In Federalist Number 5, James Madison wrote:
If men were angels, no government would be necewssary. If angels were to government, neitehr external nor intal controls on government would be necessary.
Madison was right, of course - as he was about so many things.
And there will come a day when we of good will will need to consult with our better angels, and reach out to those with whom we disagree, in comity, and hammer out how to run a society where we do less debating to win, and more honest deliberating to solve things.
But this is not that day.
I come today not to make common cause with Zohran Mamdani, but to pelt him with rhetorical rocks and garbage.
After not quite a week, I have to imagine at least some New Yorkers - the ones whose world has one sun and one moon, and who pay taxes - are hoping for US troops to helicopter in from the ocean and sweep him away to...well, Brooklyn.
Alas for them, the voters have spoken. And paraphrasing Mencken, here come those consequences, good and hard.
He started going after his administration's top priority, "affordability" by...er...making antisemitism great again:
On his first day in office instead of taking care of city needs, Mamdani focused his attention on Jews and reversing previous executive orders that offered some protection to the Jewish people. Here’s the thing: you can’t say the man isn’t transparent. He speaks in volumes so…
— Naya Lekht 🇮🇱 🇺🇸ניה לכת (@LekhtNaya) January 2, 2026
But you might say, "antisemitism is already cheap and affordable in New York City?" Well, that's a win for the Mayor, isn't it?
But one thing that's not affordable in NYC is housing. And the mayor sprang into action. It all started innocently enough:
ODAY, on his very first day as Mayor of New York City, Mayor Zohran Mamdani signed three executive orders to confront the city’s housing crisis: revitalizing the Mayor’s Office to Protect Tenants and establishing two new task forces to accelerate housing construction, get New Yorkers into homes faster, and increase supply by identifying suitable city-owned properties. The Mayor also announced the appointment of nationally recognized tenant organizer and housing advocate Cea Weaver as Director of the newly revitalized Mayor’s Office to Protect Tenants.
The revitalized Office to Protect Tenants will serve as a central coordinating body to defend tenants’ rights, stand up to landlords, and ensure city agencies act swiftly on behalf of renters facing unsafe or illegal conditions.
Here's where it led:
🚨 BREAKING: New Yorkers are shocked after footage goes viral of NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani's Tenant Director stating that white people will be HEAVILY impacted after they transition property "as an individual good to a collective good"
— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) January 5, 2026
Absolutely doomed.pic.twitter.com/hTGJDeSug4
On the one hand, it's kind of a shocking admission.
On the other hand, it's only shocking if you have never listened to what Mamdani actually said when he was campaigning for the office.
"My platform is that every single person should have housing, and I think faced with these two options, the system has hundreds of thousands of people unhoused, right? For what?" Mamdani questioned in a resurfaced video that has been clipped and reposted across conservative social media.
"If there was any system that could guarantee each person housing, whether you call it the abolition of private property or you call it, you know, just a statewide housing guarantee, it is preferable to what is going on right now," Mamdani said.
When you heard him talk about the "warmth of collectivism", did you think he was talking in the abstract?
But that was last week. This week, the crisis is...
"I had a New Yorker the other day come up to ask me if there was any way I could help him get World Cup tickets because he was saying the cost that he saw for a game was $600. This is increasingly out of reach. We have made what used to be a working-class [event] into a luxury experience and there are too many of who it doesn't matter where the World Cup is being played in the world, they know where they're going to watch it. It's TV."
Community note for the win:
BREAKING: NY Mayor Mamdani says he is working to ensure World Cup tickets are "available to all" pic.twitter.com/joSgRgemgg
— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) January 5, 2026
My New Year's resolution is to do less heckling of politicians online.
And I'll start it at the Chinese New Year. I'm only human.
