New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani (D) says he needs higher taxes on prosperous whites to fund his “Black and Brown” political machine of immigrants and minorities.
“Today’s true cost of living measure confirms that the affordability crisis touches every corner of our city,” self-proclaimed socialist Mamdani declared on April 6, adding:
We know that these effects are not applied evenly: So often it is black and brown New Yorkers who are hit the hardest. This Preliminary Racial Equity Plan is the first in developing a whole-of-government approach to tackling that reality … to solve decades of neglect and discrimination.
Mamdani, who is an ethnic Indian immigrant from Africa, justifies his “Black and Brown” tax raid on prosperous whites by claiming prior white racism:
The wealth of a median white household in the city is more than $200,000, while that of a black household is less than $20,000 … We are reckoning with the long history of racism here and starting to act upon a framework that puts equity right at the center of it.
“This kind of ethnic tribal politics happens when you have large-scale immigration,” responded Mark Krikorian, director of the Center for Immigration Studies. He told Breitbart News:
When you have large-scale, ongoing immigration, you’re going to have this kind of thing. There’s no real way around it. No appeal to ethnic neutrality is going to prevent it. You’re going to have politicians who are going to appeal to this [ethnic] impulse [because they] see it as a way to build coalitions, and some are going to win elections and do this kind of thing.
Others deride Mamdani’s police as “race communism,” partly because his aides want government control of major economic assets, such as apartment buildings.
Mamdani’s combination of ethnic voting blocs and elite-immigrant politics is also an outgrowth of government-run Affirmative Action, Krikorian noted:
Affirmative action — whatever you think of it — was a relatively manageable issue when it applied to 10 percent or so of the population. Now, with the expansion of the ‘victim groups,’ partly through immigration, and also just sort of [progressive] mission creep, [the race-based politics covers] a large share, certainly in New York City, of the population.
Many U.S. cities were run by ethnic “political machines” during the late 180os and early 1900s.
They faded out after 1924 immigration reform sharply reduced immigration and forced politicians — and voters — to reach beyond their urban ethnic enclaves, towards the new power centers of manufacturing and suburbia.
In Boston, for example, Mayor James Curley intermittently ran the city before World War II to benefit immigrant Irish voters and his Irish political machine. His main target was the local Yankee and WASP “Brahmin” gentry from 1914 to 1950.
His national ambitions were blocked once Congress blocked nearly all immigration in 1924.
Today’s Boston political machine is being rebuilt by Michelle Wu, around a political machine of government employees, unskilled migrants, low-productivity businesses, and progressives. That coalition, however, is a Ponzi Scheme: It is expensive to run, so it relies on a continued inflow of unskilled, low-wage migrants to generate tax revenues via federal aid programs and property taxes.
Boston’s Ponzi Scheme machine is now facing a crisis because Trump has cut off the supply of new migrants, and many younger middle-class taxpayers have left the city to find cheaper housing and better schools.
RELATED: Mamdani Says NYC Has “Long History of Racism,” Need to Address Wealth “Equity” Based on Race
Similarly, the corrupt Irish-run Tammany Hall machine dominated New York’s Democratic Party from 1854 to 1932.
Under Mamdami, that Irish machine is being rebuilt as a “Black and Brown” alliance of immigrants, minorities, and progressives. The machine is built on poor voters, yet it also includes an influential cohort of U.S. college graduates, many of whom have been sidelined by corporate executives’ preference for the cheaper and compliant foreign graduates who are supplied in huge numbers by the federal government.
But Mamdani’s political machine is already in a Ponzi Scheme funding crisis: He needs more funds to reward his supporters, but he knows that Trump has closed the immigration spigot, and that his middle class is leaving because the city machine requires high taxes.
Mamdani is hoping that targeted taxes on some people — especially on disfavored “whites” and landlords — will fund his machine without also accelerating the exodus of valuable taxpayers. He said April 6:
Amidst being in the wealthiest city in the wealthiest country in the history of the world, we already see an exodus of working and middle-class New Yorkers. So I don’t have a hesitation in asking those who make the most amount of money in the city or the most profits in the city, to pay a little bit more so that everyone can actually stay in the city.
For example, Mamdani suggested that city-funded day care might help upper-income professionals in the city:
Is also something — not just about justice or the ability for working-class people to live here. — is also actually about ensuring that corporations can continue to attract the top talent to the city because in a city where child care costs more than $20,000 a year, I’ve heard from corporate leaders about how difficult it is for them to attract individuals who would work at their companies but [also] want to raise a family, because you could be making $300,000 a year, and you will feel that $20,000 a year because of the fact that we have allowed for the absence of affordable child care to become reality here in this city.
GOP leaders have begun describing and targeting the Democrats’ use of poor migrants to fund urban political machines.
The Democrats’ control of migrant-heavy Minnesota “really looks like there is a political patronage system that’s running the state,” he told Alpha News’ Liz Collin on January 14, adding:
[It] has components, including some officials who look the other way, some who are very, very aware of what’s going on, and communities that are receiving all these grants and [then] voting for the people that are turning a blind eye [to the fraud]. It seems to be a whole system that has all these different components, that is enduring, and is able to keep power and control the state.
In response, Trump’s deputies have set up a task force under Vice President JD Vance to target the Democrat-protected corruption of federal aid programs, often by immigrants in amnesty-zone “Sanctuary Cities.”
Trump’s deputies may also file lawsuits if Mamdani’s racialist policies and ethnic machine escalate into illegal racial discrimination. “Sounds fishy/illegal. Will review!” Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon said after Mamdani’s speech.
Trump’s populist politics can also dissolve the Democrats’ new ethnic-bloc politics, Krikorian said:
Trump has successfully appealed to many [Hispanic legal migrants] as Americans, rather than as members of Hispanic communities. y, and that’s really what [Democrats are] scared of … that the people they pretend to represent will just kind of shrug [off ethnic politics] and become Americans.
The Democrats’ ethnic political machines can be curbed, said Krikorian:
We have pretty strong assimilationist [cultural] forces that can bring immigrants, and especially their children and grandchildren, into becoming part of the majority population.
But you’ve got to have a [immigration] pause for that kind of thing to happen. We know that has worked -from [1925 to 1965] ….[For example] Sicilians 150 years ago, 100 plus years ago, did not see themselves as part of the majority population. They really were a kind of minority.
Armenians too — there were restrictive covenants against selling a house to Armenians. I have cousins who own houses that have restricted covenants on them. They’re in California, and they’re now seen as Anglos.
However, many immigrants from old and grand cultures — for example, many Arab Muslims, Mexicans, Indian Hindus, and Chinese — strongly resist assimilation into U.S. society. People from minor cultures — Ireland, El Salvador, Armenia, Lithuania, Canada — easily blend into mainstream American society after a few decades.
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