Mayor-elect of New York City Zohran Mamdani, 34, has a short record as an American, having naturalized as a citizen in 2018.
Nevertheless, he fought a good fight, he started as a barely recognized name polling less than 1% at the start of this year to win over 50% of the votes in a three-person race.
He is the youngest Mayor-elect of New York City in over a century, the first Indian American and the first Muslim.
Last Friday, Mr. Mamdani met with President Donald Trump at the White House. If people were expecting sparks to fly, they were mistaken.
The camaraderie, at the time, was seemingly expressed by two men from Queens possessing a deep appreciation for the city.
"I always said, you know, one of the things I would have loved to be someday is the mayor of New York City," President Trump said.
Of Mr. Mamdani he commented that "I think this mayor can do some things that are going to be really great," adding that the "better he does, the happier I am."
Mamdani, however, refused to walk back from his abhorrent claims that Mr. Trump is a fascist. He could have walked it back stating simply that it was all campaign bravado leading to rousing applause from his base who think America First is a deplorables' fantasy.
He did not.
It was President Trump who came to his rescue, patting him on the arm and saying "That’s OK. You can just say yes. That's easier. It’s easier than explaining."
Grace did not emanate from Mamdani.
"We will prove that there is no problem too large for government to solve, and no concern too small for it to care about," Mamdani said in his victory speech.
This writer commends him for correctly identifying affordability as the big elephant in the room, a sentiment President Trump shared on Friday.
When it comes to actionable solutions, Mamdani's bag of tricks come in empty.
Ideas like opening government run grocery stores, making buses free, freezing the rent or offering free childcare for all lack common sense, go against historical evidence of failure, are too costly with high collateral damages.
With no power to act on them unilaterally, Mamdani is all bark but no bite.
Throughout his public life Mamdani succumbed to the worst temptations of antisemitism.
This writer suspects that will not change.
Meeting him after the election, Rabbi Ammiel Hirsh of the World Union of Progressive Judaism commented "Mayor-Elect Mamdani does not believe in coexistence. . . He believes that Israel has no right to exist at all as a Jewish state in any territory," parroting the talking points of Hamas, Hezbollah, and Iran. Mamdani does not hide it, "to the contrary, he's proud of it," says Hirsch.
No matter how much you put lipstick on a pig, Zohran Mamdani is a zealot who as mayor can erode the sanctuary New York City has provided to Jewish brothers and sisters for generations.
He proudly carries the banner of being a socialist.
The American experiment, even with her original sins, is about freedom, agency, accountability, and dignity for every individual.
Socialism is about collective existence — you belong to, or not, not because of what you chose to do but because of the accident at birth.
No surprise that Mamdani's brand of populism finds a ready audience in an identity-and-grievance-first base.
Mamdani advocated for the state to seize the means of production because socialism is a tired tirade against individual ownership of the fruits of labor.
It's most odd that as mayor of New York Mamdani will preside over the fate of a city that has shaped capitalism globally, for centuries.
The gilded rage mob of New York City found their messiah in Mamdani.
Can the messiah be the mensch the city needs?
Mamdani gathered a cast of characters that are either as inexperienced as he is or have a track record not to be proud of.
Elle Bisgaard-Church, his Chief of Staff, is 34, member of the Democratic Socialists of America, and never held a real job - characteristics she shares with her boss.
His transition committees are filled with similar profiles and with known affiliations or sympathies that are sine-qua-non for being in a circle of trust with his brood.
The "adult-in-the-room" is Dean Fuleihan, 74, formerly first deputy mayor under Bill de Blasio.
New York City's budget rose 18% in 4 years, under the de Blasio regime.
Current Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch accepted the offer for another term, though it remains unclear for how long she can serve under a mayor (along with others nationally) whose rallying cry was "Defund the Police!
A very real and quite reasonable fear is that Mamdani's term will turn out to be a nightmare for the Big Apple.
Socialism is bad for the soul, for the people, and the nation.
New Yorkers should not have been made to be the guinea pig for a repeat demonstration of socialism's ravages, past and present — on this side of the Atlantic.
All opinions are of the author of this column alone, and do not necessarily represent that of any organization he may be part of. The author alone is responsible for any error or omission.
Partha Chakraborty, Ph.D., CFA is an economist, a statistician, and a financial analyst by training. Currently he is an entrepreneur in Water technologies, Blockchain and Wealth Management in the US and in India. Dr. Chakraborty lives in Southern California. Read Partha Chakraborty's Reports — More Here.
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