Electing Mamdani would be an ominous turn for New York and the nation

In just a few days, a Karl Marx-quoting Democratic Socialist who has struggled to disavow Hamas is likely to be elected the next mayor of the nation’s financial and cultural epicenter. Thirty-three-year-old New York State Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani has surged to the front of the race. He leads by double digits in virtually every public poll and is an overwhelming favorite in the online betting markets.

Absent a miracle, in short, Mamdani is going to win and will be the next mayor of New York City. But one might be forgiven for believing in the possibility of miracles. Mamdani must, somehow, be rejected — and if he prevails, the grave consequences will extend far beyond the Big Apple.

First, consider Mamdani’s platform. He proposes a rent freeze on all rent-stabilized apartments, the creation of hundreds of thousands of publicly owned housing units, “free” city-run grocery stores, universal child care from infancy to kindergarten, free bus service and steep tax hikes — including a jump in the corporate tax from 7.25% to 11.5% and a new 2% surcharge on incomes exceeding a million dollars a year. On public safety, he would divert funds away from the New York Police Department to a new Department of Community Safety staffed by social workers and activists.

This is not reform. It is social transformation. And to understand what’s truly at stake for all of us non-New Yorkers, one must remember what New York City still represents.

For better or worse, New York remains the economic, cultural and innovative engine of the United States. It is the American epicenter of finance, media and the arts — where Wall Street meets Broadway, and venture capital meets high fashion. Its gross domestic product rivals that of most nations. Its museums, universities and creative industries shape not just American identity but also global trends.

When the nation’s largest and most important city thrives, the entire country feels the lift. And when New York falters, the ripple effects are often national. What happens in City Hall has the potential to reverberate from sea to shining sea.

Yet Mamdani proposes to turn Gotham into a laboratory for radical economic redistribution and left-wing social engineering. A hard-left mayor with ambitions to transform New York into a “people’s city” governed by public ownership and woke purity would send an unmistakable message: Prosperity is expendable, a traditional religious lifestyle is retrograde and law enforcement is a relic of oppression.

It is true that much of Mamdani’s agenda would require legislation in Albany, but transformative executives have a history of ignoring such procedural niceties — who, after all, can forget President Obama’s “pen and a phone”? And if Mamdani is successful, business flight, investor uncertainty and tax-base erosion would follow as surely as night follows day. Many remaining religious New Yorkers would follow as well.

The national ramifications would be equally profound. If Mamdani wins, the progressive left, which has been reeling since last November’s presidential election, will treat the victory as proof of concept. The Squad-style socialism that once seemed relatively confined to college campuses and activist social media feeds will claim the mantle of America’s most powerful city. The next Democratic presidential primary inevitably would feature numerous candidates pointing to New York as a model of how to get elected: “If it worked there, it can work anywhere.” Mamdani’s City Hall would become an ideological lodestar for the global left.

And on that note: Mamdani’s worldview extends far beyond municipal policy. He repeatedly has accused Israel of genocide in Gaza and vowed to arrest Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu were the Israeli leader to visit the city that is home to America’s largest Jewish population. Moral stain aside, does anyone think such an injection of campus-style activism into the practical business of running the world’s financial capital actually would benefit the average New Yorker?

But perhaps the most urgent warning is this: If New York elects a Marxist mayor and the city collapses further into crime, exodus and dysfunction, it will not necessarily be leftists who pay the price. It will be working-class families, small-business owners, commuters and the millions who still believe in the American promise — the spirit so perfectly embodied by the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor.

The long-odds necessity, at this late hour, of rejecting Zohran Mamdani is thus not merely a municipal judgment for the Big Apple. Either Andrew Cuomo or Curtis Sliwa, Mamdani’s two opponents on the ballot this coming Tuesday, simply must drop out immediately to give the other a fighting chance at pulling off an upset. Because this mayoral election is a referendum on whether New York will reclaim the virtues that built it — discipline, aspiration, enterprise and law — or surrender to the fantasies of far-left utopianism.

If voters choose Mamdani, New York loses. And with it, America risks losing a little more of its dynamism — and its soul.

Josh Hammer’s latest book is “Israel and Civilization: The Fate of the Jewish Nation and the Destiny of the West.” This article was produced in collaboration with Creators Syndicate. X: @josh_hammer