Keffiyeh Socialism

Bernie Sanders is “definitely a style icon.” So says Democratic N.Y. State Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani, 33, who trails former Governor Andrew Cuomo in the Democratic primary for New York City mayor. The scariest part for most New Yorkers: that’s not even close to the most bizarre thing he has said.

Let’s start with those pesky Jews. Early in 2023, Mamdani introduced a bill called the “Not on Our Dime!: Ending New York Funding of Israeli Settler Violence Act,” which would prohibit registered charities from donating to organizations that support Israeli “war crimes” or settlement of Judea and Samaria. In November 2023, Zohran joined Cynthia Nixon in a five-day hunger strike in support of an immediate ceasefire. 

“I’ve been proud to be the first, and to my knowledge, the only mayoral candidate to have said that I would not have sent the police onto Columbia and CUNY’s campus,” said Mamdani. He has accused Israel of committing “genocide,” and says he’ll arrest Prime Minister Netanyahu if he ever sets foot in NYC (Cuomo has already joined the legal team defending Netanyahu).

Mamdani has attended rallies held by Within Our Lifetime, which protested outside the Nova exhibit here chanting: “Kill another Zionist now.” Mamdani also led a five-day “hunger strike for Palestine” outside the White House and blocked the entrance of the New York Stock Exchange in a call for the U.S. to stop arming Israel.

“On Oct. 8, 2023, while Jews were still being butchered, Zohran Mamdani condemned Israel and couldn’t even bring himself to mention Hamas,” Assemblymember Sam Berger, a Democrat who represents a district with a high concentration of Orthodox Jews, said in a statement. “Zohran just spent three hours sipping espresso with an influencer who has used his platform to refer to Jews as bloodthirsty pigdogs, Orthodox Jews as inbred, and has said it doesn’t matter if rape happened on Oct. 7.”

“Zohran Mamdani is running the most deceptive, divisive, and antisemitic campaign in the history of New York City,” added Berger, who says he’s voting for Cuomo in the June 24 primary. The latest polls have Cuomo leading Mamdani 64% to 36%, with 20%  still undecided.

Mamdani’s antisemitism is homegrown. Born to a Muslim family of Indian descent in Kampala, Uganda, his father teaches “colonialism” at Columbia University while his mother, filmmaker Mira Nair, boycotts Israel. 

His father’s new course at Columbia, “Settlers and Natives,” argues for “the necessity of violence in anticolonial struggle.” In November 2023, his dad said: “There’s nothing wrong” with describing Oct. 7 as a “military action.” And last April, his father participated in Columbia’s notorious anti-Israel encampment, leading a teach-in for students on the “historical context from South Africa’s apartheid era.” 

In 2014, during his senior year at Bowdoin College, Mamdani tried to launch a boycott of Israeli academic and cultural institutions. It was necessary, he argued, “to end the oppressive occupation and racist policies within both Israel and occupied Palestine.” At Bowdoin, Mamdani also co-founded the college’s chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), whose national arm called Oct. 7 a “historic win for the Palestinian resistance.” 

Socialism über alles

Mamdani began calling himself a socialist in high school, but unlike most of us he didn’t reconsider after discovering that socialism destroys everything it touches, including more than 100 million people. At the Bronx High School of Science, he promised “fresh juice” daily to classmates and free gym credits for just attending sporting events if they elected him vice president. He couldn’t come through on either promise.

The Queens assemblyman is now a member of Democratic Socialists of America’s eight-member “Socialists in Office” bloc. The DSA advocates abolishing the police and prisons, establishing “social ownership of all major industry and infrastructure,” granting voting rights to “noncitizens,” ending “Israeli apartheid,” and establishing “a democratic secular state, from the river to the sea.”  

Mamdani’s wishes for NYC include: 

• Creating a Department of Community Safety to focus on expanding “violence interrupter” programs (an effort to defuse disputes before they escalate) and mental health teams that respond to 911 calls instead of the police. (Budget: $1 billion.)

• Eliminating the NYPD’s overtime budget and its Strategic Response Group that responds to protests. 

• Free buses for all; free childcare for all kids 6 weeks to 5 years.

• Rent freeze.

• City-owned grocery stores. 

• Giving all new families in NYC “baby baskets” containing baby products such as diapers and nursing supplies.

The fact that violent crime is the number one concern for most New Yorkers doesn’t seem to matter to Mamdani, nor does the fact that the NYPD is facing a staffing crisis, largely due to inane “progressive” policies. Cuomo will hire more than 5,000 more police officers to address the crisis.

Mamdani is pitching a 2% tax hike on NYC’s millionaires to help pay for his agenda. “When it comes to taxing the 1% of New York City we will do so by taxing them an additional 2%,” he gleefully states. Mamdani’s plan also calls for a 4.5% increase in corporate taxes, which is sure to go a long way to keep corporations in NYC. Millionaires fled NYC in droves during COVID’s early days, so Albany lawmakers are unlikely to increase taxes, but Mamdani doesn’t seem to care about facts.

His housing plan costs $100 billion, only slightly less than the entire size of this year’s city budget. That’s on top of the $7 billion his other agenda items would cost, including $800 million for free buses, $1.1 billion to build a new Department of Community Safety, and $5 billion for free childcare.

Indeed, the fact that he blatantly misunderstands how basic economics work could be due to the fact that he has led somewhat of a privileged life.

Born in Uganda, Mamdani moved with his family to the U.S. at the age of 7 and became a U.S. citizen in 2018. He grew up in a faculty apartment along Riverside Drive, and attended the hyper-progressive Bank Street School for Children, which currently charges more than $66,000 per year and has taught that white students are born racist. Although Mamdani describes himself as a “graduate of the NYC public school system,” he didn’t attend any public school. In 2014, he graduated from Bowdoin College, an $86,000-a-year private school, with a degree in Africana Studies.

Before entering politics, Mamdani tried to work as a rapper in NYC subway stations. He might want to return to this except this time doing it the socialist way: without asking for donations. #FreeMusic. That’s something New Yorkers can get behind.

Karen Lehrman Bloch is editor in chief of White Rose Magazine.