{"id":12711,"date":"2026-07-21T16:28:53","date_gmt":"2026-07-21T11:28:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=12711"},"modified":"2026-07-21T16:28:53","modified_gmt":"2026-07-21T11:28:53","slug":"the-cold-cruelty-behind-mamdanis-smug-democratic-socialist-mask","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=12711","title":{"rendered":"The cold cruelty behind Mamdani&#8217;s smug democratic socialist mask"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><script>\r\n  atOptions = {\r\n    'key' : '644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6',\r\n    'format' : 'iframe',\r\n    'height' : 90,\r\n    'width' : 728,\r\n    'params' : {}\r\n  };\r\n<\/script>\r\n<script src=\"https:\/\/www.highperformanceformat.com\/644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<br \/>\n<br \/><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content%2Fuploads%2Fsites%2F2%2F2026%2F07%2Fmayor-zohran-kwame-mamdani-holds-135038402.jpg?quality%3D90%26strip%3Dall\" \/><\/p>\n<div>\n<p>If city government destroys your business, Mayor Zohran Mamdani and local Democratic Socialists of America honcho Gustavo Gordillo want you to know you had it coming.<\/p>\n<p>Asked back in April about how his <a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2026\/07\/07\/business\/grocers-bodegas-claim-nyc-officials-are-demanding-private-business-info-as-city-preps-government-owned-supermarkets\/\">subsidized city-owned grocery stores<\/a> might harm local businesses, Mamdani smirked, \u201cI look forward to the competition. May the most affordable grocery store win.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Gordillo just echoed this sentiment on Fox News, pontificating, \u201cIf one <a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2026\/05\/30\/opinion\/at-55m-mamdanis-city-owned-grocery-store-is-a-growing-boondoggle\/\">publicly owned store<\/a> is enough to put someone out of business, then maybe they shouldn\u2019t have been in that business in the first place.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>This garbage is typical of people with no experience of private industry, nor even much sense of how <em>government <\/em>works \u2014  such as where taxes come from.<\/p>\n<p>Let\u2019s be clear: <a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2026\/05\/27\/business\/mamdanis-east-harlem-grocery-store-site-already-got-25m-in-nyc-taxpayer-funds\/\">Using tax dollars generated by private businesses<\/a> \u2014 the only source of public revenue \u2014 to <em>undercut<\/em> private business isn\u2019t \u201ccompetition:\u201d It\u2019s sabotage, an active war on the people by the government they elected.<\/p>\n<p>The DSA haters are just as smug when they sneer about mom-and-pop property owners who can\u2019t square the rising costs of energy, insurance, taxes and other city mandates with <a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2026\/06\/26\/real-estate\/rent-freeze-makes-owning-nyc-buildings-unsustainable\/\">a rent freeze<\/a>.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"single__inline-module aligncenter wp-block-nypost-editor-primary-tag\">\n<div class=\"inline-module inline-module--more inline-module--author inline-module--more--thirds\">\n<div class=\"inline-module__inner\">\n<h2 class=\"inline-module__heading subsection-heading subsection-heading--underline subsection-heading--underline--indent-30 \">\n\t\t\tMore From\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<span class=\"subsection-heading__sub\">Post Editorial Board<\/span><br \/>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/h2>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/aside>\n<p>\u201cLandlords in New York have been making a 12% return on their investment,\u201d asserts Gordillo, but he\u2019s citing an analysis of all properties with any rent-stabilized units that found a 12.1% rise in Net Operating Income \u2014 which isn\u2019t any measure of \u201creturn on investment\u201d or even profitability: It excludes such crucial expenses as taxes, capital outlays and interest on debt.<\/p>\n<p>Building owners <em>aren\u2019t <\/em>demanding excessive returns; they just want a fair shot at keeping up with costs.<\/p>\n<p>By talking of \u201ccompetition,\u201d Mamdani and Gordillo use the language of free markets and the \u201cinvisible hand\u201d to rationalize using the <a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2026\/07\/04\/us-news\/tenant-group-pushes-to-use-2-2-billion-to-take-rent-stabilized-units-from-landlords\/\">very <em>visible<\/em> hand of government<\/a> to bankrupt businesspeople, give more power to politicians and ultimately reduce human freedom.<\/p>\n<div class=\"single__inline-module inline-module inline-module--newsletter aligncenter inline-module--nypostbusinessunit aligncenter wp-block-nypost-editor-newsletter\" data-source-unit=\"Inline Newsletter Module Post Opinion\">\n<div class=\"inline-module__inner\">\n<div class=\"inline-module__title-wrapper\">\n<div class=\"inline-module__unsubmitted-title-wrapper\">\n<h3 class=\"inline-module__title headline headline--combo-sm-md\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tGet opinions and commentary from our columnists\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/h3>\n<p class=\"inline-module__cta\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tSubscribe to our daily Post Opinion newsletter!\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><h3 class=\"inline-module__title headline headline--combo-sm-md\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\tThanks for signing up!\t\t\t\t\t<\/h3>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>Of course, this is small potatoes compared to what the DSA envisions as its long-term plans for America.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou have no debt. You don\u2019t need health insurance. You don\u2019t pay a mortgage or have a landlord, because comfortable housing is a human right,\u201d the<a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2026\/07\/16\/us-news\/radical-dsa-manifesto-calls-to-abolish-presidency-us-senate-and-electoral-college\/\"> national DSA promises<\/a> in its official Agenda. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cFood, education, energy, medicine, and transportation aren\u2019t for-profit businesses; they are common goods and utilities.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Sure thing, and the rivers will flow with lemonade and the trees will drop gumdrops in your mouth \u2014 once the socialists have completely rewritten the Constitution, Bill of Rights and all .<\/p>\n<p>These cruel extremists are well on their way to taking over the Democratic Party.<\/p>\n<p>And they\u2019ll succeed if regular Dems don\u2019t start calling out their<a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2026\/07\/19\/opinion\/mamdani-and-his-dsa-comrades-have-one-goal-a-us-communist-revolution\/\"> fundamental, anti-American evil<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<script async=\"async\" data-cfasync=\"false\" src=\"https:\/\/pl30214220.effectivecpmnetwork.com\/9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<div id=\"container-9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\"><\/div>\r\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>If city government destroys your business, Mayor Zohran Mamdani and local Democratic Socialists of America honcho Gustavo Gordillo want you to know you had it coming. Asked back in April about how his subsidized city-owned grocery stores might harm local businesses, Mamdani smirked, \u201cI look forward to the competition. May the most affordable grocery store&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12712,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2026\/07\/mayor-zohran-kwame-mamdani-holds-135038402.jpg?quality=75&strip=all&w=1200","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12711","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-hub"],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12711","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12711"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12711\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/12712"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12711"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12711"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12711"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}