A wise man once said, “Try everything once, except for Russian roulette, incest, and residing in New York City.”
I live just outside Cincinnati, Ohio, about 640 miles from the Big Rotten Apple, and I don’t intend to go one mile closer.
(Note: I did live in Chicago, another chaotic big city, in the early 1990s. I lasted three months before I pulled the plug. So big-city living is definitely not for me.)
Therefore, the question of who is going to be the next Mayor of New York City falls under the category of “problems that don’t directly concern me”.
But I’m having fun watching the misguided enthusiasm and general alarm surrounding Democratic Socialist Zohran Mamdani, who has become a parasitic presence in the Democratic Party.
(Ever notice that Democratic Socialists of America candidates never want to run as Democratic Socialists of America candidates? That’s because they know, full well, that a candidate bearing the DSA label wouldn’t be elected dog catcher.)
Fox News, et al are having a field day calling Zohran Mamdani a “Muslim socialist”. But hey, the guy is a Muslim, and he is a socialist. When someone refers to me as a 56-year-old bald man, I don’t necessarily like that, but I can’t accuse them of lying, either.
Among Mamdani’s brilliant ideas is the establishment of government-run grocery stores. That particular brain fart is literally plagiarized from the Soviet Union.
(Why not reduce taxes and crime instead, so that private-sector grocery chains will have more of an incentive to locate stores in New York City?
Why? Because that would involve common sense, a commodity in which Zohran Mamdani is sorely lacking.)
Mamdani has also gone on record supporting the legalization of prostitution. While I’m not here to cheerlead for the World’s Oldest Profession, I’ve never understood the logic of telling a woman that she is free to sleep with anyone she wants, except for the odd man who happens to hand her a wad of cash. A blanket ban on sex work defies both logic and personal autonomy.
That said, one imagines that in Zohran Mamdani’s New York, not even the most in-demand call girls would be able to save much money, once they’ve paid all their taxes.
I would also have to ask: will the legal sex workers be restricted to government-run brothels? That would make just as much sense as Mamdani’s government-run grocery idea.
-ET