Mamdani and The
Warmth of Collectivism
Zohran Mamdani’s ambition, he tells us, is to “replace the
frigidity of rugged individualism with the warmth of collectivism.” But
collectivism is only warm for socialist politicians minding the boiling pots.
The Telegraph of London tells us,
following Mamdani’s ascension to the mayoralty of New York City, “From this
week, however, [New York City and London] will be aligned in a much more
unfortunate manner: with the self-proclaimed democratic socialist Zohran
Mamdani taking power in New York, both will be governed by the far-Left. New
York may well be about to match London’s decline.
“Mamdani comes to power with a far more radical agenda than
Sadiq Khan,” a British politician serving as the third and current mayor of
London. He [Mamdani] is demanding higher taxes on the rich, although that has
to be agreed by the state’s governor, tougher rent controls, transport
subsidies, and even state-run grocery stores to help with the cost of living.
“And yet Khan’s record in London tells us that meddling from
City Hall only makes a city harder to live in. On Khan’s watch, house building
has collapsed, making rents even less affordable, while house prices have also
started to fall. Petty crime has soared out of control while the police have
concentrated on virtue-signaling instead of keeping the streets safe.
Investment has declined as new building projects have been refused: it is a
long time since London had any new skyscrapers to match The Shard or The
Gherkin. Meanwhile, the super-rich have been hounded out of the city by Khan’s
colleagues in the national government, and with them jobs and spending power
have disappeared.”
These are not glad tidings. Almost everywhere in the 19th
and 20th centuries, socialism has been oversold and underfinanced.
The socialist “democratic” French Revolutionists promised democracy and
delivered the guillotine. Terrorism as an instrument of state policy widely
practiced by modern socialists from Lenin to Nicolás Maduro has its beginning
at the foot of the guillotine. Sometime later, the French Revolution delivered
Napoleon Buonaparte, an autocratic general of some accomplishment who
audaciously, after his many military victories, declared himself Emperor of an
enlarged France.
Beethoven at first celebrated Napoléon, whose zeal and
military prowess kicked off the Romantic Movement in Europe and America.
Beethoven’s Eroica, often considered the first Romantic symphony, was, scholars
tell us, a groundbreaking work that marked a significant shift in the symphonic
form. Initially, the symphony was dedicated to Napoleon, whom Beethoven admired
for his revolutionary ideals. The symphony, then and now, is regarded by
students of the Romantic era as “a landmark work that embodies the ideals of
heroism and the human spirit, marking a significant evolution in the art of
symphonic writing.” Once Napoleon had crowned himself emperor, Beethoven quickly
undedicated his symphony.
Mamdani’s self-celebratory swearing-in address as Mayor of
New York City may be regarded as an Eroica in a minor key. The Telegraph’s depreciation
of London’s Mayor applies in spades to Mamdani. At some point, New Yorkers are
certain to grow tired of demagogues and impertinent politicians. The differences between Mamdani and fellow
Democrat Mayor Bill DeBlasio are matters of degree, not kind.
Socialism, we all know, is nothing new under the sun.
Like Obamacare – oversold and underpriced – Mamdani’s
program, replete with the usual socialist attacks on the filthy rich who, by
the way, heft about 40 percent of tax funds spent and misspent by New York
City’s progressive Democrat Party hegemony, has been oversold and underpriced
by the socialist mayor.
Most recently, the US military, parked in force in waters
bordering Venezuela, swooped in on the well-fortified compound of Nicolás
Maduro, transported Maduro and his wife to the United States and arrested them
both on a warrant outstanding for about five years. They will be put on trial,
and it will be found that the Maduro/Chavez socialist nightmare had changed
Venezuela from one of the most prosperous Latin American countries into a
socialist basket-case.
El
Pais tells us, “The word ‘inflation’ does not exist in the
government’s vocabulary [This is the Orwellian way to rid a country of
inflation] “but the Venezuelan Finance Observatory — an office coordinated by a
group of opposition economists — estimates that consumer price inflation will
reach 590% year-on-year by the end of the year. ‘Everyone is wondering what’s
going to happen, what January will look like,’ sums up a pharmacist in the
capital.”
Well now, it would appear that Venezuelans may not miss
Maduro or his brand of “warm collectivism.” Someone other
than Maduro and his praetorian guard will be fixing elections and bullying the democratic
opposition during the New Year. It is generally accepted by the friends of
democracy everywhere that Maduro stole the last presidential election from the
political opposition, which included María Corina Machado, likely the
most politically courageous woman of the last few decades.
Serious socialists are waiting for socialist politicians in
the United States – Vermont socialist Bernie Sanders and Mamdani – to come to
the aide of their party and its most
conspicuous practitioner in the Western hemisphere, Maduro The Magnificent. Mamdani,
the new socialist mayor of the Big Apple, declared, following Maduro’s
apprehension and arrest, that the warrant charging the socialist dictator with drug
running contravened international law. The warrant is remiss if it does not
charge Maduro with stealing two elections and a once independent and prosperous
democracy. Both Sanders and Mamdani may find their voices eventually. The
imperatives of socialism are – forgive the pun – imperious.
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