Tim Chapman writes for National Review Online about an interesting development in the nation’s largest city.
New York City’s socialist Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani walked into a Queens bodega recently and stumbled his way into Milton Friedman–style conservativism. This sentence would shock most people, but it happened. In one of his latest small-business campaign videos, the world’s newest socialist darling unintentionally promoted beating back burdensome government through deregulation.
Mugged by the reality of running a bodega, Mamdani now wants to cut fines and fees by 50 percent, expedite permitting, and cut the bureaucratic red tape that slows new businesses from opening their doors. Blissfully unaware, he lamented: “You shouldn’t have to fill out 24 forms and go through seven agencies to start a barbershop.” Then, he channeled his inner Elon Musk and announced a new “mom-and-pop czar” who will coordinate city agencies to improve turnaround times and help businesses navigate the cumbersome regulatory system. A little New York City DOGE?
This is a surprising rhetorical change for someone who campaigned on a full-scale socialist takeover of the world’s financial capital. Throughout the race, Mamdani argued that more government would make New York more affordable. His Election Night declaration that “there is no problem too large for government to solve” made it clear for all.
Yet only weeks before officially being sworn in — and confronted with the daunting realities of governing a complex economy — he unwittingly conceded that rather than solve “large problems,” big government’s numerous rules and regulations actually drive up costs and make life unaffordable.
Mamdani’s sudden embrace of deregulation, however, should not be mistaken for a broader change of heart. Nothing else in his agenda suggests one.
Mamdani is still the same man who campaigned, and won, on Communist Manifesto–inspired policies that would smother any remaining chance of economic revival in New York and, in turn, make the city even more expensive.
