Zohran Mamdani’s New York Infecting America

By John Kass

Wed Oct 29, 2025

Zohran Mamdani, the Communist/Socialist child of wealthy privilege in New York, is the new face of the Democrat Party. And, as in the fantastical post-apocalyptic photo above, Mamdani’s expected victory as mayor of New York next week will bleed red all over the national Democrats, even as it threatens America.

Because Mamdani is the poster child of the party that promises: Give us what we think we’ll deserve or we’ll use our votes to take it from you.

He smiles often. He speaks in reasonable tones saying unreasonable things. He cast himself among the communists by parroting Frederich Engles on seizing the means of production.

Those are Mandami’s own words. Not mine.

And at a recent rally he stood with his Democrat leftist soul-mates NY Rep. Ocascio Cortez and Sen. Bernie Sanders who like the red algae in the photo above smile as they destroy America from within. And the seething angry crowd, many white leftist women fueled by envy, shrilly demanded to “Tax the rich!” If they screamed “Eat the Rich!” would America have noticed a difference?

These are the new Jacobins. Violent and angry. Set aside the tribal thrill of their leftist exhortations and you can see the inevitable panic setting in among the rest of us.

Other New Yorkers are begging their fellows to join a last-minute switch to support the smarmy Democrat liar, granny killer and sexual harasser Andrew Cuomo, now allegedly an ‘independent.’ They’re pressuring Republican Curtis Sliwa to step down.

“We cannot afford to cling to party loyalty or an ideal candidate,’ write Samantha Ettus and Aliza Licht in AM New York. “Sliwa’s voters must choose reason over delusion and practicality over fantasy. Vote for Cuomo, the candidate who can beat Mamdani. A vote for Cuomo is a vote to secure the future of New York.”

This nonsense reminds me of the three-way Chicago Democrat primary between Harold Washington, Rich Daley and Mayor Jane Byrne. Same bleating sound of panicked sheep. It didn’t work then, years ago in Chicago, it won’t work now in New York.

And Sliwa has vowed not to step down.

Many New York hand-wringers have forgotten the lesson of the city by the lake of a couple years ago, where the angry white female leftists AWFLS, and the Chicago Teacher’s Union elected the buffoon Brandon Johnson as mayor of the Socialist paradise of Chicago

Sliwa’s defiant message:

“You’ve worked your whole life to make this city home,” wrote Sliway. “You’ve raised your family, paid your bills, and built your community — and now the powerful are trying to take it away. I’m running to be your next Mayor to fight for you and make sure you can stay here in New York City.
“Plan your vote early. Together, we decide the future of our city.”

There’s an apocalyptic tone about Mandami’s pending victory next week for mayor of New York. To illustrate this column about Mandami’s ascension I used an image of red algae devouring a post-apocalyptic city. It should not have been red, but green, the color of envy.

Because envy is what animates the Democrat Party now.

Democrats are the party of white college educated leftists who want so much stuff. But they don’t have the skills to earn it.

They’re not carpenters or plumbers; they’re not pipefitters or electricians or butchers. They have no tangible, marketable skills. They are a party of whiners, a party of talkers. A party of (pardon me) bullshitters. They are entitled over-educated dreamers. And they want to live well. They want a house. But self- denial is such a bother. The bi-partisan political class has heaped so many taxes and regulations upon the rest of us, it is no wonder that young people who want to buy a home can’t even tread water. So don’t be surprised that they’re growing angry and resentful, and ripe for Mamdani’s siren song.

In New York they want stuff they can’t afford. And the Democrats say they should have it all. The leftist promise: Vote Democrat and we’ll take it away from the rich—although the wealthy always run—so they’ll take from the middle class.

Mamdani’s parents are wealthy, but his parents won’t be the ones who are bled dry. And history tells us that if he wins election, the political insiders will crowd around him hoping to cut favorable deals with him. Mandami wants them to have free stuff, from housing to groceries and free buses.

But even though they want stuff they can’t pay for, they are not crazy. AOC said so

“We must remember in a time such as this, we are not the crazy ones, New York City. We are not the outlandish ones,” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said at Mamdani’s “New York is Not for Sale” campaign event. “They want us to think we are crazy. We are sane to demand affordable and decent housing, a decent wage, the right to health care, that we pay to care for our people instead of the flattening of Palestinians and oppressed people abroad.”

You’re not crazy?

But you’ll use  government as your hammer to take what you want from the rest of America. When the Comanche took scalps and stole horses from the settlers, they didn’t use Union troops. They took their own risks and got blood on their own hands. But Mamdani, AOC, Bernie Sanders and the rest want to use the law to take what they can from you.

They’ll take your house in property taxes, take your dreams in income taxes. And they use the legacy corporate media to hush us, as they soothingly rub our throats in the slaughterhouse.

It’s not the American way. But it’s their way.

Because they want it. Because they think they deserve it. Because they’re entitled. Because they’re Democrats and they’ll take what they want.

(Copyright 2025 J0hn Kass)

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About the author: John Kass spent decades as a political writer and news columnist in Chicago working at a major metropolitan newspaper. He is co-host of The Chicago Way podcast. And he just loves his “No Chumbolone” hat, because johnkassnews.com is a “No Chumbolone” Zone where you can always get a cup of common sense.

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Comments 36

  1. John. Thanks again. My dad graduated from Northwestern in ’47, my daughter in ’93. Me from Illinois in ’70. Both schools are shadows of what they once were.
    My point is, the ones to shine the spotlight on, is academia. When I was at Illinois in the late sixties, I thought this would all work itself out. It has not. From Bill Aires infecting Illinois to the president of Northwestern hiring his terrorist wife at the law school, to the president of NW handing the keys to BLM and ANTIFA, academia has sold a couple of generations of youth to not just socialism, but true communism.
    A simple solution would be to gut the schools of this scum, or at least limit exposure to things like Critical Race Theory, and other nonsense.

  2. Thank you John for another insightful column, as I say to my son, it is way much easier to comment on a column than to put the work and research into writing a column, so be it.
    Considering the choice between the granny murderer and the Islamic terrorist, I hope the pampered red diaper baby wins. With mid-terms around the corner, I this Jew hating, cop hating Communist freak becomes the national symbol of the Democratic party to be used in every election challenge both national and local…..It is a dream(nightmare) come true, a gift so to speak.

  3. I am not shocked. Since 911 12% of Muslins came to America and want to make it their own and our people are stupid enough and Elect them. The Devil is certainly in charge. Whites are only 68% of America and sad they have allowed all these people to destroy our Freedoms. So sad I am so glad that I am old.

    1. You need to blame the Church also for all those “whites for allowing all these people into the country to destroy our freedoms.” To this date the churches are talking against the immigration enforcement!

  5. In a apocalyptic nightmare that our cities are becoming those who have nothing have nothing to lose, to paraphrase Dylan. Citizens watching the Biden administration pass out massive freebies to illegals, want to know,”where’s ours?”

  6. We will know next week. Who’ll show up to vote? Last time it was less than 25%, Mamdani’s people will turn out but the rest of NYC? Who knows?
    The fear and near panic is real. In my nice NJ suburb the cold calls to buy/sell my house and the mail in my box are constant. Every weekend my neighborhood is full of cars with NY plates and three new ex-NYC families have moved in [the deer terrify them, wait until they see the bear].
    Personally, I like Ciattarelli’s chances better than Cuomo’s, but look at the real choices for NYC: neither Sliwa nor Mamdani have the skill sets to run an 8,000,000 person city and Cuomo [who does] is a disgraced phoney responsible for lots of covid deaths.
    It’s a big worry here too. Over 400,000 New Jersey residents commute to work in NYC everyday. What will happen to their jobs?

  7. They’re not “over educated,” they’re not educated at all. At least not in the classical liberal sense. Otherwise, Mamdani wouldn’t have a chance.

  8. Great column, John. Only you would recall the laughable old Chicago parallel of a mayoral face-off between Washington, Rich Daley and Jane Byrne. Apparently cities with death wishes tend to wish poorly.

    Good luck, NYC. May all your bread lines be correct ones.

  9. You correctly point-out the higher education racket that took in lots of money and produced graduates that have entitlement but no wealth-producing skills. Unfortunately these graduates can’t admit they were duped. They still support the institutions that took their money. They still believe attaining useless degrees entitles them to riches.

    I wish they were the only victims of the education scam, and the only supporters of Mamdani. Unfortunately that isn’t the case. Lots of other young folks who didn’t participate in the education scam were victimized by it through higher prices (post-doctorate baristas are more expensive), mis-allocated capital (can’t finance sensible loans when capital is financing student loans), and job displacement (post-grad woman’s studies candidates get insurance jobs vs. high-school grads, even though insurance has nothing to do with woman’s studies).

    The result of ‘useless-degree’ inflation for all young folks is the following:
    – They can’t live anywhere without sacrificing a large percent of their income.
    – They can’t afford to start a family (lot’s of folks won’t do it if they know doing so will require public aid).

    As long as the above is true, anyone promising change will be acceptable to any young person, through no fault of their own. Things are already ‘broken’, so there’s really nothing lose if someone else threatens to ‘break’ society, because it’s obviously not ‘broken-enough’ to change.

    Given where we’re at, we’re going to need to do something drastic:
    – Setup vocational programs that target non-college high school grads, providing guaranteed-housing and medical care.
    – For those who attended college to get useless degrees, force colleges to offer them vocational training. Trump started the ball rolling by forcing Harvard to run welding programs.

  10. John, thank you for pointing out the connection of what’s occurring in NYC to Chicago’s own Socialist experiment gone awry! When sufficient of the voters figure out they can vote themselves “free stuff” like rent control, free public transport, and many other benefits, the great downward slide to a Socialist “nirvana” really gets going. It is easy to see how the younger millenials & Gen Z fall for the socislist trope if Mandani, AOC, Bernie and the rest, as their education has been based on the K-12 teacher’s union and progressive college professor led emotional instead of rational thinking pattern. It is irrational to think that getting “free stuff” from the government can endure from taxes paid by others. Eventually, those “others” will go somewhere else over the course of a generation, all the plumbers, electricians, carpenters, and other tradespeople, small shop/store owners, and even the regional/national retailers leave as crime goes up. It becomes a socialist desert land of takers vs. contributors, while the government bureaucracy grows ever bigger to “fix” the problems, until the debt eventually implodes it with budgetary reality. I agree it is bad for America overall to have its greatest metropolis sink into progressive socialism, but it could help solidify a more conservative Congress in the mid-terms next year as the rest of Anerica’s rational thinking, reality based people that remain perceive what is happening. I hope that is the case, and is communicated through new media outlets, as the legacy media won’t report the truth!

  11. The electorate votes the candidates in. It’s nobody’s fault other than the those who vote.
    There are choices. It’s not that electorate don’t know who the candidates are. I don’t feel sorry for those who vote for the idiots.
    It’s stated that the rich will leave. They can afford to. They should leave. Will it affect cities. Somewhat. But its when the universities and colleges shut down that you will see real chaos. It’s what attracts the young who inhabit most cities. Chicago still survives becuz of all the higher education facilities within its borders. Students and new grads can still see the remaining beauty of this once great city. It’s what attracts them to stay. Buts it’s no longer affordable or safe. Eventually this bubble will burst also. They too will leave.

  12. To paraphrase Churchill’s famous observation concerning the Soviet Army’s occupation of eastern Europe, “From New York City on the Atlantic Ocean to Seattle on Puget Sound and Chicago in between, a ‘moron curtain’ has descended across American Marxist metropolises.”
    The Berlin Wall here is economic inability to flee.

  13. Yianni,
    Well put. The demise of NYC along with Chicago is already upon us. When apathetic voters decide to stay home because their “vote won’t matter,” this is the end result. So, truly we get the government we deserve – sloppy, inept, lazy, full of BS and platitudes, promising everything will be better. Well, it hasn’t gotten any better in any of these dem run cities – from the west coast to the east coast, and us stuck in between. Can anyone name a dem run city that has reduced crime, homelessness, improved standards of living, reduced costs or real estate taxes? Please feel free to chime in – I’ll wait……..

  14. Then, in the second act, Mamdani encounters the inertia of the political machine and financial realities. His promises—such as freezing the rent, building government-controlled housing, and making buses free—become harder to achieve.”

    And, in the second act the young neo-anarchist Mamdani (and Sandy Cortez) encounter the United State’s Constitution and Founding Principles that have little to do with any given City, and have no idea what hit them.

    And they settle for a table at Rao’s and their own clay pipes at Keen’s, best case – and finally assimilate and go away.

    While I enjoy, with friends, my usual Porterhouse steak, “Black and Blue”, potatoes, spinach and strudel at Peter Lugers – on account. In New York’s unshakeable conservative Hasidic neighborhood at Williamsburg, Brooklyn

  15. Used to be people retired and moved to an area where they had property or grandkids. You had to have a good reason to go to the trouble of packing up and leaving. It is now apparent that people are relocating for the politics. Just as Chicago has become infested with communists (Daley the First would be mortified and would never have allowed it to happen) , so has New York. You can’t run an economy on over educated baristas and fast food workers who owe overwhelming college debt. These “progressives ” have congregated in Chicago and other cities that corral them by promising free stuff. The gutting of the American economy started with cheap steel that killed the American steel industry back in the 70’s all the way through Nafta in tht 80’s. Factory jobs enabled many to make a decent wage without a college degree. I can’t imagine trying to support a family on McDonald’s money. Trump is the only president in my time that is addressing the problem. No other president has pointed out the obvious: that we need these jobs back. Obama ridiculed the concept (learn to code?). The over educated baristas and under educated fast food workers will continue to buy into the bullshit spouted by hustlers like Mamdami as long as they see no way out of
    their predicament. This is how communism spreads…

  16. Just look at the picture posted showing the AOC girl talking! How many white faces can you see? They are all minorities from now majority! Years ago I was afraid this would happen and ruin this country if not careful attention given to the changing racial mix in this country and “melting pot” would be only a thing of the past. And the younger generation won’t even know what that magic or imaginary word meant! And that was why I wrote to the Trump’s then transition team headed by the fatso former governor of New Jersey to pay attention to immigration and stop the chain migration so that the population mix will be 2/3 white, 1/8 black, 1/6 Latino , 1/8 Asian and others. Trump was talking about chain migration during his election campaign and then simply forgot about it once he got into the office!

  17. Good column Mr. K.

    This is the same New York that was devastated on 9/11, people too this day dying of 9/11 related cancers to the clean up. Not just firemen or cops, blue collar trade people, men and women who responded to the call for assistance.

    It’s interesting that Mamdani was recently caught in a lie, stating his aunt was afraid to ride public transportation in New York City, wearing her hijab after 9/11. Claiming racial discrimination.

    Amazing that it was proven that she was not in the United States at the time.

    Nothing from the mainstream media. Another bold faced lie.

  19. John, great column, as always. The AWFLS are relentless and unless there is a solid conservative base where the AWFLS are screeching, the AWFLS will win. In Chicago, the combination of the AWFLS, the leftist Chicago Teacher’s Union (CTU), the remnants of the Democrat Machine and the generations of Chicagoans who have never been governed by Republicans will keep electing the Lightfoots and Johnsons and the City will continue its descent into hell on earth. I was born, raised, educated in Chicago and worked as a senior felony trial ASA there there. I left Chicago three years ago and moved to the sunshine and far less madness in Arizona. Chicago will not revive itself in our lifetimes and perhaps, may never return to its glory days.

  20. Mamdani will never run out of people to attack and demonize. If elected he will continue to play the race, class, gender, and bogeymen cards. His “solutions” will make things worse. I’m conflicted. Part of me wants to see him win as a symbol of the power of the new progressive Democratic Party. Yet him enacting policies that will harm so many is hard to watch. If elected he will do what leftist around the world have done. He will use political power to enrich himself and his friends. The poor become rhetorical devices whose lives only become worse. Mamdani hates Obama and calls him a sell out. And the current Democratic Party endorses Mamdani or remains mute. The establishment media shrugs amused by hateful rhetoric against people they don’t like. For them he is a useful fool against the deplorables in the country. Much as the German elites saw Hitler as a useful tool against the Communists. The left hates Capitalism because it doesn’t always give them the results they want. Equal opportunity does give them equality of results so they blame the system. Those who do well are evil and must be punished. Chairman Mao would be proud. Mamdani wants his own cultural revolution. March the capitalist down Fifth Avenue wearings signs declaring their “sins” against society. Or just skip the parade and declare their evil on Tik Tok as you take their money and property. Use mandates and regulations to control others in pursuit of your more perfect society. Mamdani can promise to New York what AOC has given her district – crime, open prostitution and drug dealing – without improving the quality of life

  21. Mamdani is a creep and a phony.
    How dare he lie about his “aunt” afraid to take the subway after 9/11.
    At that time everyone was afraid of terrorists bombing the subway.
    What an outrage to lie about 9/11 –
    where almost 3,000 people were killed outright on a bright sunny morning,
    and many more continue to die 24 years later from the after effects.

    With that vaporous smile he wants to tax the rich but it will be
    the poor and working class who will pay.
    Wake up New York.

  22. Make colleges and universities refund a good percentage of the tuition debt these snowflakes carry for conning them about the need for a degree to succeed in America.

    I’m paraphrasing here (President Reagan I think) that America is the place people look to for escape from tyranny. If America falls and fails where else on Earth do we go to in order to be free.

    The fight of our lives is here in its early stages. I owe my children and grandchildren an America as free as I grew up in. May God bless America and help us keep her free.

  23. How many people seen in that crowd would be paying income taxes?, may be few like the turban guys! They are all coming here with a begging bowl and then demand “constitutional rights” without working for it! As noted in an earlier column, only the rich and 30% of the middle class people like me pay the taxes. Lately I am hearing that some guys worth at least a million, transfer their IRAs and other assets to their kids and go on medic aid! Even those days I used to see people buying costly newyork steaks, liquors, etc., in the grocery lines with food stamps!

  24. The record shows that these ‘white college educated leftists’ are from schools like Harvard.
    Harvard’s own grade reporting numbers, show that in 2025 60% of the grades awarded were A’s.
    Back in 2015 that number was 40% and in 2005 it was 25%.
    When I graduated from Northwestern University in 1960, the A award count was around 5%.
    At NU Law School in 1963, the average grade was around 73 with the highest recorded average up to that time being 83 by a student who went on to become a United States Supreme Court Justice.
    Since elite school graduates have been given unmerited A grades their entire lives, it is not surprising that when after graduation and enter the ‘real world’ and don’t get every thing they want, they become ‘whiners’, ‘bullshitters’, and ‘over educated dreamers’.

  25. I pray the 18-30 year olds out there stand up for themselves…NYC is gone for four years, like Chicago is now. This ends when the young stand up for self determination and reject the teat(yoke) of government. Iranian youth are starting to wake up and reject sharia and the mullahs, we seem to be embracing the mullahs. They are looking at a white van with free candy…..hopefully enough are cynical from the last 10 years and reject this mindset.

  26. Your hatred of the Dem party is entirely justified. How are the Trumpers better? We need a third party, a fourth party. I don’t see any reason to vote for either at this time. Trump and Johnson are protecting Epstein and his clients. They’re railroading the Robinson kid for Kirk’s murder, they have no plan to break up the monopolies of the food industry, corporate farms, they’ve submitted no immigration reform plan.

    You’re good at throwing bombs at the Dems, God knows they deserve it, but how about some America First policies? We blow up the Middle East, then let them come here. We do the same in Latin America, then let them come here e too. This ICE business is just theater, a power grab, and they’re grabbing up American citizens too.

    Are Sanctuary city laws even legal? Why isn’t there a case before the Supreme Court? Methinks Immigration is to Republicans what abortion is to Dems, something to fundraise on and demonize. The lack of a comprehensive plan for immigration and for a guest worker program tells me this is a farce. Local law enforcement does not hold illegal immigrants who commit crimes. This cannot be legal either. We need a ruling on that too.

    Also, health care. Access to medical care is getting worse and worse. Where’s the plan to address Health Care? MTG is right on this.

    Israel is dragging us into hell too. This is reminiscent of their former Yugoslavia. Remember Milosevic? This killing is on that level.

    You are dealing with feelings. Much of your ire towards the Dem party is spot on, but you blindly accept this false binary choice. Lousy and less so.

    This intellectual heft you speak about is lacking.

    1. Great points Mr. Maitino. Righteousness requires honesty, objectivity, and fairness which don’t seem to be a priority in John’s columns.
      Hope to see more of your comments in the future.

  27. Went to go see the new “Frankenstein” at the movie theater yesterday. In this version there is a depiction of the good Doctors castle. Yes, the castle that he commits his ultimate sin against God and Man. He aspires to become a God by creating an immortal, living being from cadavers. THE CASTLE BEARS A VERY STRONG RESEMBLANCE TO THE AS YET, UNCOMPLETED, BANKRUPT OBAMA LIBRARY! Coincidence? Premonition? Not quite sure…BTW, I was bored so I went to a movie. Wait til this shows up on video..

  29. The way I see it,…if Mandani wins the NY mayoral election next week….and he will. It will be a gift to the Republicans and for persons who can think clear-headed why socialism/communism is a historical failure.

  30. Just the amount of comments for your column regarding this election highlights what’s at stake. We all see it. Let them have it. The next Detroit but attributed to the lackluster turnout of the democratic voter base. That’s how Johnson got in , it’s New York’s turn.

  31. Well if by “Sanctuary City” you mean cities that are on record as saying they will not enforce federal law, then guess what, then they are legal. And in fact the Supreme Court did hear such relevant cases in New York v USA (1992) and Prinz v USA (1997). Both cases affirmed the anti-commandeering principle of the 10th amendment and reaffirmed the constitutional principle of dual sovereignty: the federal government cannot compel the states enforcement apparatus i.e. the police to enforce federal law. This does not mean that the states (or cities of that matter) can impede the federal government form enforcing (via federal LE officers) federal law, but it does mean that the feds can not compel say the Chicago police, for example, to enforce federal immigration law with out their consent to do so.

    I would appreciate if Mr. Jennings would offer his opinion on this, regarding the reach and present relevance of the anti-commandeering interpretation of the 10th amendment.

  32. My husband and I went to the East Coast to enjoy the fall colors a few weeks ago and drove through Vermont and New Hampshire for the first time. (Both beautiful states) However, we had an eye opening experience. We were unaware of what was going on (especially in Vermont). We were heading to Burlington, VT and were told not to go because of the homeless issue and the defunding of the police in that city. We didn’t want to believe it was true, but alas it was. We saw LGBT flags being flown outside almost every church (we welcome everyone…blah blah blah) We saw the state capital in Montplier with a festival going on outside of the capital building which was nothing but WOKE – Black Lives Matter, Gay rights….etc. Also going into grocery stores, hotels, restaurants and seeing many who own theses establishments and barely speak English. We also noticed that there was absolutely no new building of homes/businesses happening in the state. A sign that nobody is moving there. Pretty sure that you can blame a great deal of this on the great Bernie Sanders. Is this what the city of New York truly wants???? Wake up!!!

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