In my opinion, Mamdani’s charisma, savvy, and eloquence are highly overrated compared to his bona fide lack of executive, judicial, or legislative experience. His economic policies, as reflected in his campaign platform, will probably bankrupt New York City, which was considered the best urban economic powerhouse in the world in 2025 according to the Oxford Economics’ Global Cities Index.
I believe that two major reasons that Mamdani will be an economic disaster, risking another financial collapse circa 1975 or worse, are because of his past radical anti-prison stance of “Agenda for Decarceration” that he “explicitly signed on to in 2020 as part of his first Assembly campaign.” Criminals roaming the streets instead of being in prison, committing misdemeanors, graduating to felonies, will just worsen crime.
Mamdani’s rancid antisemitism, as epitomized in his repeated refusal to renounce the Jew-hating phrase “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” could cause many Jews to decide to pack up and move. Any toleration of antisemitism will only totally alienate the 1.4 million Jewish residents living in metropolitan New York City, potentially causing lawsuits, economic disruption, and migration to other parts of the tristate area.
His platform could also lead to a mass exodus of the wealthy and middle class from the city with his proposed tax hikes equaling New Jersey or worse, and would not be conducive to either attracting or maintaining business. I predict that under a Mamdani administration, crime, taxes, and antisemitism will only worsen, resulting in a boom for both rental and commercial moving vans.
There are other reasons why I think that Mamdani will become a disaster for both the city and, ultimately, the national Democratic Party.
If the 34-year-old assemblyman wins in November, New York City Jews will most likely have to live as “invisible Jews” like in much of Western Europe, especially the U.K., Belgium, and France. They will all have to decide if they want to forsake wearing a visible Star of David, Chai (Life) pendant or kippahs (yarmulkes), etc., or show pride in their religious heritage. Otherwise, it might be difficult to publicly avoid antisemitic violence, slurs, spits, threats, bullying, and insults, which have been increasingly characteristic in Western Europe since October 7, 2023.
Male Hasidic and ultra Orthodox (Haredi) Jews in Brooklyn and many other predominantly Jewish neighborhoods would most likely have a worse time in disguising their religious identities. That is because of their distinctive dark clothing, beards, white shirts, and black fur or felt hats worn on the sabbath and holy holidays, including weekdays. This especially includes the appearance of sidelocks among ultra-Orthodox Jews, which is based on Leviticus 19:27.
Mamdani’s economic policies, which are the total opposite of moderate Senator John Fetterman (D-PA), will result in much political and economic decline for New York City because of the inevitable incompetent Soviet-style central planning and unqualified subordinate bureaucratic leadership. This could certainly result in greater poverty and crime, much worse than San Francisco, which is currently beset with endemic drug abuse, retail business flight, homelessness, and more shoplifting because of cashless bail involving $900 worth of stolen merchandise.
At worst, Mamdani may be a pretentious, ambitious, and unaccomplished Marxist or Communist. At best, he is a grossly inexperienced neophyte or amateur, a rent control hypocrite, failed rapper, tax revenue dunce, spoiled naturalized American (2018) ingrate, who has been advised by a radical sycophantic vicenarian and tricenarian “brain trust,” and such an antisemite as his “political mentor” Linda Sarsour. Either way, there is going to be a lot of incompetence at City Hall in Lower Manhattan.
Has Mamdani ever had a real job besides being a part-time rapper or brief foreclosure specialist outside of the five years as an obscure assemblyman, while never supervising more than a dozen people? Unfortunately, the answer is a resounding no. That worries me greatly.
Mamdani and his parents are so privileged and wealthy that, despite their far-left ideology, they hypocritically own a second house on a two-acre property bordering Lake Victoria in the affluent Buziga Hill neighborhood of the capital city of Kampala, Uganda, which is “home to some of Uganda’s richest.” This is where he married his wife last July in a “three-day wedding extravaganza.” [my emphasis].
Why should a socialist own more than one home? The answer eludes me.
I am sure that he thoroughly enjoyed hiring the local Ugandan proletariat and being entertained by his “well-paid” wedding servants at his parents’ expensive rented Airbnb, marketed for the top 1%, which advertises “gorgeous” and “breathtaking views” of Lake Victoria.
Yet somehow, without any pang of conscience, Mamdani has enjoyed living in a subsidized rent-controlled apartment in New York City since 2020, meant for a low-income person or family, despite making $142,000 in 2025. I am sure that is why he could afford to dine with his wife, not as a member of the working class but of the “fraud class” at “Omen Sushi … one of the priciest joints in NYC ” on October 21.
If Mamdani is inaugurated as New York City’s 111th mayor on January 1, 2026, I am certain that he will enjoy living rent-free at Gracie Mansion for the next four years, making approximately $260,000 per year. The poor people of New York City be damned.
And yet the privileged 34-year-old assemblyman, who has dual citizenship with both Uganda and the U.S., claims to be the socialist savior of the poor, oppressed working class in New York City. I am sure that he definitely feels their economic pain despite reading Karl Marx’s Das Kapital or Vladimir Lenin’s Imperialism: the Highest Stage of Capitalism.
Mamdani supporter and Regressive Representative Ilhan Omar (D-MN), who last summer criticized the removal of the democratic socialist mayoral candidate in Minneapolis, despite being the wife of a successful multi-millionaire capitalist, is the perfect hypocritical example of riches for me but not for thee. That is because her net worth suddenly skyrocketed to $30 million in 2024.
Both Mamdani and Omar are two wealthy, privileged hypocrites, as is Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT), who owns three homes and whose net worth is $2,000,000.
If Mamdani ever becomes the next mayor, the city may become a big profligate, Columbia graduate school failed “experiment” in socialism, resulting in the subsequent impoverishment of the five boroughs. He will undoubtedly be guided by his father, Mahmood Mamdani, a foolish far-left Columbia professor, and the tens of millions of dollars in donations from anti-law-and-order George Soros, along with his son Alex Soros and other numerous far-left billionaires.
Despite receiving $37 million from George Soros as reported on July 12, Mamdani hypocritically stated, “I don’t think that we should have billionaires, frankly,” on NBC News’ Meet the Press on June 29. I think that Mamdani conveniently and hypocritically “forgot” that Soros’ net worth is $6.7 billion while his son controls $18 billion as the head of the Open Society Foundations.
Mamdani is certainly no FDR Democrat proclaiming a New Deal for the average working man and woman. He has radical Marxist political views, which make Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) almost look like a moderate despite her eliminating 25,000 Amazon jobs and a headquarters in Long Island City, Queens, in February 2019.
When fellow Democratic Socialist Representative Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) participated in the “Fighting Oligarchy Tour” last February through September, she openly lived like a socialist princess or regal oligarch. Both she and Mamdani are the hypocritical epitome of “elite” far left politicians, who are not concretely concerned about the “disparity about class distinction.”
To be concluded in Part III
Robert L. Maronic
