OPINION:
In his run for mayor of America’s biggest city, Zohran Mamdani is following in the footsteps of socialists past. Like Sen. Bernard Sanders, he is on a path toward affluence and comfort. Already a child of extreme privilege, Mr. Mamdani is campaigning on a classic “eat the rich” platform.
That’s a curious choice for the son of prosperous filmmaker Mira Nair and academic Mahmood Mamdani, a specialist in “post-colonialism.” In 2017, Ms. Nair made news when she put the family’s fancy Manhattan rental property up for sale at $1.9 million. Variety described the condo’s amenities as “premium level services that include 24-hour doorman attended lobby, a double-height lounge area that opens through a wall of accordion-fold glass doors to a serene courtyard garden with reflecting pool.”
Billionaires such as George Soros and Bill Gates would feel at home as their philanthropic networks invested in Ms. Nair’s work. She and her husband also received generous support from the Ford Foundation, best known for bankrolling the anti-Israel “Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions” movement.
It’s not surprising that Mahmood Mamdani drew the attention of elite, anti-Western patrons. In an article not long after the 9/11 attacks, he wrote: “Whatever we may think of their methods, terrorists have a cause, and a need to be heard.” He expressed concern for “stereotyping” hijackers and bombers his book “Good Muslim, Bad Muslim,” where he explains: “Suicide bombing needs to be understood as a feature of modern political violence rather than stigmatized as a mark of barbarism.”
In his most recent financial disclosure as a state assemblyman, Zohran Mamdani lists his occupation as “self-employed rapper” with annual earnings of $1,000 to $5,000. He owns 4 acres of land in Jinja, Uganda, which he has possessed since he turned 21. That seems awfully colonial.
This is not the biography of someone who has ever worked for a living. It’s akin to that of another leftist who realized that advocating for socialism was the key to a high-flying lifestyle. When Mr. Sanders was 39, he, too, had never held a steady job until he won the mayoral race in Burlington, Vermont.
Mr. Sanders climbed the political ladder until 1991 when he reached Congress, where he thrills fans with his signature rants against the rich. In 2016, he said: “Democracy is not about billionaires spending hundreds of millions of dollars to buy elections so that Congress will reflect the needs of millionaires and billionaires.”
According to the financial disclosure he filed in May, Mr. Sanders pocketed almost $150,000 in book royalties from Random House to supplement his $174,000 senatorial income last year. He has seven more book deals in the works, up to $600,000 in the bank and seven figures invested in mutual funds.
During his “Fighting Oligarchy” tour this year, Mr. Sanders spent $221,000 crisscrossing the country with Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, New York Democrat, on opulent private jets. When confronted about it on Fox News, the senator retorted, “You think I’m going to be sitting in a waiting line at United?” He then added, “No apologies for that.”
The group Power the Future calculated that the architects of the Green New Deal emitted more carbon dioxide on their luxurious jaunts than they would by burning 62,600 pounds of coal. This wasn’t even the first time. Over the course of the 2020 campaign, Mr. Sanders directed a stunning $1.5 million in campaign funds toward chartered jet travel.
Socialism pays well, as long as you’re the one redistributing the wealth.
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