The Phoenix Rising

Polls suggest that more than half the city opposes Mr. Mamdani. Mamdani’s opposition is split between “Republican Curtis Sliwa, who has no chance, and former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat running as an independent, who maybe, maybe, could squeak through if absolutely everything suddenly goes his way.”

Easy to forget, only five short years ago, the big question looming was, is the Big Apple finished? Real estate was collapsing, remote work was the norm, NY’s finest were demonized, crime was rising …

And now?  New York is up and rising again: impossible traffic, downtown booming, “people back in the office and out on the town,” Broadway brimming.

As Peggy Noonan reminds readers in the WSJ, it didn’t happen overnight.

And you wouldn’t think we would be on the verge of handing ourselves a brand-new setback in the choice of our next mayor. But we are.

Why Weren’t We Warned?

Oh, you were warned, bless your little hearts. Ms. Noonan advises New Yorkers to take a deep breath … think twice …

… then think again before electing the socialist mayoral candidate, Zohran Mamdani. He is barely 34, has never had a real job, was elected five years ago to the state assembly, which is a badge you wear while you scrounge around for attention and connections. This isn’t the résumé of the person you want in a position to guide the future of one of the largest economies in the world.

One of These Things Is Not Like the Other

Different things are meant for different times, Noonan continues. With NYC just getting its footing back, what is needed is “more energy, bounce expansion …”

… a welcoming attitude for the woman who wants to open a small store or new restaurant. Make it easier for her. We don’t need more of the dead hand of government; we need to return more of a sense to the young that striving is still a realistic attitude, that grieving for a system that seems broken and can’t fit you in is premature.

Mamdani’s major positions are repeated often:

• freezing rents
• increasing property taxes in “richer neighborhoods”
• no-cost childcare up to age 5.

What else would you expect from the platform of the Democratic Socialists of America, of which Mandami is a longtime member:

• tax the rich
• fight police brutality and mass incarceration
• free college and medical care for everyone?

How Will the Rich Respond?

Taxes and crime going up will mean the rich will be less inclined to stay. In the pandemic, she worried as billionaires fled to Florida; now she fears millionaires fleeing nearby. It’s too early to know for certain, since everything at this point is anecdotal, but the New York Post this week reported sudden bidding wars among New Yorkers on million-dollar homes in Westchester County and Connecticut:

Like a Night at the Garden with the Knicks 

“Real-estate brokers in these suburban markets report a frenzy reminiscent of the early pandemic exodus.” At a recent open house in Scarsdale, continued the rumor, a real-estate agent said the SUVs were double-parked down the block.

Oh yes, Mamdani fans may sing Adieu, but those wealthy Upper West Side families represent “a whole world of local jobs and spending—delis, hair salons, babysitters, dog walkers, cleaners, dentists—and every one of them paid the already-high New York City taxes that pay the bills in this town.”

Bet Your Bottom Dollar 

Oh, they’ll be missed, alright. New Yorkers will look like the Kulaks who wouldn’t leave even after their crops were confiscated.

Accusations of Antisemitism

Ms. Noonan leaves it to you to look up Mamdani’s flood of clips on social media, but she warns of his obvious animus. “There is a reason more than 1,000 American rabbis have warned his victory would threaten the safety of Jews.”

Rounding out his campaign, Mamdani eased into manipulation, not embarrassed to imply that by not voting for him, you are “Islamophobic.”

What It Means to Be Muslim 

From Mamdani:

“To be Muslim in New York is to expect indignity, but indignity does not make us distinct. There are many New Yorkers who face it. It is the tolerance of that indignity that does.” 

“I want to speak to the memory of my aunt who stopped taking the subway after Sept. 11 because she did not feel safe in her hijab.”

(Accounts later found that Mamdani’s aunt doesn’t wear a head covering and apparently didn’t live in New York. Later, he said he meant a cousin, who turns out, perhaps conveniently, to be no longer living.)

Noticing the catch in Mamdani’s voice, Ms. Noonan acknowledges that it was “quite something.” Here, a man is asking to be chosen to lead NYC, and he is accusing New Yorkers of “casual and habitual bigotry.”

Embarrassingly, Self-Valorizing 

Mamdani vows not to change his ways. “… not change who I am, I will not change how I eat, I will not change the faith that I am proud to belong to. But there is one thing I will change. I will no longer look for myself in the shadows. I will find myself in the light.”

Not to be pitied, this man from the top rung of NY society: “his father a Columbia professor who lectures against colonialism, and his mother a director whose films have had two Academy Award nominations. A place was made for him in society the day he was born.”

At the very least, New York, implores Peggy Noonan, “don’t give the Democratic Socialist a mandate or anything he can claim as such. Make it a close one. That might at least limit the setback for a city newly back on its feet and starting to be itself again.”