Unless you’ve been completely tapped out of the news cycle the last 6 months, you’re probably aware of a young, charismatic rising personality in the Democrat Party named Zohran Mandami. And, as you’re aware, he was just elected in a historic victory for the left to be the next mayor of New York City, the largest city in the United States. While this is obviously a crushing blow to conservatives, and even to the moderate-leaning old guard of the Democrat establishment, the media response in the mainstream conservative circles has been hysterical and in total denial of the political realities that caused this mess.
Just flipping between conservative channels like Fox News or Newsmax, or right-leaning publications like the New York Post, the audience has been littered for months with headlines slamming Mamdani as a socialist, communist, marxist, or running cover pages of him in front of soviet banners or waving hammer and sickles. Just tune into Fox for an hour and you’ll hear a monologue accusing Mamdani of being a socialist, a radical Muslim, an anti-Semite, a radical leftist, a communist, and a wannabe dictator. The playbook seems to be: Call Mamdani names, and pray his popularity sinks. But has this strategy paid off, and will this pay the GOP or conservative establishment any dividends in the future?
Don’t get me wrong, this isn’t an endorsement of Mamdani or his policies. Mamdani is a major threat to Republicans, particularly populist-oriented conservatives and the New Right. The Democrat Party’s elite-centric and out-of-touch platform has been a major boost for the Populist Right, and has helped Republicans make inroads with working class Americans that would’ve traditionally supported unions and Blue Dog Democrats. It is also undeniable that the Democrat establishment’s rejection of its own populist wing, that of the ‘Bernie Bros’ in 2016, greatly contributed to Donald Trump’s historic victory against Hillary Clinton. Thus, the ascendency of the Populist Left into the mainstream represents a significant threat to what has become a major pillar of the Trump-era GOP: Anti-establishment working class folks who have been overburdened and disillusioned with the American political and financial hierarchy.
Therefore, it is important that we as a movement deal with this rising progressive threat correctly and accordingly by taking a reality check on two major factors at play: The first being that slamming Mamdani and progressives as “socialists” and making it the end of the conversation convinces no one in 2025. Negative labels are white noise to voters, especially when you’re not even willing to debate these socialists on the issues affecting their constituency. The second factor that needs to be considered is how decades of improper handling of American immigration systems directly led to the election of Mamdani in New York.
Labeling and reverse cancel culture doesn’t work.
The primary strategy invoked by conservative pundits throughout this latest election cycle to attack progressives, particularly Mamdani, was through an intense campaign of name calling and ideological labeling. Nearly every mainstream conservative outlet, and many other independent influencers, labeled him a communist, socialist, Marxist, radical leftist. While these labels may be ideologically correct, the repetition and overuse of them come off as desperate and somewhat petty.
This “reverse cancel culture” is eerily similar to the deranged attacks against Donald Trump, particularly in his 2016 and 2024 campaign cycles. The repeated name calling and accusations that Trump was the next Hitler, a white supremacist, a fascist, a nazi, a threat to democracy, and a xenophobe became weaker and weaker with each slur launches at him. And as they continued to call him names rather than debate his ideas, President Trump grew in popularity and will likely go down as one of the most significant political figures in American history.
The defiance Trump showed to cancel culture and the liberal media created an environment where strong political personalities grow more powerful with each attack lobbed at them. It also diminished the power of the labels they threw at him, turning “Everyone I don’t like is Hitler” into a popular internet meme, mocking the left-wing media for their ‘Trump derangement syndrome’. So why should we employ the same failing strategy against the left? “Everyone I don’t like is Lenin/Marx/Stalin” will soon be a meme in itself.
Over the weekend, the New York Post published another article slamming Mamdani: Mayor-elect Mamdani reeks of Lenin — but NYC’s wise safeguard against Marxism stands in his way. Could the majority of New Yorkers voters even tell you who Lenin was, let alone why he was bad? Furthermore, does the average voter care, considering their cost of living is going up and quality of life is going down?
Yet, none of these conservative journalists want to elaborate on precisely how Mamdani’s policies will negatively affect the average, working-class New Yorkers who were born and raised there. And they certainly don’t want to talk about the root causes of why someone like Mamdani was able to get elected in the first place. Data indicates over 50% of New Yorkers struggle to afford basic needs, and nearly 7 in 10 individuals in urban areas are living paycheck to paycheck, so it should be no surprise that many are turning to the progressive who is promising to freeze their rent, put more money in their pockets, and take care of them. Because at face value, these things sound great, whether they’re “socialist” or not.
Yet, Mamdani’s policies will likely accelerate these major issues facing New Yorkers, not fix them. His proposed $30 minimum wage, rent-freezing, and increased income taxes on the upper-class will most likely lead to business owners, landlords, and successful contractors fleeing the city, which will only create scarcity in the job market, and unemployment will rise. His soft-on-crime views and unwillingness to cooperate with ICE targeting criminal illegal aliens will transform New York into a dangerous environment to work and live. His pledge to prioritize government housing for illegal immigrants and use city resources to protect them from federal authorities will only flood the already unstable housing system with millions more dependents who will compete for programs with native New Yorkers residents.
Despite these facts, you’ll rarely hear any conservative pundits make this point to voters about why their standard of living will significantly reduce under Mamdani or, Lord forbid, make the case as to why they should’ve voted for Cuomo or Sliwa. They’d rather do hit pieces on comments Mamdani or his family made years ago, or criticize him for his views on a war in the Middle East which has absolutely zero connection to being a mayor in America. And of course, the pundits will let voters know he is a socialist, and they’re socialists too for supporting him.
Mainstream Conservatives don’t want to admit the true reason someone like Mamdani was able to win in 2025.
Admittedly, the night of the election, I was watching Hannity on Fox News, and he ran a graphic from a recent poll that was taken from NYC voters, showing a correlation that the longer someone lived in the city, the more likely they were to support Cuomo, and the more recently they had arrived, the more likely they were to support Mamdani. Fox News has since removed this graphic from their website and restricted access to archive links of the graphic, but the data and overall theme was similar to the graphic below:
While this data is obviously true, no one is contesting that, it was being used to hint at a narrative of liberal transplants voting for progressive policies. It was heavily implied that Democrats are moving to New York City and voting for Zohran Mamdani, but this simply isn’t the case. In fact it is very similar to the myth that has been fearmongered in the mainstream conservative circles that affluent liberals are fleeing California and moving to Texas, voting Democrat, and that is the reason why Texas is shifting blue. In reality, Texas is shifting blue in recent years due to mass immigration from demographics that routinely vote for liberal policies. The same case can be made for New York City. Only 31% of American-born voters supported Mamdani for mayor, versus 62% of foreign-born voters supporting him.
Now, why does this matter, and why does this have such a significant impact? It matters because foreign-born individuals are a massive voting block in New York City. Nearly 40% of New Yorkers were born outside of the United States and, in some parts of the city, it’s even higher. In Queens, nearly 1 in 2 residents were born outside the country. Yes, 1 out of every 2 people living in Queens right now was born in a foreign country.
The math is very clear: Despite being a blue stronghold, with a significant cost of living and other issues, Zohran Mamdani had no path to victory, had it not been for mass immigration. Though it’s been labeled a conspiracy theory for years, the reality that Democrats weaponize mass immigration to create impoverished voting blocks becomes more and more evident with each election cycle.
That being said, New York would’ve still likely elected a Democrat without a mass migration wave, though not someone with such radical and self-destructive policies as Zohran Mamdani. The future of the progressive left will be in areas that have a sizeable foreign-born population, without a significant presence from anyone on the Populist Right.
How do we prevent the next Zohran Mamdani?
- Enforce federal immigration law and deport every criminal illegal alien squatting in our cities. More and more evidence is beginning to show that many non-citizens, including those here illegally, have been voting in our elections. New York City even attempted to allow non-citizens to legally vote in local elections several years ago, but the effort was struck down by a court earlier this year. Regardless, it’s still highly possible that many non-citizens voted anyway.
- Create a Republican Party that prioritizes putting America First and focuses on issues facing the American Worker. When we as Republicans justify our beliefs and our policies in the public square, it should first and foremost explain why this belief of policy benefits working-class Americans. When we stray off into ideology, we lose people. When we talk about how policies affect banks and corporations, we lose people. The party can only survive and fend off this rising progressive threat by embracing populism and supporting the American Worker.
- Reform the and seriously limit the current immigration system in this country. Many in the establishment do not want to admit that the majority of immigrants that come to the United States and vote Democrat technically come here legally. Mass immigration by legal means is still a major social, economic, and political factor which has developed into a serious issue. Visa caps should be implemented and strictly enforced to prevent uncontrolled waves of immigration to the U.S. For example, in 2023 alone, over 3 million immigrants entered the United States. Almost 400,000 H1B visas were approved for immigrants in 2023. The Trump Administration has made a significant development by placing a cap on H1B at 65,000 per year, but there is still plenty of work to be done. Slowing down the uncontrolled flow of immigrants to the U.S. will also allow wages to naturally rise to compete for labor, and rent costs going down.
Republicans face major issues down the road if these three main points are not swiftly carried out. An angry and vindictive progressive left coming to power in the United States would likely lead to the extinction of the conservative movement and the balkanization of the country. If we want to prevent that from happening, it’s time to act like adults and confront the issue head on, rather than simply calling our opponents names and ignoring the fundamental problems that led to this in the first place.
