A Socialist Mayor for NYC?
- James Ciambor
- Aug 1
- 2 min read
By James Ciambor
The New York mayoral race is heating up with candidates Andrew Cuomo, Curtis Sliwa, Eric Adams, and Zohran Mamdani. Each of the four candidates have their fair share of controversy. Cuomo has a checkered past due to sexual harassment allegations that forced him to step down from being New York’s governor. Eric Adams was a police officer for twenty years, retiring as a captain but faces corruption accusations.
Mamdani, by his own admission, is a socialist who wants the government to run the city’s local grocery stores. The last time the local government ran a grocery store was in Kansas City and it ended in disaster and a scarcity of goods. Mamdani also had a desire to defund the police. He changed his stance when a Midtown Manhattan shooting took the life of police officer Didarul Islam. In order to avoid controversy or backlash from the public, Mamdani claimed that he has no desire to defund law enforcement. Mamdani seems to flip flop his view on issues in order to appeal to the potential New York City voter. He will do anything to get votes, even if it means denying what he truly believes.
Curtis Sliwa hasn’t held a position in office and his experience comes from forming his own group of vigilantes called the Guardian Angels that defend the city from potential criminals. He entered the mayoral campaign in 2021 and lost to Eric Adams. Sliwa has never held political office despite running for mayor twice.
Of the four mayoral candidates it seems Eric Adams is the most practical choice, but he is trailing in the polls. Cuomo is trying to do damage control in order to restore his tarnished reputation after a series of allegations caused him to step down as New York governor. Sliwa is a Republican running in a city with a four to one Democrat registration advantage. Mamdami is dogged by accusations of hypocrisy and socialism.
Like Sliwa, Mamdani doesn’t really have a long history in politics, serving as a State Assemblyman for a few years. Mamdani came out of obscurity as a self-proclaimed socialist but has never held a real job. For a socialist it seems kind of odd that he is a trust-fund baby with a lavish lifestyle, having received backing from elites who are apart of the so-called one-percent. The term rich socialist is an oxymoron but it seems to apply to Mamdani.
Adams seems to be the only candidate of the four that understands the importance of law and order and the rule of law. He was a police captain and has served the public for a much longer period of time than Mamdani.
Cuomo appears to be running not to serve New York but to fix his bruised ego after he was accused of sexual misconduct. Cuomo is far more experienced than Mamdani but voters are tired of him and the corruption accusations. It appears Cuomo and Sliwa are taking away votes from Adams. If one or two of the alternative candidates do not drop out, the capital of capitalism could find itself with a socialist mayor.
This take is lazy and full of bad assumptions.
Mamdani has a record. He won a competitive race, legislated on housing, transit, and criminal-legal reform, and worked with constituents. Pretending that only people who spent decades in office count as “real politicians” is a weird standard. Fresh voices in government aren’t a flaw. That’s how democracy works.
“Never held a real job” is just a smear. Being elected by thousands of people and writing/negotiating laws is a real job. Also, using someone's family background as a gotcha is tired. We don’t demand that wealthy conservatives be poor to believe their political positions. If we only accept lawmakers who grew up broke, you’re left with… almost nobody in government.
Calling “rich…