A Dangerous Leap in Our Society and Culture

Does Zohran Mamdani not realize that being mayor of NYC comes with more responsibilities than those of a rabble-rouser in a kaffiyeh ever considered?

A Definitional Game

Mr. Mamdani loves saying, “We aren’t antisemitic, only anti-Zionist.”

But that rings false, notes Mr. Hennessay. When you “make such a big show of saying the leader of the world’s only Jewish state has the blood of children on his hands—and in his teeth and hair.”

You may think you’re making a clever distinction, or that your limp assertions about hate having no home in the city will absolve you of all blame when someone believes what you say and starts trying to kill Jews while shouting “Allahu akbar.” It won’t.

In a different context, President John F. Kennedy said, “There’s always some son of a b— who doesn’t get the message.”

An Apologist for Islamic Terror

This week marks the 25th anniversary of the attacks at Ground Zero, and families of 9/11 victims demand that Mayor Zohran Mamdani be banned from the memorial. They say he brands himself as an apologist for Islamic terror and his presence would be an insult to the memories of nearly 3,000 people murdered.

Our objection is based on his public record—his failure to meaningfully acknowledge the horror of that day, and his employment of, support for, or association with individuals who have minimized 9/11, defended terrorists, or even suggested America ‘deserved’ the attacks,” said Giovanni Galante—whose 29-year-old wife Grace Catherine Galante was among 2,977 innocents killed by al-Qaeda terrorists.

A petition drive to keep the mayor away has collected more than 1,100 signatures, reports the Journal’s “Free Expression.”

Don’t waste your sympathy on Mr. Mamdani, advises Mr. Hennessay.

(Mamdani) made this particular political bed. Chickens need somewhere to roost.

Don’t Waste Your Sympathy on Mamdani

Edward Steele is a filmmaker. His upcoming documentary is “White Guilt,” which challenges the whole narrative of public vilification, accuses William McGurn in the WSJ.

It’s pretty simple, writes McGurn, “All anyone need do is pick someone you can blame anything on and attack.”

In a city where most people have a landlord and renters outnumber owners 2 to 1, landlords are a fat target. If, like Marx, you believe rent is robbery, say so. Make a campaign of it.

You all remember Saul Alinsky, the community activist in Chicago who wrote “Rules for Radicals.”

For Mayor Mamdani, rule 13 offers a path forward: “Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.”

Is there a method to Mr. Mamdani’s madness? Of course there is.

Even the barest acquaintance with the record of rent control and other government efforts to keep housing costs down by subsidizing rents or artificially capping them shows they usually end in failure. The mayor will need to deal with the coming failure or distract attention from it.

It’s a good plan with a method, Mr. McGurn continues. Anyone acquainted with the record of rent control and other government efforts to keep housing costs down by subsidizing rents or artificially capping them knows they usually end in failure. Mamdani will need to deal with the coming failure or distract attention from it.

During July, Mamdani released a report with 23 policy actions on everything from building inspections to combating mold. The report’s title gives away the game: the “Rental Ripoff Hearing Report.”

Reading it, you would think there isn’t a single landlord in the city who treats his tenants decently and keeps his buildings in good repair.

In the 1940s and ’50s, communist China landlords became “class enemies.” They were publicly denounced in “speak bitterness” campaigns. An estimated one million to two million of them were murdered.

Today’s Chairman Mao has morphed into the friendlier face of Mayor Zohran Mamdani.

Government isn’t murdering landlords, but even as Zohran Mamdani denies that the democratic socialism he champions is communism, he has embraced the same vilification and targeting of landlords.