Michael Goodwin: Mamdani is carving out a historic path an NYC mayor who hates the city, its people and is trying to destroy both
Over its long history, New York City has had every kind of mayor under the sun.Most have been reasonably competent, some have been bold and brilliant and some turned out to be crooked to the core.But to my knowledge, Zohran Mamdani is in a class of one.
He is the first mayor in modern times who appears to hate the city and many of the 8 million people who call it home.As he constantly makes clear, he is not here to fix things.He is here to smash the city as it is and build a socialist utopia in its place.A troubling result is that seven months into his tenure, Mamdani remains in constant campaign mode.
His appearances and public remarks are aimed exclusively at his supporters, here and in leftist outposts around America and the world.Governing in the broad public interest of the people who actually live in the city does not appear to be part of his plan.What does interest him is creating and seizing opportunities to keep his base fired up as he pursues the radical political and social agenda that carried him to City Hall last year.He surely counts his class-warfare approach as smart, but in fact he is squandering the opportunity to expand the goodwill he inevitably will need.It’s a cliche but true that there never is a second chance to make a good first impression.The impression Mamdani is making to the unconverted is hugely negative.
A glaring example is that many 9/11 families say they don’t want the mayor to attend the 25th anniversary.No mayor has ever faced such a movement.Although the mayor speaks in platitudes about his goals of free this and free that, his hatred of Israel is an obsession that is never far beneath the surface.The most recent of many examples is his decision to go public with his desire to arrest Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu if he sets foot in the five boroughs.When he spoke, the mayor already knew he had no authority to do that because the United States does not recognize the International Criminal Court, which indicted Netanya...