XPost: alt.politics.republicans, talk.politics.guns, sac.politics   
   XPost: alt.fan.rush-limbaugh, alt.politics.liberalism   
   From: leroysoetoro@americans-first.com   
      
   https://nypost.com/2025/08/12/opinion/michael-goodwin-mamdanis-nyc-   
   borough-tour-attacking-trump-smacks-of-amateur-hour/   
      
   It seems as if it was only yesterday that Zohran Mamdani was running to be   
   mayor of New York on an agenda he vowed would solve the “affordability   
   crisis.”   
      
   He won the Democratic primary by pledging that wealthier New Yorkers would   
   pay higher taxes so his City Hall could afford lots of free stuff for   
   everyone else.   
      
   Apparently that’s all it took to solve the crisis.   
      
   Because just like that, the 33-year-old socialist assemblyman is saying he   
   has a new agenda for the general election.   
      
   He’s now running against President Trump, calling him an enemy and vowing   
   “My administration will be Donald Trump’s worst nightmare.”   
      
   This week he’s touring the five boroughs, one borough per day, with a   
   steady stream of warnings that the president’s policies will hurt the   
   city, and that Mamdani should be elected to resist him.   
      
   He reportedly plans to mostly ignore his three main rivals and save his   
   firepower for Trump.   
      
   It’s all part of an effort to paint the president as Public Enemy No. 1.   
      
   Medicaid accusation   
   He began by accusing Trump of kicking more than 1 million New Yorkers off   
   Medicaid, cutting funding for food stamps and slashing funding for housing   
   programs.   
      
   “We know that there is no borough that will be free from Trump’s cruelty,”   
   he said.   
      
   Mamdani’s next step was to dirty up his three main rivals by linking them   
   to Trump.   
      
   He says former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, Mayor Adams and GOP nominee Curtis Sliwa   
   should be disqualified from consideration because, he claims, they have   
   cozy relationships with Trump.   
      
   Mamdani said in a radio interview the “president has three candidates in   
   this race — one that he’s directly been in touch with, another he bailed   
   out of legal trouble and now functionally controls, and the final one   
   literally being a member of the same Republican Party.”   
      
   The decision to appeal to New Yorkers by attacking the president of the   
   United States, a former New Yorker, smacks of amateur hour.   
      
   While there are certainly legitimate issues to raise about Mamdani’s   
   opponents, overstating their connections to Trump and making that a   
   defining issue is not persuasive.   
      
   Neither is turning the president into a toxic bogeyman.   
      
   All three denied being close to Trump, with Cuomo foolishly trying to   
   compete with Mamdani by saying, “Nobody has fought with Trump more than I   
   have.”   
      
   For one thing, Trump loves New York and makes it clear he wants to help   
   his hometown and state.   
      
   For Mamdani to bite the hand that could feed the city merely to score   
   cheap political points reveals his ignorance of history and of the   
   necessity of City Hall having strong connections to the White House, no   
   matter the party of the president.   
      
   His calling Trump an enemy before he’s even been elected flips a seminal   
   event on its head. Recall the legendary Daily News headline from 1975 when   
   President Gerald Ford declined a bailout ­request.   
      
   The words “Ford to City, Drop Dead” helped set in motion bipartisan   
   efforts that eventually got results, all captured in a recent documentary.   
      
   A version of that headline based on Mamdani’s approach would declare:   
   “City to Trump, Drop Dead.”   
      
   Knowing what we know about Trump, attacks will not get the federal help   
   the next mayor will need.   
      
   Leaving aside whether Mamdani’s effort to link his opponents to the   
   president will play well in the November election, it strikes me as a   
   stupendously bad idea for a city official or candidate to attack the   
   president to score political points.   
      
   Mayoral malpractice   
   Indeed, it’s malpractice for a mayor or governor to spurn the president   
   and by extension the federal government over partisan differences.   
      
   The odds of winning anything that way are low and the price of losing is   
   far too high to make it a sensible bet.   
      
   Consider some areas where the feds hold the purse strings and can offer   
   other help.   
      
   Housing, education, health care, mass transit, highways, bridges,   
   airports, tunnels, prisons, borders, tax policies on nonprofits and the   
   overall economy.   
      
   Law enforcement depends on the feds for financial aid and operational   
   support.   
      
   Any political upside to Mamdani would be transitory, while the damage to   
   the welfare of New Yorkers could be severe and permanent.   
      
   All the more so when that president is Trump, who is a man of action and a   
   prolific counterpuncher.   
      
   He has called Mamdani a “communist lunatic,” to which The New York Times   
   responds by saying “Mr. Mamdani is a democratic socialist.”   
      
   Given Mamdani’s radicalism, the change is a distinction without a   
   difference.   
      
   Trump’s decision to federalize policing in the nation’s capital and   
   mobilize the National Guard is consistent with his view that high crime   
   levels in urban areas should not be tolerated.   
      
   It’s also true the police commander of the nation’s capital was suspended   
   after being suspected of manipulating data to downplay serious offenses.   
      
   Although Trump talks about making a similar federalizing move in New York,   
   the situations are very different, with the NYPD turning in record-low   
   numbers of shootings.   
      
   Of course, that’s no thanks to Mamdani and his core supporters, many of   
   whom echo his scurrilous calls to “defund the police” and his claims that   
   all cops are racists.   
      
   He simply doesn’t understand or respect police work, and it’s impossible   
   to imagine he would have the trust of the NYPD.   
      
   Another area where Mamdani is out of touch is his call for higher taxes.   
      
   Even Gov. Hochul, a big tax-and-spender herself, rejects his plan.   
      
   She admits the state’s sky-high taxes already drove many New Yorkers to   
   Florida.   
      
   It’s also noteworthy that Hochul and other top Dems have not celebrated   
   that Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” increased the allowable deductions of   
   state and local taxes (SALT) from $10,000 per family to $40,000.   
      
   That marks a major concession to GOP representatives from blue states.   
      
   The $10,000 limit, which took effect in 2017, led Cuomo and other Dems to   
   argue it was a rocket aimed at destroying blue states.   
      
   In fact, the higher deductions go mostly to high income families, which is   
   why Dems never tried to raise the SALT limits during Joe Biden’s   
   presidency.   
      
   Demonize the tax cutter   
   Now that Trump has reduced the incentive for many taxpayers to leave New   
   York, you would think Dems would celebrate.   
      
   But it’s apparently asking too much for Sen. Chuck Schumer, Rep. Hakeem   
   Jeffries, Hochul and Mamdani to even admit that the change benefits New   
   Yorkers, even though no state Dems supported it.   
      
   They would rather demonize Trump than acknowledge he ­delivered a tax cut   
   for the state’s residents.   
      
      
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