In the not so distant past, Connecticut has been a catch
basin for wealthy New Yorkers voting with their feet in protest of high taxes
and crippling business regulations. All regulations are hidden taxes because
they decrease profit lines, cripple expansion and innovation, and result in
higher product and service costs. Every regulation, state or national, is a
business tax.
Democrat Party choice for Mayor of New York Zohran Mamdani has
yet to grasp this elemental economic rule, perhaps because he already is
mentally living in a highly idealized socialist universe. Socialism and its
variants – especially communism – has been throughout the last century a
politics of force. There can be no Stalin without a gulag and a Lubyanka prison,
now a museum but once socialist housing for defrocked and dispossessed
capitalists.
Last June, Mamdani was being lauded by
anti-capitalist leftists for “his bold response on capitalism: 'Finally someone
with principles speaking up.’”
Asked by a CNN interviewer, “Do you like capitalism?”
Mamdani answered forthrightly, “No. I have many critiques of capitalism,” as
did Karl Marx and V.I. Lenin. Then Mamdani,
less forthrightly, proceeded to drape himself in the mantle of Martin Luther
King: “In the words of Dr. King decades ago, he said, 'Call it democracy or
call it democratic socialism; there must be a better distribution of wealth for
all of God's children in this country.'”
The CNN interviewer did not point out that King was a
Christian apologist, not a socialist-communist.
A few days ago, Mamdani met with wealthy New York
capitalists in an attempt to smooth their ruffled feathers, prompting one
commentator to quip that his capitalist victims had better get used to tight
nooses around their necks. Some people attribute to Stalin the line “When we
hang the capitalists they will sell us the rope we use.”
JPMorgan Chase & Co. JPM CEO Jamie Dimon roughly dismissed
the Mamdani campaign several weeks ago. Mamdani's progressive economic
proposals, such as expanded social programs, more public housing and higher
taxes, Dimon said were "plans that have never worked before," and he
characterized Mamdani as “more of a Marxist than a socialist,” adding that
Mamdani was pushing “the same ideological mush that means nothing in the real
world.”
However, one publication reported, “Last week,
Dimon and Mamdani reportedly spoke on the phone in what sources called a
‘friendly conversation,’” after which Dimon said, “expressing belief that
cooperation is necessary for the city's benefit, ‘You have to work with the
people elected.’”
One can almost see the capitalist green anaconda that
Mamdani has for months been inveighing against opening its jaws to swallow yet
another tasty morsel.
There are currently two views of Mamdani, rubbing each other
like a steel blade on a sharpening stone. The first views Mamdani as the savior
of a flaccid Democrat Party, and the second as the ruination of a party
suffering from a policy shortage.
A recent New York Times story -- “The Democratic Party is hemorrhaging voters
long before they even go to the polls” -- plumbs the depths of the party’s slough of despond. Pointing
out that party registration is the life blood of American politics, the Times
rather sorrowfully notes: “Of the 30 states that track voter registration by
political party, Democrats lost ground to Republicans in every single one
between the 2020 and 2024 elections — and often by a lot…That four-year swing
toward the Republicans adds up to 4.5 million voters, a deep political hole
that could take years for Democrats to climb out from… All told, Democrats lost
about 2.1 million registered voters between the 2020 and 2024 elections in the
30 states, along with Washington, D.C., that allow people to register with a
political party. (In the remaining 20 states, voters do not register with a
political party.) Republicans gained 2.4 million.”
Director of data science for Decision Desk HQ Michael Pruser
commented, “I don’t want to say, ‘The death cycle of the Democratic Party,’ but
there seems to be no end to this. There is no silver lining or cavalry coming
across the hill. This is month after month, year after year.’”
In the 2024 election, the Times tells us, “The [Democrat]
party saw some of its steepest declines in registration among men and younger
voters, the Times analysis found — two constituencies that swung sharply toward
Mr. Trump.”
Here in Connecticut, U.S. Senator Chris Murphy sharpened his persistent
anti-Trump critique and grew a beard, some say to present himself to
Connecticut voters as a mature Democrat. Murphy has a pleasant though unfortunate
baby-face. Democrats continue to assault Trump as a fascist or Nazi, but Trump
appeals to registered voters as a somewhat hyperbolic stuffed politician whose
successes cannot be gainsaid. He lacks the verbal polish of a Lincoln or
Reagan, but he has got things done during his few months in office.
The southern border door, left wide open during the
administration of Joe Biden, has been slammed shut. Trump, at the moment, is
engaged in persuading – forcing? -- Stalinist Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to make peace over the shattered bodies of
Ukrainian civilians destroyed by Putin’s unremitting three years old bombing campaign.
One can only guess what the future of the nation will be
after Trump – an autocratic threat to democracy, according to Murphy and other
of Trump’s political opponents high on hyperbole — leaves office. Let us all
pray for peace and prosperity. Amen!
Comments