Tarquin the Proud, Rome's last king and consummate tyrant, was asked by his son how he could control a conquered people. Tarquin didn't really say anything; he simply led his son out into the poppy fields, where he began finding poppy plants that had grown taller than the rest and began lopping off the tops of them until they were level with the others.
Tarquin didn't need to say anything. The meaning was clear. If you want to keep the population under your thumb, simply make sure that none of them get to a point where they recognize their own capability, especially those who have higher than normal intelligence, ambition, or leadership skills.
While NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani might not be an ancient Roman dictator, I can't help but notice that he takes cues from the same playbook. The sly thing about authoritarians is that they don't necessarily need tanks or guns to keep a population in line; you can do it just as easily by creating a dearth of talent. You can create something of a fear of excellence, and not being just like everyone else, by making it taboo to do so.
And the best place to start doing that is when they're young, and that's exactly what Mamdani is doing.
According to the Daily Mail, Mamdani is going to phase out the gifted and talented programs from young children's schools, putting them back into general classrooms to be just like all the other kids:
New York City's Democratic Socialist Mayor Zohran Mamdani has infuriated parents with a plan to axe the school system's gifted-and-talented program for young students.
Mamdani announced his intention to eliminate the program at the kindergarten level, moving entry to the program to the third grade in October.
However, as it's been pointed out by detractors, Mamdani is effectively stripping opportunities from children that he, himself, enjoyed:
The decision infuriated some critics who blasted Mamdani for taking away opportunities from children while pointing out that the 34-year-old received a glitzy private education.
'This spoiled little brat went to expensive private schools (St. George’s Grammar School in Cape Town & Bank Street School for Children in Manhattan) and now will stomp out the last remaining equivalent opportunities available to NYC public schools students,' one person wrote on X.
'Hypocrites on steroids. This will just drive more people into private schools,' a second person wrote.
Notably, Mamdani spent his formative years at at Bank Street School for Children, a private, ultra-progressive academy on Manhattan's Upper West Side that now costs more than $66,000 per year.
The unfortunate aspect of this is that there is no compelling reason to do so beyond an ideological notion that children should be made more equal through an equitable education system. The feeling of getting an equal opportunity by limiting the opportunities of those who can or should have doors opened for them to utilize their gifts and talents better is one of the most selfish and stupid things that comes out of left-leaning ideological circles.
Moreover, this will likely only do two things.
First, it will drive the children of wealthy parents out of public schools and into private schools, where opportunities will be more abundant, depleting public schools of even more children and removing the need for more teachers and funding.
The other is that the poor kids of working-class families who do show promise will be withheld from realizing their full potential due to the aforementioned feelings of other children.
It's the poppy stalks that couldn't grow outside the garden being beheaded.
But this is the standard for extreme leftism. Mamdani might not be trying to keep the populace underperforming and incapable of staying in power himself, but all that matters to people like him is that the ideology he represents is allowed to take root and flourish, making it easier for his socialist/communist ideals to propagate further.
This always requires punishing or suppressing talent, normalizing mediocrity, and making the feeling of "fairness" and "equality" more important than merit and advancement. The Marxist Utopia will not come about if people keep figuring out a better way, and all it takes is just a handful of people to wreck the program.
The children were always going to be a priority for Mamdani when he got into office, as this is the way it is with every authoritarian, and this is how he's going to start. He's going to push the children capable of climbing the hill back down it.
