Mamdanis vindictive pied--terre hitlist reveals his true colors

Zohran Mamdani’s perma-smile belongs not to the friendly, well-intentioned neighborhood socialist he’s advertised himself as, but a toothy, vindictive predator.The mayor pushed through his pied-à-terre tax — a surcharge attached to second homes valued at over $1 million by the city — this spring.And he’s been licking his chops ever since.“If you have a second home in New York City worth more than $5M, check your mailbox when you’re back in the five boroughs — because you’ve got mail,” he crooned last week before promising the initiative would yield “the best parks, libraries, and schools in the world.”It was a dubious, misleading prediction about a destructive policy that will be shouldered by people of much more modest means than Mamdani would ever admit.But it also paled into comparison to what came next.City Hall has published a list of not just the addresses it expects to be subject to the tax, but the names of their owners.It was a stunt that could have been ripped from the “Joker.”As he had boasted, his administration had already privately informed the relevant homeowners of their impending fate.So what, pray tell, was the purpose of outing them publicly? The obvious yet disturbing answer is that the mayor wants to punish his targets for the crime of investing in his city by opening them up to intimidation, harassment and even acts of violence.It’s reckless to the point of being unfit for any office, much less the one he holds.That’s no judgmental leap; this is a trend, not a one-off.Back in April, the mayor celebrated the impending tax by filming himself standing outside of the building that hosts GOP donor Ken Griffin’s penthouse, and complaining that Griffin’s purchase of it was part and parcel of “a fundamentally unfair system that hurts working New Yorkers.”Hopefully no one held their breath waiting for an explanation of why it’s unfair or how it hurts anyone.Regardless, the intention behind naming and shaming ...