by Robert Hornak

It’s very fitting that Zohran Mamdani, the 33-year old assemblyman born in Uganda, is the child of a famous Hollywood director. He appears to be auditioning for the lead in a theoretical remake famous movie Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory rather than running for mayor of the biggest city in America. 

Mamdani, a self-proclaimed “Democratic Socialist” has staked his candidacy on a laundry list of giveaways, essentially candy that he plans to give the people of NYC in exchange for their vote, candy that he could only make appear with the magic of Hollywood. 

With the Democratic Primary less than two weeks away, Mamdani’s message has remained consistent. He plans to give away all of the following: 

• Free buses
• Free childcare
• City-owned grocery stores selling food at wholesale prices
• Create a Department of Community Safety to “prevent violence before it happens.”
• A freeze in rent while working to bring rents down
• Build 200,000 new affordable, stabilized rental units
• Plus, a crackdown on “bad” landlords. 

He claims to know “exactly how to pay for it, too.” His brainstorm of original thinking is to, ready for it – raise taxes on corporations and the rich. Oh, and increase fine collection on landlords, the same people he plans to ask to build new housing that they won’t make any money from. 

This agenda is only realistic in the make believe world of a Hollywood movie. Mamdani doesn’t have control over almost his entire agenda. He might as well be advocating for space exploration and Middle East peace. But I guess he plans to make developers, landlords, grocery store owners, corporations and high income individuals an offer they can’t refuse?

But all these ideas can be refused and have been in the past. This is not the first time these ideas have been proposed. The buses are run by the MTA, a state agency. The mayor has no direct control over them or what the fare is. He could propose a NYC takeover of New York City Transit, the division of the MTA that runs city buses and subways. But then the mayor will be fully accountable for its performance. Not a bad idea, but that’s not what he is proposing. 

His free childcare proposal is to provide “free childcare for every New Yorker aged 6 weeks to 5 years” while lamenting that some women choose to stay home and raise their children rather than remain a taxpaying working in NYC’s infrastructure, while turning the raising of their children over to another worker who Mamdani pledges will be paid equivalent to NYC school teachers. And likely part of the union as well, expanding union leaders’ power and control over a long-broken educational system that, by the way, he has no plans to fix. 

This same dissection can be done for every one of his proposals. City-owned grocery stores will put the thousands of existing grocery stores, convenience stores and bodegas out of business. Putting tens of thousands of workers out of work, from clerks to managers to owners. 

Asking developers and landlords to build 200,000 new rental units that will be “affordable” while freezing the rent those same landlords can charge on existing units and aggressively fining them for every minor violation is not compatible. If developers can’t make money, they just won’t build rentals. It’s that simple. They are many other ways to increase supply to meet demand and try to stabilize the cost. Let’s also not forget the worst landlord in NYC is the city itself, with the worst conditions in public housing. But he has no plan to fix that either. 

Creating a Dept of Community Safety is just code for defund the police. No matter how candy-coated you make that proposal sound, that’s all it is. We have real public safety issues to address, but he has no plan for that either. 

And, of course, pay for it all by raising taxes. After they just finished telling us that tariffs are nothing more than a tax on business that raises the cost to consumers, Mamdani is proposing to raise the cost of goods and services on every New Yorker for everything they buy. 

The role Mamdani is really suited for is the Child Catcher in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. He wants to entice us with his promise of sweets in a tempting ploy to trick us into an actual reality that traps everyone.

Robert Hornak is a veteran political consultant who has previously served as the Deputy Director of the Republican Assembly Leader’s NYC office and as Executive Director of the Queens Republican Party. He can be reached at rahornak@gmail.com and @roberthornak on X.