Zohran Mamdani isn’t a sewer socialist. He’s a student-government socialist, which is worse.
The New York City mayor has said he wants to emulate the so-called sewer socialists from a century ago — local government leftists whom he admires for their purported practicality and determination to make things work for ordinary people. The problem is that people who look seriously into making things work tend not to be socialists. This is why campus Marxists congregate in, say, gender studies and English programs, rather than economics and engineering.
The impractical reality of socialism is also why Mamdani’s signature rent freeze policy is not working. And it is why he does not seem poised for much success on other key issues such as public safety and public schools. The latter is especially likely to get worse with the state planning to scrap high school graduation exams.
Consequently, the mayor and his supporters are celebrating smaller, mostly symbolic efforts at improving life in the Big Apple. Most recently, this has meant Mamdani promoting a plan to give away 70,000 unsold opera tickets. Other initiatives have included city-run grocery stores, cheap World Cup tickets, and free babysitting at city rec centers for a “parents’ night out.”
These political marketing gimmicks have Mamdani’s fan base singing his praises. But they are negligible as governance. They are PR gestures, not significant policies. For example, regarding the opera, there already are programs through which people can get cheap tickets. Meanwhile, anyone who purchased tickets in recent years is not eligible for the new lottery for free tickets. A splashy announcement that tickets are being given away might get some new people to go take in a performance, but it is a stunt, not a real breakthrough in affordable opera, which impecunious New Yorkers who care about the art form already had.
Furthermore, even if we assume the best intentions and outcomes, these programs are optional extras — very optional extras. A few hours of babysitting here and a free opera ticket there are nothing compared to affordable housing, safe streets, and good, or even just OK, schools.
So Mamdani’s vibe is more that of a theater kid elected as a university’s student body president than the mayor of the nation’s largest city. He is the high-energy guy eager to let you know just how much fun stuff there is to do and how many ways there are to get involved — and be sure to check out movie night on the quad this Friday, and also, Free Palestine! He likes stunts and giveaways and lunatic ideologies, all packaged in short-form videos for social media.
Some people also like that sort of thing, so Mamdani, in addition to his Democrat supporters, appeals to people with a fondness for small-scale initiatives that can be sold with a TikTok video. Even some on the right support these programs or at least admire what they see as Mamdani’s political savvy in promoting them.
But there is always a price to be paid. While the mayor bounces from photo-op to photo-op, the real business of the city government goes on, with a budget well in the red. Earlier this year, New York City had to get billions in a bailout from the state government — after which Mamdani promptly boasted that he had balanced the city’s budget. His city-run grocery stores will probably follow the same pattern, with him touting them as a success even as they are sustained only by taxpayer subsidies.
That’s the real Mamdani — a huckster who plays for the cameras while promoting radical-chic ideologies and neglecting the real issues of the city. Nonetheless, he might have enough charisma and a sufficiently sycophantic press to sustain the illusion, at least for a while.
Not all of his ideological comrades can manage this. Brandon Johnson, the incompetent far-left mayor of Chicago, is despised and likely doomed in his reelection bid. Socialist Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson has likewise been failing and is widely unpopular with the residents of her (very leftist) city. Mamdani may well follow them into political toxicity in a year or two.
Or perhaps not. If he does avoid sliding into political ignominy, it will not be because his socialist policies succeed, but because he largely abandons them except for a few symbolic gestures. His path to success is to let others, of a more practical and less ideological nature, do the real business of governing the city while he flits around with photo-ops and pet projects.
That’s the best case for his student-government socialism. The worst case is the sort of disaster that always happens when campus radicals try to run things in accordance with their ideology — but now with America’s greatest city on the line.
