Zohran Mamdani’s economic promises consist of things the mayor doesn’t have the legal authority to do and things that there isn’t enough money to implement.

His government grocery stores plan was based on an accounting error.

Many of his other promises are based on powers that the mayor’s office doesn’t have.

If you think that Mamdani is serious about any of these things, then that’s a takedown. But he isn’t. The grab bag of leftist fantasies is there to reel in leftists, many of whom are well off and wouldn’t have the faintest idea if any of these things actually happen.

But where Bernie Sanders is probably hypothetically serious about trying to implement some of his plans (but probably would spend most of his time banging on the table, yelling at his staff and recording TikToks yelling about billionaires), Mamdani like AOC isn’t.

And where AOC uses this stuff to get more famous and powerful, Mamdani is a product of the red-green alliance, but I suspect he’s much less serious about the ‘red stuff’ than the ‘green stuff’.

The Muslim areas which turned out bloc votes to push him through aren’t interested in his program of defunding the police, raising taxes or direct socialism, not unless it directly benefits them.

He may not be really serious about government grocery stores, but I suspect he’s quite serious about outlawing most Jewish organizations in New York City. And I imagine he’s got plans for the NYPD, that don’t involve defunding it, but does involve turning it into a counterpart of the Met Police, tasked with cracking down on Islamophobia. The Communism isn’t coming, but the Islamism is.