NEW YORK CITY (LifeSiteNews) — The Big Apple began the new year by swearing in its new mayor, self-described “democratic socialist” Zohran Mamdani, who previewed the far-left tenure to come in an audacious inauguration speech on Thursday.
Elected last November in a race that generated significant national interest and unconventional allies, the former New York state assemblyman sparked panic for the Big Apple’s future given his self-identification as a “democratic socialist” and his closeness to radical Islamist organizations and groups, prompting even many Republicans and conservatives to pull for left-wing former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who ran as an independent, to win, largely dismissing any hope for GOP nominee Curtis Sliwa, who lagged behind both in the polls.
Mamdani seemed intent on validating those fears in his acceptance speech declaring, “I was elected as a democratic socialist and I will govern as a democratic socialist,” the New York Post reports.
In an explicit repudiation of Democrat former President Bill Clinton’s famous attempt to appeal to the center by declaring “the era of big government is over” in a previous generation, Mamdani said, “to those who insist that the era of big government is over, hear me when I say this—no longer will City Hall hesitate to use its power to improve New Yorkers’ lives.” He vowed instead to “govern expansively and audaciously.”
In a line almost tailor-made to provoke a response, Mamdani said his administration would “replace the frigidity of rugged individualism with the warmth of collectivism.” Collectivism, a governing philosophy ultimately about subordinating individual rights to a perceived “greater good,” has manifested in some of the most brutal and disastrous ideologies of the twentieth century, such as Communism.
MAYOR MAMDANI: “We will replace the frigidity of rugged individualism with the warmth of collectivism.” pic.twitter.com/3LIOVHdKSy
— Fox News (@FoxNews) January 1, 2026
Yet Mamdani presented it as a simple matter of compassion, vowing that the “cost of childcare will no longer discourage young adults from starting a family, because we will deliver universal childcare for the many by taxing the wealthiest few.” The crowd erupted in chants of “tax the rich” during related remarks by one of Mamani’s most high-profile supporters, socialist U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders.
‘TAX THE RICH’: Mamdani’s inauguration crowd erupts when Sen. Bernie Sanders calls on “the wealthy and large corporations” to pay “their fair share of taxes.”
“It’s not radical, it is exactly the right thing to do,” Sanders says. pic.twitter.com/dSrwGRIGFq
— Fox News (@FoxNews) January 1, 2026
Following Mamdani’s election, he and Trump raised eyebrows with a cordial White House visit and press conference in which the president showered the diametrically-opposed politician with praise, expressing optimism for the mayor-elect’s chances of returning New York to greatness and teasing “some of his ideas are the same as my ideas,” particularly on housing affordability.
Since his election, however, Mamdani has shown no signs of moderating on any of his socialist ideas or far-left agenda. As previously covered by LifeSiteNews, Mamdani has threatened to put crisis pregnancy centers out of business, pledging on the campaign trail to “enforce Local Law 17, which protects New Yorkers from false information spread by Crisis Pregnancy Centers, including lies about abortion safety and medications” (which historically means true information the abortion lobby dislikes), and, according to Planned Parenthood’s statement endorsing him, “confronting private health care institutions that have refused to provide” so-called “gender transition” procedures.
The mayor-elect also favors effectively unlimited abortion-on-demand and, per Planned Parenthood, “doubling funding for both New York City’s Abortion Access Hub and the New York Abortion Access Fund (NYAAF),” all but ensuring more mothers will ultimately have their babies destroyed rather than give them a chance through CPCs.
“New York City must be a refuge for [so-called] LGBTQIA+ people, but private institutions in our own city have already started capitulating to Trump’s assault on trans rights” (i.e., “gender transitions”), Mamdani also said in an election-day interview. “Meanwhile, the cost of living crisis confronting working class people across the city hits the [so-called] LGBTQIA+ community particularly hard, with higher rates of unemployment and homelessness than the rest of the city.”
