"Socialism is a wonderful idea. It's only as a reality that it has been disastrous." - Thomas Sowell

By James Howard Kunstler - November 7, 2025

Brothers in Arms: Alex Soros (L), Zohran (R)

Does Zohran’s radiant smile put you in mind of a labradoodle puppy? The guy was just that soft and fluffy during the mayoral election campaign, beaming remorselessly for the cameras, summoning a cushy nirvana of give-aways that would deliver an “affordable” life to the moiling masses of under-employed latte-clutchers doomed by their unpayable college loans and the gender-study diplomas they innocently bought with all that money. Under Zohran, New York City will soon be one colossal student lounge, and even the baristas serving the lattes will get nice one-bedroom river-view apartments, ride to work on free buses, and buy their take-out chili-crisp fried tofu for cheap at the city-run food store.

Look (above): there is Zohran with his billionaire friend and patron Alex Soros. Alex does not seem to realize that Zohran wants to eat him for lunch. Fluffy as they might be, labradoodles are actually carnivores. And Zohran has declared that billionaires should not exist. He says the billionaires of New York are going to pay for those lattes, free buses, river-view apartments, and all the rest of the package. Is he planning to hold them hostage? Staple their John Lobb bespoke alligator leather loafers to the parqueted floor of the penthouse at 15 Central Park West while he loots their accounts?

No! They are going to make like Snake Pliskin and escape from New York with all their assets and chattels. Florida, Nashville, Boise! It’s a big country and, let’s face it, your laptop is your office. Then what? Maybe it will be like the old glory days of Soviet Russia in New York. The people will pretend to work and Zohran will pretend to pay them and everybody will be all happy and equal. That city-run food store will become the city-run free food store, just like the hippies dreamed about in 1967, the summer of love! Jews and Jihadis will march together, arm-in-arm, into a gleaming future. . . !

Then there was the victory speech. Not so labradoodle smiley. More like Fidel Castro (if anyone remembers that guy) in harangue mode. But know this: Zohran is a talented demagogue. He got game! He can bring it! He exudes charm like the Knicks’ Jalen Brunsen sweats at the three-point line! He can put it over, whip up a crowd, paint dazzling word-panoramas of a democratic-socialist promised land in the offing. He will have a glorious Christmas season awaiting the swearing-in at one minute past midnight, New Years Day.

Waitaminnit! Zohran probably doesn’t do Christmas, and certainly not Hanukkah. But it’s conceivable that he will huddle at Zabar’s with his constituents, the altekakers of the Upper West Side who (perhaps foolishly) voted for him, and together figure out how to arrest Benjamin Netanyahu the next time he comes to the UN — a campaign promise! And he can prepare to ride out of the gate on Jan 1 at warp speed to freeze a million rents, change-out social workers for cops, set up the free child-care, and perform all the other miracles promised.

I hate to break the spell, but here’s what you are really going to get in New York City with Mayor Zohran Mamdani: far and away the most corrupt administration ever in the history of the place, making the Boss Tweed era look like a model of efficiency and rectitude. I will tell you why: Zohran has zero managerial experience. In the decade, roughly, since he graduated from Bowdoin College up in faraway piney Maine, Zohran has worked as a campaign volunteer, a rapper (“Kanda Chap Chap” under the name Young Cardamom), a voter field-operator, a music supervisor for his Mom’s documentary film, and, since 2021, a New York State Assemblyman for District 36 in the Borough of Queens who rarely shows up in the chamber to vote for anything.

The New York City government comprises over a hundred agencies with a budget of $112.4-billion. The opportunities for grift are fantastic beyond comprehension. Now, appoint and hire thousands of Gen Z DEI types to run all those services, young folk who worked for Zohran’s campaign and were promised jobs in the new admin. What will you get? Cosmic level incompetence at best, and more likely wholesale looting of the public till. Now layer-on the omnipresent mob action in the New York City unions and the mafia-associated contractors who do business with the city. Doesn’t look great. And how much will be creamed off for the Zakaat, the obligatory Islamic tithe turned over to the poor, the needy, the homeless, the debtors and the practice of jihad?

So, good luck Big Apple as you await the luscious caramel coating of Woke-socialism to be laid on you. Zohran’s elevation capped an election week of Democratic Party triumph that left the faithful too hungover to even perform the much ballyhooed “Trump Must Go Now” exorcism promised for the day after the vote. Alex Soros & Friends bought plane tickets for a few “furry” Transtifas to fly in from Portland, OR, their training ground, but the event was a bust. Mr. Trump was not squeezed out of the known universe like a watermelon seed, as hoped. The Golden Golem of Greatness lurches on, coping with the Democrat’s never-ending seditious jihad against our country, featuring such new stars as New Jersey’s Mikie Sherrill and Virginia’s next governor, Abigail Spanberger, shown below wearing the winsome regalia of Covid-19 she modeled on the floor of the US House of representatives back in pandemic-time. You go, girl!

How does that thing work. . . ?