With Zohran Mamdani On The Cusp of Becoming Mayor, NYC Embraces Its Own Demise

Posted on July 3, 2025 by theartfuldilettante

As y child of the Cold War with the Soviets as America’s enemy, when the wall came down and the threat of Communism faded, I was under the illusion that the world had inexorably turned a corner and that history was on the march to bring freedom, capitalism, and prosperity to the whole world.

The events of September 11 exposed that illusion for what it really was: a delusion. There were actually people out there who wanted to start a war with the United States.

With 9/11 and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, Islam went from an almost nonexistent issue for most Americans to front and center. Suddenly, Islam and Muslims are in the news on a daily basis, doing unspeakable things to one another and others.

Image created using AI.

Knowing nothing of this threat and wanting to know more, I picked up books like Dore Gold’s Hatred’s Kingdom and Benny Morris’ Righteous Victims, and even a copy of the Koran, which, honestly, I couldn’t get through. And I read a lot more online from guys like Steve Emerson, Robert Spencer, and David Horowitz.

Over the following years, you had everything from the Shoe Bomber to the Ft. Hood shooter to the San Bernardino attack and countless others. And elsewhere in the West, you had everything from the murder of Theo Van Gogh to the London 7/7 attacks, the Charlie Hebdo attacks, and others. It seemed like Islam was at war against the entire world

But a funny thing happened on the way to the news, despite everything we were seeing with our own eyes, the blood, the carnage, the innocent victims, we were told that Islam wasn’t the problem. Instead, the problem was the individual terrorists who just happened to be Muslim. “Islam isn’t violent,” we were told, despite the fact that most of the wars going on in the world involve Muslims, and the Koran itself both directs and allows killing in Allah’s name. Seemingly, we see Muslim violence everywhere, but we’re told that there’s no connection to Islam, even though most of the time the perpetrators actually invoke Allah’s name during their attacks.

So the West, seeking to demonstrate its lack of “Islamophobia,” decided to open the floodgates to Muslims from around the world with the blind expectation that they would integrate into Western societies—despite decades of proof showing the exact opposite. That held for the United States as well. You visit places like Dearborn, Michigan, or Minneapolis, Minnesota, or increasingly even places as far afield as Texas, and it sometimes feels like you’re not actually in America.

But if one looks, it’s not hard to understand why. For the West, for most of the last 500 years, there have been two poles seeking to influence life: the state and the church. The result of that pull between the state and Christianity is a civilization with extraordinary scientific and economic advancement, unprecedented levels of individual freedom, and the miraculous levels of prosperity that came with them.

But for Islam, there is no such separation. There is one law, and it covers everything. Freedom of speech and religion don’t exist. Both are tolerated when the number of Muslims is small in a nation, in part because speech benefits Muslims, but once the numbers grow, speech is strangled, for it no longer helps them. About 15 years ago, Evangelist Peter Hammond demonstrated how this works:

1. As long as the Muslim population remains around or under 2% in any given country, they will be for the most part be regarded as a peace-loving minority, and not as a threat to other citizens.

2. At 2% to 5%, they begin to proselytize from other ethnic minorities and disaffected groups, often with major recruiting from the jails and among street gangs.

3. From 5% on, they exercise an inordinate influence in proportion to their percentage of the population. For example, they will push for the introduction of halal food, thereby securing food preparation jobs for Muslims. They will increase pressure on supermarkets to feature halal on their shelves—along with threats for failure to comply.

4. When Muslims approach 10% of the population, they tend to increase lawlessness as a means of complaint about their conditions.

There’s more, but you get the point. Couple that with the fact that Islam has basically been on a 1400-year quest to take over the world, and one wonders why Western leaders not only opened up their countries to followers of an ideology that literally seeks their destruction, but funded them, too!

Islam’s not a religion; it’s a supremacist, expansionist, and tyrannical ideology that is anathema to the very foundations of Western civilization. Don’t take my word for it. Take the words of Imams across the West. They seek to use demographics to overwhelm natives politically, then impose a caliphate. Very soon, Western leaders are going to have to confront the fact that they have injected their polity with a virus that seeks to kill it.

Europe successfully defended itself against the first Islamic invasion in 732, thanks to the leadership that the French Duke Charles Martel provided at Tours. It did so again in Vienna in 1683, with King John III Sobieski of Poland taking the lead. Those men were true leaders.

Today, with few exceptions, the West is led by cowards and traitors to their civilizations, more interested in being feted by their fellow globalists than in defending their heritage. Indeed, today, Europe isn’t even fighting for itself. It’s invited the enemy into its bosom and allowed him to thrive.

Why? White guilt, of course. To the point that the West will literally sacrifice its daughters so as not to be called Islamophobic. Across the West, we’ve seen Hammond’s observations play themselves out. Sweden, formerly one of the safest countries in the world is today overwhelmed with rapes and bombings, and native Swedes aren’t responsible. Is any Western city better off for having invited in hundreds of thousands of Muslims? London? Paris? Amsterdam? No. The story is the same across Europe, yet most “leaders” pretend otherwise.

Winston Churchill, a son of Britain and America, understood the threat. While he admitted “Individual Muslims may show splendid qualities,” he knew the score. “No stronger retrograde force exists in the world. Far from being moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytizing faith.”

And why does any of this matter? New York, of course. One need only look at the dystopian nightmare that London has become to understand what lies ahead for New York. Once America’s greatest city, the disaster it already is has been driven by grievance, victimization, and illegal immigration. And now the guilt-ridden college-educated whites have essentially elected a terrorist supporting communist as mayor.

This does not bode well for freedom, prosperity, New York, or America. Freedom of speech and religion are literally written into our founding documents. They are fundamental to our nation. Islam tolerates neither. At the end of the day, Islam is not a religion; it’s an ideology that seeks to overthrow the West. It’s well on its way in Europe. We should not allow it to do so here.

Follow Vince on X at @ImperfectUSA

SUPPORT AMERICAN THINKER

Thank you.$5$10$50Other

Sneaky Way Virginia Homeowners Are Getting Their Old Roof ReplacedSmart Lifestyle Trends

Here’s What It Would Cost to Replace All Windows in Your HouseHomeBuddy

View & Add Comments (8)

Around the Web

Here’s What Gutter Guards Should Cost if You Qualify for Senior RebatesLeafFilter Partner

Ashburn, Virginia: Cheapest Way to Replace Old Roofs for HomeownersSmart Lifestyle Trends

Branded GLP-1 Medications: What Are Your Options?GoodRx

Here’s The Estimated Cost of a 1-day Walk-in Shower UpgradeHomeBuddy

5 Companies That Send People Money When They’re Asked NicelyThe Penny Hoarder

Virginia Houses Built Before 2004 Can Get New WindowsSmart Lifestyle Trends

People Born 1921-1979 Are Due a Large Surprise, Check if You QualifyThe Consumer Guide

Neurologist: 97% of People With Neuropathy Don’t Know This Crucial ThingNeuropathyGuide

Here’s What It Would Cost to Replace All Windows in Your HouseHomeBuddy

Wrap Foil Around Your Doorknob When Alone, Here’s WhyWellnessGaze News

8 Clever Ways to Pay Your BillsThe Penny Hoarder

Never Put Mustard in Your Fridge, Here’s WhyLife Hacks Garden

If you experience technical problems, please write to helpdesk@americanthinker.com

FOLLOW US ON

Blog Posts

Monthly Archives

Top Contributors

Last 7 Days

Last 30 Days

nullAbout Us | Contact | Privacy Policy | RSS Syndication © American Thinker 2025https://js.stripe.com/v3/controller-with-preconnect-cd94446f96a3255bf306537116abce50.html#__shared_params__[version]=v3&apiKey=pk_live_ylKFAuZgL0gwhmJlAURCf48f&apiVersion=2020-08-27&stripeJsId=04863bde-465d-4dd3-bafe-05c6297805f5&stripeObjId=sobj-82cfbc14-66ae-4bf5-8657-12e0c7938354&firstStripeInstanceCreatedLatency=42&controllerCount=1&isCheckout=false&stripeJsLoadTime=1751545836099&manualBrowserDeprecationRollout=false&mids[guid]=NA&mids[muid]=e1f5519f-e3eb-42e3-8b18-559887f0707b4f762d&mids[sid]=NA&referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.americanthinker.com%2Farticles%2F2025%2F07%2Fwith_zohran_mamdani_on_the_cusp_of_becoming_mayor_nyc_embraces_its_own_demise.html&controllerId=__privateStripeController2701https://js.stripe.com/v3/controller-with-preconnect-cd94446f96a3255bf306537116abce50.html#__shared_params__[version]=v3&apiKey=pk_live_ylKFAuZgL0gwhmJlAURCf48f&stripeJsId=04863bde-465d-4dd3-bafe-05c6297805f5&stripeObjId=sobj-141cba0a-387d-43c6-9266-710d359829ba&firstStripeInstanceCreatedLatency=42&controllerCount=2&isCheckout=false&stripeJsLoadTime=1751545836099&manualBrowserDeprecationRollout=false&mids[guid]=NA&mids[muid]=e1f5519f-e3eb-42e3-8b18-559887f0707b4f762d&mids[sid]=NA&referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.americanthinker.com%2Farticles%2F2025%2F07%2Fwith_zohran_mamdani_on_the_cusp_of_becoming_mayor_nyc_embraces_its_own_demise.html&controllerId=__privateStripeController2704javascript: 0https://js.stripe.com/v3/hcaptcha-invisible-6c9804dd4beebc723222e1aef77c60e0.html#debugMode=false&parentOrigin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.americanthinker.comhttps://js.stripe.com/v3/m-outer-3437aaddcdf6922d623e172c2d6f9278.html#url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.americanthinker.com%2Farticles%2F2025%2F07%2Fwith_zohran_mamdani_on_the_cusp_of_becoming_mayor_nyc_embraces_its_own_demise.html&title=With%20Zohran%20Mamdani%20On%20The%20Cusp%20of%20Becoming%20Mayor%2C%20NYC%20Embraces%20Its%20Own%20Demise%20-%20American%20Thinker&referrer=https%3A%2F%2Ffreerepublic.com%2F&muid=e1f5519f-e3eb-42e3-8b18-559887f0707b4f762d&sid=NA&version=6&preview=false&__shared_params__[version]=v3https://js.stripe.com/v3/m-outer-3437aaddcdf6922d623e172c2d6f9278.html#url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.americanthinker.com%2Farticles%2F2025%2F07%2Fwith_zohran_mamdani_on_the_cusp_of_becoming_mayor_nyc_embraces_its_own_demise.html&title=With%20Zohran%20Mamdani%20On%20The%20Cusp%20of%20Becoming%20Mayor%2C%20NYC%20Embraces%20Its%20Own%20Demise%20-%20American%20Thinker&referrer=https%3A%2F%2Ffreerepublic.com%2F&muid=e1f5519f-e3eb-42e3-8b18-559887f0707b4f762d&sid=NA&version=6&preview=false&__shared_params__[version]=v3https://js.stripe.com/v3/m-outer-3437aaddcdf6922d623e172c2d6f9278.html#url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.americanthinker.com%2Farticles%2F2025%2F07%2Fwith_zohran_mamdani_on_the_cusp_of_becoming_mayor_nyc_embraces_its_own_demise.html&title=With%20Zohran%20Mamdani%20On%20The%20Cusp%20of%20Becoming%20Mayor%2C%20NYC%20Embraces%20Its%20Own%20Demise%20-%20American%20Thinker&referrer=https%3A%2F%2Ffreerepublic.com%2F&muid=e1f5519f-e3eb-42e3-8b18-559887f0707b4f762d&sid=NA&version=6&preview=false&__shared_params__[version]=v3

null

LA Mayor Humiliatingly Announces Her City Is So Covered in Graffiti that It Might Not Be Ready to Host the World Cup

Posted on July 2, 2025 by theartfuldilettante

In an embarrassing moment, woke Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass admitted that her city was in such bad shape following the anti-ICE riots that it might not be ready to host the World Cup, pointing to how much graffiti had been left behind by rioters acting out in opposition to President Trump’s crackdown on illegal immigration.

For background, on June 10, 2025, LA Mayor Karen Bass reflected on the impact of the anti-Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) protests that broke out on June 6 and culminated in the dispatching of the National Guard and the Marines by President Trump. During the conference, Mayor Bass admitted that there was such “extensive” graffiti that Los Angeles might not be prepared to host an event as significant as the 2026 World Cup.

During the press conference, Mayor Bass began by saying that the city had “not received words (sic) of raids” by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, adding, ” I think you all understand that the city is not notified when ICE goes to a workplace. What we rely on, frankly, is reporting from the communityespecially the immigrant rights organizations that have formed the rapid response network.”

Continuing, Mayor Bass conceded that the “violence we saw last night,” referring to the protests, was “unacceptable,” adding, “I do not believe that individuals that commit vandalism and violence in our city really are in support of immigrants. They have another agenda. If you support immigrants and the rights of immigrants to be in our city, you would not be tearing the city apart or vandalizing it.”

In addition, the mayor tried to downplay the significance and severity of the riots, saying, “Those of us in Los Angeles understand that the unrest that has happened are a few blocks within the downtown area. It is not all of downtown, and it is not all of the city. She continued, “Unfortunately, the visuals make it seem as though our entire city is in flames, and it is not the case at all. I think it’s important to say that.”

Then, Mayor Bass touched on the subject of “the violence and damage” caused by the riots, which she again described as “unacceptable,” saying, “It is not going to be tolerated, and individuals will be arrested and prosecuted to the full extent of the law. No individual that is involved in vandalism should think bee they went home that night that they’re off scot-free, because investigations will take place.”

Embarrassingly, the mayor then admitted that the “extensive vandalism downtown,” specifying “the graffiti that is just blanking a number of blocks” might stop the city from hosting the World Cup, saying, “This is about beautifying our city and bringing our city together. I am calling on business leaders, community leaders, faith leaders to come together downtown in the next few days to talk about how we are going to clean up the city.”

The mayor added that “city workers are already out there removing the graffiti,” but she clarified, “This is so extensive it’s going to take community-wide involvement.” The mayor then said, “We need people from all over the city to come to downtown and to help with this effort.”

Tom Arends, American Tribune

Mamdani apologists play the fake Islamophobia card.

Posted on July 2, 2025 by theartfuldilettante

Mamdani apologists play the fake Islamophobia card. The liberal media and others spin attempts to call out the Democratic mayoral nominee’s hatred for Israel as hatred for Muslims.

It didn’t take long for the Democratic Party’s media cheering section to demonstrate how far the Overton Window had moved among liberals with respect to antisemitism. Centrist Democrats and the liberal Jewish establishment were genuinely shocked by Zohran Mamdani’s victory in last week’s Democratic Party mayoral primary in New York City. Within days, however, it was clear that legacy outlets reflecting mainstream opinion on the political left weren’t going to tolerate much in the way of criticism of his extremist views about Israel and the Jews.

Within days, it was clear that anyone who claimed that Mamdani should be rejected out of hand as a possible mayor of New York on the grounds of stands that were, at best, antisemitism-adjacent or, at worst, open endorsements of Jewish genocide, rather than the candidate himself, were going to be the ones under fire. Within 48 hours of Mamdani’s win, The New York Times was already using the word “Islamophobic” in headlines to describe his critics.

Legitimizing antisemitism

It is fear among Democrats about being labeled as Islamophobic that explains why so few prominent members of the party and officeholders are refusing to condemn Mamdani now that the 33-year-old New York state representative has become their party’s nominee. That’s not just smoothing his path to victory for a fellow Democrat, despite the horror that many New Yorkers feel about him. It’s also achieving something the political left has been assiduously working toward, especially since the Hamas-led Palestinian Arab attacks on southern Israeli communities on Oct. 7, 2023: the legitimization of antisemitism in the American public square.

Jonathan S. Tobin

Settler-Colonialist Zohran Mamdani Calls For “Seizing The Means Of Production”

Posted on July 2, 2025 by theartfuldilettante

Last week I invited readers to get a good laugh out of New York Governor Kathy Hochul’s plan to avert impending energy disaster by green-lighting one nuclear power plant that optimistically might solve 5% of the problem when it is ready to operate in the 2050s. Now this week brings an even superior farce: A video clip has emerged of our settler-colonialist Democratic mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani calling for “seizing the means of production.”

Mamdani’s victory in last week’s Democratic primary has led researchers to dredge up a treasure trove of his old tweets and video clips, each one more ridiculous than the next. An excellent roundup can be found here at Legal Insurrection . Some choice examples include: “VioIence is an artificial construct”; “Under capitalism, housing is a commodity from which landlords & developers extract huge profits while our communities suffer eviction, foreclosure & displacement.”; “We need to dramatically curtail the power & presence of the NYPD.”; and “[A] statue of Columbus remains in Astoria, in defiance of the values of humanity, empathy & justice that we stand for.”

But my favorite is a clip from a speech Mamdani gave at a Democratic Socialists of America conference in 2021. The New York Post today quotes some excerpts from the speech, among them Mamdani’s statements that issues socialists “firmly believe in,” include “boycotts, divestment and sanctions against Israel” and “the end goal of seizing the means of production.”

“Seizing the means of production” — now there’s a retro concept. The “means of production” was good commie talk back in the 19th century, when Karl Marx and his followers looked around and saw things like steel mills, railroad engine factories, iron foundries, coal mines, textile mills, and other such big facilities to make lots of stuff. It seemed obvious that those facilitie were where the greedy capitalists got their wealth.

But has Mamdani even looked around the New York City of today? What even exists today that you could call a “means of production”?

In New York City today, we produce almost nothing that is tangible. I wonder if Mamdani has noticed that.

In May 2016 I did a big post with lots of research titled “The Devastation Of New York City’s Economy.” The post documented the complete transformation of New York City’s economy from the 1950s to the time of the post, and in particular the almost complete disappearance of manufacturing. As noted in the post, in the aftermath of World War II, New York City’s economy had over 1 million manufacturing jobs, distributed among some 37,000 different companies. Those companies and people made a huge variety of products, most famously women’s clothing, where New York City was completely dominant and supported about 231,000 jobs. By the time of the post in 2016, the total number of manufacturing jobs in New York City in all industries was down to about 80,000. According to the most recent statistics from the New York State Department of Labor, the current number of manufacturing jobs in the City (May 2025) is only 57,700. That’s out of total private-sector employment of some 4,248,300.

Such manufacturing as continues to exist in New York City is reduced to a few specialized niches. For example, there continue to be specialized clothing manufacturers to make things like costumes for Broadway shows and samples for runway fashion shows. Are their sewing machines what Mamdani means by the “means of production”?

In the way of mass production of physical goods for human consumption, almost none of it occurs in New York City. Food? Obviously, we don’t grow that here. Clothing? Almost certainly, nothing in your wardrobe or mine was manufactured in New York City. Housing or other buildings? They are put together on site, but the materials almost all come from elsewhere (structural concrete is one exception). Automobiles? There are no assembly plants in the five boroughs; and if you know of a manufacturer of some kind of parts for the auto industry in New York City, I would like to learn of it.

But aren’t there some kind of “means of production” to make all the wealth that gets generated in the hundreds of big office buildings in Manhattan? I would love to see Mamdani’s plans to seize whatever this may be. When he sends in his shock troops to make the seizures, all he’s going to find are a bunch of laptops no different from what you could get at the Apple store.

How about the investment bankers and traders and hedge funders who make millions of dollars per year dealing in the capital markets? I suppose that their “means of production” mainly consists of the proprietary software that they use in their businesses. The bankers may know how to make big money using this software, but seized and distributed among the masses, it would be almost completely useless. It’s really quite funny to contemplate.

Anyway, these are the levels of ignorance and foolishness that we are dealing with.

Francis Menton, Manhattan Contrarian

It’s the Spending, Stupid

Posted on July 2, 2025 by theartfuldilettante

The brilliant free market economist Ludwig von Mises said it best, nearly a century ago:

“The advocates of public control cannot do without inflation. They need it in order to finance their policy of reckless spending and of lavishly subsidizing and bribing the voters.”

“Inflation is an increase in the quantity of money without a corresponding increase in the demand for money, i.e., for cash holdings.”

“Inflation is the fiscal complement of statism and arbitrary government. It is a cog in the complex of policies and institutions which gradually lead toward totalitarianism .”

“Inflation has always been an important resource of policies of war and revolution and why we also find it in the service of socialism.”

“If one regards inflation as an evil, then one has to stop inflating. One has to balance the budget of the government.”

The issue isn’t whether to be FOR or AGAINST the “big beautiful bill.” The issue is that this bill — as with any bill the Congress passes without addressing spending — is impossible to achieve without continued inflation.

Put it this way: The government cannot tax us at 90 or 100 percent; if they did, there probably would be a revolution, and the economy would collapse overnight. Neither will the government cut spending — not even a little. So the only option left? Keep increasing the spending while increasing the supply of money via the Federal Reserve. As von Mises wrote: Inflation is a policy, not a symptom. Politicians are doing this to us on purpose, to maintain and increase their power (and personal wealth).

The Trump administration had the right idea with DOGE. But as we learned, in the end, you cannot cut government spending without Congress cutting the spending.

The Congress does not appear willing to cut spending. Not even a Republican Congress claiming to be aligned with MAGA, which (Trump has demonstrated) does support massive cuts in federal spending (and power).

Sooner or later, we’ll have to face this fact. Either inflation will get so out of control and bother people so badly, through the despair and impoverishment it brings, that government will finally cut spending (as they’re now attempting in Argentina); or our Congress and politicians will start to become more rational and cut spending without waiting for a financial calamity.

I’m not betting on the latter.

Michael J. Hurd, Daily Dose of Reason

So now it’s a Muslim Marxist to lead New York: A requiem

Posted on July 2, 2025 by theartfuldilettante

So now it’s a Muslim Marxist to lead New York: A requiem

By Eric Utter

New York has fallen.

At the very least, New York City has collapsed.

If Iran’s Ayatollah Ali Khamenei should someday soon be kicked out of Persia, it is possible he could come to New York, where he would likely be elected mayor.

The sequence of NYC mayors is astounding.

From Guliani to Bloomberg to de Blasio to Adams.

And perhaps soon to Zohran Mamdani, an avowed Marxist who has previously indicated his desire to “globalize the intifada.” (Mamdani defeated three-term ex-Gov. Andrew Cuomo in the June 24^th mayoral primary.)

How to make a sh*thole city in four easy steps!

The Chief of Police for the NYPD has already stated that, should Mamdani be elected, his pro-crime anti-cop policies would cause mass exodus from the city’s police force. The resultant effect would be catastrophic.

The Big Apple, not so long ago, was one of the safest big cities in the world. Now it is rotten to its core. “My kind of town,” “The city that never sleeps,” etc., is now no place for “infidels.” And a city that ever weeps. A sanctuary city for criminals. An asylum for the insane and outlandish.

When I set out writing this article, I did not intend to reference a musical piece. However, after reading that, should Mamdani win the general election, New York might well surrender its status as the financial hub of the U.S. to Miami, I had to include a few lines from the Billy Joel song, “Miami 2017 (Seen The Lights Go Out On Broadway)”

I’ve seen the lights go out on Broadway
I saw the ruins at my feet

You can see it coming in so many ways. The Empire City is no more. And, from a future perspective:

null

You know those lights were bright on Broadway
That was so many years ago
Before we all lived here in Florida
Before the Mafia took over Mexico
There are not many who remember
They say a handful still survive
To tell the world about
The way the lights went out
And keep the memory alive

I fear Billy was just off by about a decade.

What’s next for Gotham City? Today’s fun—if tragic—fact: the term “Gotham” was borrowed from the English village of “Gotham,” known for its “simple-minded fools.”

If the shoe fits.

SUPPORT AMERICAN THINKER

Now more than ever, the ability to speak our minds is crucial to the republic we cherish. If what you see on American Thinker resonates with you, please consider supporting our work with a donation of as much or as little as you can give. Every dollar contributed helps us pay our staff and keep our ideas heard and our voices strong.

Thank you.$5$10$50Other

Virginia Houses Built Before 2004 Can Get New WindowsSmart Lifestyle Trends

People Born 1921-1979 Are Due a Large Surprise, Check if You QualifyThe Consumer Guide

View & Add Comments (11)