The honeymoon is over: The New York City mayor's crusade crashes into the reality
The good luck streak of the New York City mayor Zohran Mamdani is now meeting reality, and he is dealing with dissatisfaction in his political environment, against the city's economic elite - and also against the Jewish community.
Just a few months ago, it seemed that New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani was riding a wave of unprecedented success. After succeeding in fulfilling his campaign promise to impose a new tax on the wealthy, demonstrating political muscle with the successful support of three progressive candidates for Congress, and even handing the keys to the city to the New York Knicks, it seemed the sky was the limit. However, now, according to a report in the "Wall Street Journal", Mamdani's streak of good luck is meeting reality, and he is dealing with growing dissatisfaction from the city's residents.
The criticism towards Mamdani comes from several fronts: from his anti-Israel rhetoric, through harming the business community, to a strained relationship with the City Council. The latest blow landed this week, when a judge immediately froze the new tax on second luxury apartments after a group of residents filed a lawsuit claiming mismanagement of the move. The municipality did rush to appeal, but not before the judge leveled sharp criticism at the administration's conduct, which published a list of more than 900,000 properties that might be subject to tax, and sent notices to 17,000 property owners without sufficient due diligence.
Even US President Donald Trump, who at the beginning of the year maintained friendly political relations with Mamdani, intervened this week and called the move a "dangerous political experiment," while declaring that his administration is examining federal legal steps to stop the tax.
According to the report in the "Wall Street Journal", Mamdani has also begun to lose altitude in the local political arena. City Council members complain that he announces candidates for senior positions without allowing the council to properly vet them. At the same time, members of his party, such as Council Member Oswald Feliz, accuse him of distributing only "crumbs" for projects in weak neighborhoods, while the chairman of the New York Metropolitan Transportation Authority, Janno Lieber, complained that Mamdani's promises for free buses encourage passengers to evade paying fares.
Mamdani's relations with the city's economic elite are also at a low, especially after he fired dozens of senior officials from the Mayor's Fund advisory board. But the most burning and worrying front is the deep rift with the Jewish community in New York. Jewish leaders warn that his blatant anti-Israel rhetoric leaves their community exposed and insecure. The concerns reached a boiling point last month, when Mamdani released a video in which he admitted he had no legal authority to arrest Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, but defined him as a "war criminal" and called on federal authorities to do so. "Our relationship has deteriorated significantly," confirmed Rabbi Amiel Hirsch, president of the New York Board of Rabbis, despite Mamdani's promises to fight antisemitism.
Despite the public storm, Mamdani's office insists that the achievements speak for themselves. A spokesperson on his behalf emphasized the many efforts to promote the local economy, a significant cut in regulation on small businesses, the repair of more than 170,000 potholes in the roads, and balancing the municipal budget despite a huge deficit of 12 billion dollars. According to her, New York is even recording the lowest rates of violent crime and murder ever measured. However, as political strategist Juan Carlos Polanco noted, Mamdani's lack of management experience before his meteoric entry into office means that every shock, mistake, or crisis is felt in his administration with much greater intensity than with his predecessors.
