The Burned Hand

New York City is careening toward electing an openly socialist mayor, Zohran Mamdani, who is advocating a passel of policies that have never worked and are guaranteed make the problems they purport to address worse rather than better. Like all socialists, he is a thief, targeting the fruits of the labor of the most successful in order to hand out to others... while keeping some to pay for boondoggles and the trappings of office.

Sane citizens are in such a panic that they'd rather elect the colossally arrogant - and disgraced - jackass Andrew Cuomo instead. Or, to beg Trump to endorse the failed incumbent Eric Adams, as if that would actually help things in this deep-blue city. Or, to get Cuomo or Adams or GOP candidate Curtis Sliwa to drop out, so as not to split the opposition vote. Or, to use some legal stunt to disqualify or deport Mamdani. Less-insane Democratic leadership is also wary/fearful of the snake-oil salesman, so such luminaries as Governor Kathy Hochul are holding back from endorsing or supporting him.

Yet Mamdani still leads in the polls.

Yes, indeed, the city is heading for a train wreck.

I'm a New Yorker born and bred, a true son of Brooklyn, and have lived all my life, barring my college years, in the NYC metro area. I am more New York than the passel of transplants who share a Manhattan shoe box with three others, having moved here from East Bumblebutt, Nowheresville a couple years ago, and who disdainfully call those from the outer boroughs "the bridge-and-tunnel crowd," and FAR more Brooklyn than those who are part of the gentrification of Prospect Heights or Bed-Stuy or Williamsburg or Greenpoint.

But, I live (just) outside the city proper now, and that allows me to sit back and say "you are about to get what you deserve" to all those who are voting for the socialist nincompoop.

Why?

I quote Gandalf the Grey

Despite mountains of evidence that socialism flat-out doesn't work, that it creates misery and poverty, and that it is a destructive force unparalleled in human history, young fools continue to fall prey to its siren song. Some of them grow out of it, but many young fools are stubborn and eventually become old, resentful fools. They all argue the same thing: the past iterations of socialism haven't worked because they've been 'done wrong.'

This bit echoes something I've observed for years.

The more socialistic a society, the worse things are. History and the current state of the world makes that abundantly clear. But, we are supposed to accept that, as the degree of socialism increases, things go bad, badder, worse, even worse, terrible, horrific.... GREAT?

Facts don't matter. The success of liberty-based societies does not matter. Socialists are driven by emotion, and are thus ripe for manipulation and prey to disinformation. That opens the door for slick hucksters, whether they be the oily Gavin Newsom, the savvy AOC, or the brazen Mamdani, to lure people into voting themselves into misery.

Many have quipped that a conservative is a liberal mugged by reality. While I have many points of disagreement with conservatives, I perceive today's Left as the greatest risk to liberty and the biggest damager of our society, so I won't quibble the quip too much. Thus, I say, "go ahead, elect the socialist and get the government you deserve."

Sadly, socialism's siren song will continue to lure people, because every year a batch of fresh fools joins the voting ranks. What I suspect has to happen is what happened in Argentina: things get so bad that the song no longer resonates, and that opens the door for someone (Javier Milei in Argentina's case) who will do what will work. Which is, in a nutshell, getting government out of the way of liberty.