New Yorkers Got Played: Mamdani’s Socialist Con Job

New Yorkers just handed the keys to the city to 34-year-old TikTok socialist Zohran Mamdani—electing him mayor with 50.4% of the vote. Young voters and political first-timers stampeded to the polls, swooning over Mamdani’s fantasy wishlist: rent freezes, making the city more affordable, free buses, free childcare, and funnelling more into the City’s public schools—all supposedly paid for by soaking “the rich.”

In a city already hemorrhaging taxpayers, voters somehow decided the solution was a community organizer with zero private-sector experience and an economic philosophy that’s failed everywhere it’s been tried.

It’s the same magic math and moral posturing that’s wrecked every socialist experiment in history. They voted for the very poison that caused the disease. In each of these cases, the Mamdani policy to fix the problem is exactly the policy that created the problem.

Let’s start with the rent frneeze scam. Mamdani’s plan to cap increases through the mayor-appointed Rent Guidelines Board is the same price-control disaster that’s gutted New York housing for decades. Only 30% of rental units remain stabilized, and the number is shrinking as landlords stop building or renovating. When supply collapses, unregulated rents explode—now averaging over $5,000. Freezes don’t lower rents; they lock in shortages, decay, and despair. And even if Mamdani could legally enforce a full freeze (he can’t), it would almost certainly qualify as an unconstitutional taking under Supreme Court precedent. The Supreme Court did allow putting limits on rent increases, but clearly would consider a rent freeze a taking, making it unconstitutional.

His “affordability” pitch was no better. Mamdani bragged about raising $10 billion a year by hiking corporate taxes and imposing a 52% top income rate—something the mayor has no legal authority to do. Those are state taxes, and Governor Hochul already shot the idea down. Even if he could raise them, it wouldn’t raise revenue—it would just accelerate the taxpayer exodus. According to Cato, 100,000 residents fled NYC in 2025, up 20% from the year before. Affordability doesn’t mean much when your tax base is packing up for Florida.

Then there’s the “free stuff” fantasy. Mamdani wants “fare-free” MTA buses by slashing $600 million from the NYPD budget—because who needs public safety when you can virtue-signal on transit? Fares currently cover only 38% of operating costs. Remove that revenue and you get what socialism always delivers: overcrowding, decay, and service collapse. His education plan is no less absurd—$6 billion more for “universal” childcare and K–12, on top of NYC’s already obscene $38,000 per-pupil spending, the highest in the nation. The result so far? A paltry 82% graduation rate and flat test scores. Mamdani’s answer? Throw more money into the same black hole.

Mamdani didn’t win because voters understood his policies. He won because they didn’t. He won on vibes, slogans, and the brain-dead loyalty of voters too lazy to read past a TikTok post. Congratulations, New York: You just hired a grifter to rob you blind. Enjoy the ride—straight into the ditch.