One of the things I admire about Zohran Mamdani is his candor. You know where you stand with him. Mamdani, who was sworn in a few days ago by Senator Bernie Sanders as New York’s first Muslim mayor and also its first avowedly socialist mayor, makes no bones about his ambitions. He was elected as a “democratic socialist,” he said, and he intends to govern as one. “We will,” he said in the most commented upon phrase from his inauguration speech, “replace the frigidity of rugged individualism with the warmth of collectivism.”
“The warmth of collectivism.” If you are not a political simpleton or a conniving totalitarian (or, as often happens, both), that phrase should send a shiver down your spine. For one thing, note the prime mover of this process. “We will replace,” intones comrade Mamdani. You, nameless New Yorker, are just what Lenin called a “cog in the wheel” of progress. Individuals a mere cogs in the great socialist wheel, you see. Forget about troglodytes like Ralph Waldo Emerson and his gospel of “Self-Reliance.” What matters is the collective, which our overlords are set to impose upon us.
Then there are the results of this promised “warmth of collectivism.” It turns out – it always turns out – to be unpleasantly chilly. One commentator on X with a dark sense of humor linked to a nighttime view of North and South Korea from space. The North, where collectivism reigns, is a darkling plain while the capitalist South glitters with an abundance of light.
Another clever commentator highlighted to difference between “rugged individualism” and the “warmth of collectivism” with the famous picture of “tank man” standing in front of a line of tanks in Tiananmen Square.
Indeed, “collectivism” is the master word of Mamdani’s fledgling administration. What are the two fundamental axioms of socialism? The abolition of private property and the equalization of wealth. Here’s how it starts: Cea Weaver, Mamdani’s new tenant’s advocate, is on record as saying that “Private property including any kind of ESPECIALLY homeownership is a weapon of white supremacy.” In a recent post on X, Weaver explained her plan to “transition from treating property as an individual good to a collective good. Whites especially will be impacted.” Weaver herself is white but there is no news yet whether the Bryn Mawr graduate will be sharing her digs with migrants.
There are several other things to be noted about Mamdani’s socialist manifesto. His promise of providing “universal childcare for the many by taxing the wealthiest few” left many people wondering exactly where he intended to find the “wealthiest few” since many of the city’s wealthiest citizens have fled or will soon flee to less punitive climes. And now, in the wake of Nick Shirley’s sensational exposure of the systemic fraud perpetrated by Somalis in Minnesota, no one can hear the word “childcare” without thinking “fraud.”
Then there was Mamdani’s appointment of Ramzi Kassem as New York’s Chief Counsel. CAIR, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, welcomed the appointment. Many New Yorkers will harbor less cheery sentiments. Kassem, they will remember was a defense attorney for an al-Qaeda operative following 9/11. More recently he defended Mahmoud Khalil, the anti-Israel campus protester at Columbia University.
I write just a few days after Mamdani’s inauguration. Suddenly, throughout the city, the Muslim call to prayers is being blasted through loudspeakers five times a day beginning at 5:00 a.m. Osama bin-Laden would be pleased.
The supine press has greeted the advent of Zohran Mamdani with open arms. And speaking of arms, such outlets as The New York Times, the BBC, NPR, CNN, The Washington Post, Reuters, MSNBC, and USA Today had nothing to say about Mamdani’s excitedly extending his right arm upwards in salute. Of course, when Elon Musk made the same gesture, he was instantly condemned by all such craven outlets as indulging in a gesture reminiscent of a Nazi salute.
The socialist pretends to have glimpsed paradise on earth. Those who decline the invitation to embrace the vision are not just ungrateful: they are traitors to the cause of human perfection. Dissent is therefore not mere disagreement but treachery. Treachery is properly met not with arguments but (as circumstances permit) with varying degrees of ostracism, legal penalties, not to mention the purge, the concentration camp, the guillotine. The philosopher Leszek Kolakowski, author of the magisterial Main Currents of Marxism, knew all about “the warmth of collectivism” espoused by socialists. “Once they attempt to convert their visions into practical proposals,” Kolakowski noted, “they come up with the most malignant project ever devised: they want to institutionalize fraternity, which is the surest way to totalitarian despotism.”
Mamdani has a winning smile. Such people often do. Don’t say you weren’t warned.
