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From Iran's Comeuppance to the New York Mayoral Primary, Democrats Are Flailing

By Robert Knight

Iran’s nuclear enrichment facilities were not the only things going up in smoke last week courtesy of American bombers sent by President Donald Trump.

The Democratic Party’s recent attempts to appear worthy of national leadership also were blown to smithereens. Many prominent party figures have foolishly assailed the successful raid.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, New York congresswoman, actually tried to launch an impeachment inquiry after Mr. Trump did the world a favor and declawed one of the world’s most dangerous regimes.

The gambit was easily defeated 344-79, with 216 Republicans joined by 128 Democrats voting no. But it did draw 79 yes votes from Democrats, whose party was complacent when Presidents Clinton, Obama, and Biden bombed other countries.

Ms. Ocasio-Cortez called Mr. Trump’s masterstroke “a grave violation of the Constitution and Congressional War Powers. He has impulsively risked launching a war that may ensnare us for generations.”

No, he just saved us from a militant Islamist regime that would welcome nuclear self-annihilation and martyrdom as long as Israel and the U.S. were also devastated by nukes.

We know how European nations feel about it: relief. They showed it by hailing Mr. Trump at NATO’s leadership summit this week and adopting his plan to double their defense spending by 2035. This will take some of the burden off the United States, which has long subsidized Europe’s defense.

It also means that NATO countries will be in a far stronger position to help Ukraine against Russia.

Meanwhile, the party’s primary voters chose on Tuesday an Israel-hating, communist Muslim as their candidate in the upcoming New York mayoral race. You couldn’t make this up.

Zohran Mamdani, 33, has become the latest champion of The Free Stuff Army, the electoral cohort empowered under former President Barack Obama that wants everything in their lives paid for by other people.

Every one of Mr. Mamdani’s favored policies has a proven track record of making things worse, especially for the poor and working classes.

He wants more rent control, a leftist scheme that has devastated large swaths of New York apartments abandoned by hundreds of landlords who could no longer afford to maintain their properties. Owners of tony residences overlooking Central Park that are rent-controlled deal with it by subletting at exorbitant rates, thus putting them even more out of reach for all but the mega-rich.

Remember: The rich, like Sen. Bernie Sanders, the Vermont independent who owns four homes, are never affected by the Democrats’ share-the-wealth socialism. It’s the working and middle classes that take it in the teeth. '

Mr. Mamdani also wants to raise the minimum wage to $30 an hour by 2030, which would destroy small businesses and entry-level jobs. He wants taxpayers to pay for free childcare and free bus rides, and, like the good Marxist he is, wants the city to own and operate grocery stores. You know, like the wonderful food dispensaries in Havana and Pyongyang.

He has also supported the “defund the police” movement, wants to “tax the rich,” and has an unblemished anti-Israel record. He was arrested during a “day of jihad” protest against Israel just after Hamas invaded from Gaza on Oct. 7, 2023, and massacred 1,200 Jews.

Mr. Mamdani supports the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel and has vowed to arrest Benjamin Netanyahu if the Israeli prime minister sets foot in New York.

Like many American cities, thanks to years of illegal immigration, Gotham is undergoing demographic change. But New York still has more Jews than any city in the world outside of Israel.

Mr. Mamdani’s primary victory is thus jarring on a number of levels. It’s due, in part, to having as his main opponent the sex scandal-riven former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who garnered only 36.4 percent of the vote. Also, incumbent Mayor Eric Adams left the Democratic Party and is running as an independent.

But it’s also because many secular Jewish voters worship liberalism instead of the God of the Bible. The false liberal deity’s promise of government-enforced equal outcomes is the heart of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). It fuels every leftist cause from transgenderism to climate extremism.

Many of the Democratic Party’s most cherished policies are being exposed as not only ineffective but profoundly evil. These include a welfare system that destroys families, ruinous taxation, shot mandates and lockdowns, abortion up to the moment of birth, and subjecting gender-confused children to castration and breast removal.

Party leaders recently ousted gun control firebrand David Hogg, 25, from his perch as vice chairman of the Democratic National Committee. They did so after he threatened to run candidates in primaries against incumbent Democrats that he deems too moderate.

After Mr. Mamdani’s victory, Mr. Hogg proclaimed that, “The establishment is cooked. Cuomo is a canary in the coal mine.”

Maybe. But I suspect that New Yorkers will recover from their insanity in November if only to keep Mr. Hogg’s philosophical soulmate from becoming the face of the Democratic Party heading into 2026 and 2028.

In Democrat-heavy New York, a re-election win by ex-Democrat Mayor Adams is a more likely scenario than a surprise victory by Republican nominee Curtis Sliwa, founder of the anti-crime Guardian Angels.

But New York is an amazing place where anything can happen. It’s where Donald Trump glided down the escalator with his wife Melania at Trump Tower on June 16, 2015, ready to turn the world on its head. 

Illustration by Alexander Hunter / The Washington Times.