel.
Kush Desai, White House spokesman, told Newsweek:
“The previous administration pushed legislation to dole out billions in grants that prioritized DEI over taxpayer return to some of the largest semiconductor companies in the world. Now the Trump administration is ensuring that taxpayers are able to reap the upside of the federal government’s investments into safeguarding our national and economic security — all the while simultaneously pushing supply-side reforms like deregulation and The One Big Beautiful Bill’s tax cuts to let the free market restore America as the world’s most dynamic economy.”
Make of this what you will.
Me?
Who knows how this will all turn out?
If socialism is best defined as controlling the means of production, then this smacks of socialism. If communism is best defined as controlling both the means of production and the means of distribution, then this really isn’t much of a communist plot.
But what if what President Trump is doing doesn’t really resemble what either Nixon or Obama did?
There are many different viewpoints right now, and the issue isn’t likely going away.
The only outright lie that I can see right now in the Newsweek article is that uttered by Kush Desai. America was already the world’s “most dynamic economy” on the day President Trump was sworn into office for his second term. Something that was already dynamic cannot by definition be returned to dynamism; the already existing dynamism can only be enhanced or minimized. The reasons for that dynamism are manifold, but the Economist and the Wall Street Journal were not wrong when they opined that Trump was inheriting an American economy that already was “the envy of the world.”
Samuel L. Bronkowitz says
The closest that america got to socialism was with the new deal, which established things like social security, unionization rights, abolished child labor, created a minimum wage, and established organizations within the government like the FDIC, the SEC, and other incredibly useful and worthwhile things. Unsurprisingly, these things are being dismantled by the same group of people that opposed them when he was in office – conservative republicans and democrats. It takes a special kind of shitbag to have issues with child labor laws and helping those in need, and yet here we are.
Ed P says
While Mamdani’s vision might appear commendable and reflects a desire for revolutionary reform, the practicality of his proposal should be given careful consideration. The feasibility and limitations of the mayor’s office would require both state and federal support. Most of his platform is outside the purview of the Mayor. He can not unilaterally deliver even a fraction of the promises.
Raising taxes upon corporations or the wealthy will probably deliver the final death knell to the city. The top marginal New York State and city income tax rate is nearly 15%
The top federal tax rate is 37%. NYC sales tax is 8.875%
Ask yourself why anyone who could leave wouldn’t. Taxes currently could consume 61 cents of every dollar earned. Add in the elevated cost of living in NYC (housing, parking, real estate taxes) , homelessness issues and perceived big city crime and the makings of a disaster are in the future. The city might already be there.
Will voters suspend all common senses?
Sherry says
@melly. . . please post “credentialled facts” for your fear filled racist Fox conspiracy theories, otherwise we will all know that “all” you are capable of is posting Fox BS talking points. Thanks!