Philip Klein of National Review Online ponders the potential negative impact of New Yorkers’ electoral choice this week.
Zohran Mamdani’s victory in the New York City mayor’s race raises some sobering questions about what will prove more dangerous to the city: his socialist policies or his vile antisemitism.
If enacted, his socialist policies (massive tax increases, a rent freeze, city-run grocery stores, free buses, a $30 minimum wage, etc.) would obviously be disastrous for the economy and quality of life in the city. But I also question how many of those policies will actually come to fruition. The ideas are so fanciful that they will either have trouble getting passed, or they will prove impossible to implement in the real world.
However, what worries me about his antisemitism is that he can make life dangerous for New York’s Jewish community simply by doing nothing. That is, he doesn’t need to pass the Nuremberg laws; he just can refuse to enforce the laws that exist. He can create an environment wherein if Jews are getting beaten in Brooklyn, he can divert city priorities elsewhere. If pro-Hamas students are attacking Jews at Columbia, he can refuse to send the NYPD, claiming it’s a private institution. If a riot breaks out in a Jewish neighborhood, he could refuse to quell it (as was the case with David Dinkins, the former mayor, during the 1991 Crown Heights riot). I also suspect that the very fact of his being elected despite his long record of antisemitism will embolden those who wish to do harm to Jews, because they will believe that one of their own is in charge.
It would be easy enough to say New Yorkers deserve what’s coming to them. But, as of this writing, about a million of them voted against this train wreck. Keep them in your prayers.
