Funny enough, New York mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani's supporters can be divided into two columns.
There are those who know his policies and think that they'll actually be a boon for New York, and then there are those who don't know anything at all about his policies and are just voting for him because they've been sold the idea that it's the trendy thing to do.
Both are so wrong that it will cost them and the city itself greatly, but you can't tell either of the groups that at this time.
This has left Republicans with few options in terms of stopping New York from falling. As my colleague Rusty Weiss wrote, plans are being looked into to stop Mamdani from taking power if he's elected:
The idea, reportedly the brainstorm of the New York Young Republican Club, is to invoke Section 3 of the 14th Amendment against Mamdani, claiming his anti-ICE stance qualifies him as an insurrectionist.
An obscure part of the Constitution that was resurrected repeatedly by the Democrats in recent years, the "insurrection clause," states that anyone "engaged in insurrection or rebellion" or who has "given aid or comfort to the enemies" of America is ineligible for office.
Rep. Andy Ogles (TN-5) has stated that he is "looking into" utilizing the clause against Mamdani.
Zohran, the radical extremist, currently leads former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo and Curtis Sliwa in polls and seems likely to usher in an incredibly dark era for the city that never sleeps. They may never be able to sleep soundly again if this man becomes mayor.
It's a plan that's likely to fail. As Weiss reported, this has to go through both the House and the Senate, and neither one of them is likely to get the job done, given Republicans' slim margin of votes.
So what do we do?
My vote?
Nothing.
In fact, I can't help but wonder if the Republicans' best move is to look at New York and, with a lazy applause and a thumbs up, say, "You'll do great, kid."
It'll hurt. It'll be destructive. Our nation will probably suffer for it since New York is one of the financial centers of our country, but if one thing has been proven true time and again, it is that sometimes to get the best results, you have to let the pendulum swing. Sometimes, the harder it's swung, the better the result becomes.
I think we saw that twice. Trump's election wins came after Democrats screwed the proverbial pooch so badly that he was practically shoved through the White House doors, especially during the 2024 election. Now, our nation is on the rise, but it first took the Democrats' lack of leadership and overabundance of incompetence to inspire that change.
And we can see Mamdani is setting himself up for some real failure here.
He wants to slash the NYPD's budget and redirect the funds to social programs. The thing is, that's already been done, and it did not turn out well for New York. In fact, as I've reported previously, the NYPD is already having a crisis in staffing, and guaranteed, Mamdani will only put this problem into overdrive:
The number of officers retiring since Jan. 1 rose from 382 in 2024 to 875 through March 31 this year, an increase of about 129%, according to figures provided by the NYPD. Officers who resigned before their official retirement dates increased 7%, from 168 to 178, the data showed.
Combined figures for normal retirements and resignations totaled 1,053 so far this year, up 91% from 2024.
The current NYPD headcount hovers around 34,000, down sharply from 37,000 in 2018, officials note. More than 5,000 officers are expected to be eligible to retire by later this year, law enforcement sources said.
Read: New York Is Going to Have Some Major Crime Problems If Mamdani Wins the Mayor's Race
This is going to create not just a policing exodus, but a population exodus as New York becomes a breeding ground for crime of every kind, especially violent crime. Moreover, this exodus will only be exacerbated through Mamdani's promise of rent controls. As my colleague Ward Clark wrote in his article about this, it is doomed to fail, as the housing issue in New York is already shaky:
"His proposal to freeze the rent on rent-stabilized housing, which is almost 40% of housing stock within New York City, a housing stock that is already under the stress by which the NYU Furman Center has categorized as 200,000 units functionally bankrupt. A rent freeze would be the nail in the coffin on this housing stock," NYAA CEO Kenny Burgos told Fox News Digital.
"So if he's attempting to achieve affordability, what he's instead going to achieve is insolvency.
Read: Mamdani's Affordable Housing Plan Doomed to Fail
Then, there's the federal funding cuts President Donald Trump promised if Mamdani is elected. His anti-ICE stance would force Trump's hand. New York relies on a preliminary budget of a whopping $7.4 billion in federal aid to support things like the social services and housing that Mamdani is promising New Yorkers on the cheap.
Mamdani's plans will effectively crumble as his promises turn to dust under the Trump administration.
The Democrat Party's response will be to blame the Trump administration, and indeed the Republican Party as a whole, but it's kind of hard to believe Democrats are the innocent party when they're in control of a city where the budget, crime, and housing are wildly out of control. Again, we can look to the 2024 election to see just how well Democrats in power pointing at Republicans went for them.
So, I say, good luck, New York. You're going to need it. I'll be in my cozy red state under Republican control, not being murdered and taxed into oblivion.
