I read an article in the New York Post on August 24 written by Gabrielle Fahmy entitled, “Zohran Mamdani wants to end all misdemeanor charges [my emphasis]: “‘E-ZPass for criminals.’” If true, this would create a policy for almost complete chaos for the New York City Police Department (NYPD), which was already understaffed by 7,000 officers in March 2024 compared to “40,285 back in 2000.”
The New York City retailers will be damned if Mamdani becomes the next mayor.
The NYPD has been hemorrhaging police officers, with critical response times diminishing significantly since 2022. If a duplicitous Mamdani becomes mayor, this trend will become increasingly worse because of his past adamant and vociferous policies to “defund the police,” which will encourage law enforcement to seek out-of-town jobs in 2026 because of increased stress and disrespect.
It obviously appears that Mamdani does not care about enforcing the existing misdemeanor laws, which will inevitably lead to much more petty crime. Personally, you could not pay me to ride the New York subway, especially between 8 PM and 6 AM before or after the November 4 election. That is because of the mentally disturbed homeless, potential crime, and lack of a police presence that will take place during a Mamdani administration, let alone under Mayor Eric Adams.
Thank God for Uber, Lyft, and Yellow Cabs.
Mamdani has failed to realize that New York City needs police walking the sidewalks, patrolling the streets, and being fully staffed overnight in the subways instead of employing social workers and relying upon good Samaritans and the Guardian Angels in case of crime. That is pure common sense.
Mamdani is also the complete opposite of unwinnable Curtis Sliwa, who has almost fifty years of street smarts in preventing crime, but unfortunately, he has no chance of becoming the city’s next mayor. The silver-spooned socialist Mamdani simplyhas neither street smarts nor common sense.
Unfortunately, the 34-year-old state assemblyman is so hateful towards the NYPD that he stated as a keynote speaker at the Democratic Socialists of America convention in 2023, “we have to make clear that when the boot of the NYPD is on your neck, it’s been laced by the IDF [Israel Defense Forces].” His colorful metaphor is simply untrue and antisemitic.
The question now is, does he hate the NYPD more than the IDF or vice versa? Something tells me that he hates them both equally and is definitely going to defund the NYPD in 2026 because he is a cop hater who views the police as “oppressors.”
Mamdani’s ignorant proposal of city-owned grocery stores is a perfect example of his naive, Soviet-style waste of the taxpayers’ money, as demonstrated by the closing of a Sun Fresh Market in Kansas City, Missouri, on August 13, despite receiving nearly $29 million in taxpayer funding.” His present Marxist platform and Communism’s century-old failed policies also include the abolition of private property and the seizing of the means of production, as he clearly stated in 2021.
Mamdani’s platform also includes freezing rent, providing free bus rides (i.e., mobile homeless shelters), cashless bail for misdemeanors or non-violent offenses, and raising the minimum wage to $30 per hour by 2030, which are all fiscally unrealistic. So, where is the money going to come from if Governor Hochul does not approve his tax increases, and President Trump cuts off all federal funding to the city?
The politically inexperienced and economically illiterate Mamdani does not have a clue.
That is certainly true with no definitive answer from the wunderkind candidate, but the short answer is that a major tax increase is not going to happen without the governor’s approval.
Mamdani’s platform will quickly face the problem of ignoring such real and metaphorical misdemeanors as residential and commercial “broken windows,” which were largely eradicated by Rudy Giuliani, who was the Republican mayor of New York City from January 1, 1994, to December 31, 2001.
Both Giuliani and Police Commissioner William Bratton implemented the “broken windows” theory of policing in 1994. They found out that once the recidivist perpetrators of such small crimes or misdemeanors as annoying squeegee cleaners, panhandlers, broken-window vandals, litterers, fare evaders, and other lower-level criminals, instead of being left unchecked, were justly convicted, then more violent crimes or felonies, regardless of race, became less frequent. This occurred successfully because of saturated policing, stiff convictions, and possible imprisonment, thereby reducing lawlessness.
I do not think that this is going to be a major priority for a future Mayor Mamdani because he, along with his privileged and elitist socialist supporters, lacks any meaningful experience in city government with a “$112 billion budget.”
It is common sense 101 that people who commit smaller crimes or misdemeanors with impunity will most likely “graduate” to commit greater crimes or felonies with much more deadly or violent consequences, especially teenagers.
According to the Manhattan Institute, “broken windows policing is a strategy based on the idea that reducing quality of life offenses (panhandling, graffiti, etc.) will restore community order and reduce crime. “Broken windows” has been implemented successfully in New York [City] and other cities across the country, and has been credited with significant reductions in crime rates.”
According to the National Bureau of Economic Research, “during the 1990s, crime rates in New York City dropped dramatically, even more than in the United States as a whole. Violent crime declined by more than 56 percent in the City, compared to about 28 percent in the nation as whole. Property crimes tumbled by about 65 percent, but fell only 26 percent nationally.”
In my opinion, Mamdani has been a media hyped and unaccomplished assemblyman from Astoria in Queens. This is despite being endorsed by former inept mayor Bill de Blasio (2014-21) on August 2, endorsed by New York Governor Kathy Hochul on September 14, praised by incompetent former Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg on October 25, and whole heartedly endorsed by House Democratic Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries on October 24.
The only prominent New York politician not to endorse Mamdani has been Democratic Leader Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY). That is because he wisely does not want to be associated with a potential loser socialist mayor, who fellow socialist Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez endorsed on June 6, and will most likely be his next primary challenger in 2028.
In my opinion, if elected, Mamdani is just going to be Bill de Blasio on steroids for all the wrong reasons.
Mamdani’s platform will certainly attempt to overtax the wealthy, small businesses, and other corporations in the city. This could inevitably cause a huge outflow and desperate flight of capital and countless job creators, who will migrate to such states as Connecticut, Texas, Tennessee, Utah, and Florida, thereby creating a much lower future tax base for the five boroughs of the city from 2026 to 2030 and beyond.
Mamdani’s proposed policy of eliminating misdemeanors will slowly destroy and decimate small retail businesses throughout the five boroughs of the city because of inevitable shoplifting.
Already, billionaire John Catsimatidis, who is the CEO of the New York City-based supermarket chains Gristedes and D’Agostino, and a major Trump supporter, threatened to close some of his grocery stores, especially the Gristedes chain (30 stores), on September 26 if Mamdani establishes city-run grocery stores.
Then that could be the beginning when a plurality or majority of city residents will be relatively impoverished or poor, with a sharp decline in both the middle and upper middle classes. Of course, that would exclude such always-needed professionals as lawyers, doctors, firefighters, municipal bureaucrats, and law enforcement officers, and especially the mayor, who is always needed in any low-income city.
If elected, Mamdani’s New York City will slowly become a city of haves and have-nots with less economic opportunity, like many big or smaller American cities. There will simply not be enough of a tax base among these professions to sustain Mamdani’s platform of tax increases and “affordability.”
Mamdani’s proposed economic policies of huge tax increases, either with or without the approval of New York’s governor, could eventually bring the city to a fiscal crisis reminiscent of October 30, 1975, or perhaps bankruptcy. In addition, the elitist doctrinaire socialist could incur the wrath of President Trump after making New York City a neo-confederate sanctuary city for illegal aliens, in addition to not cooperating with ICE (Immigration Customs Enforcement).
If Mamdani wins the election, it indeed could be “Mayor Trump,” who becomes the de facto chief executive of New York City as Cuomo predicted on October 27 by withholding much-needed federal funding.
To be concluded in part IV.
Robert L. Maronic
