Mayor Zohran Mamdani finally felt compelled to admit he couldn’t order Benjamin Netanyahu arrested, so his consolation prize for his fanbase was a new Oval Office-style address late Tuesday where he repeated the whole litany of post-Oct. 7 pro-Hamas agitprop — without, of course, even mentioning the genuine atrocities of Oct. 7, 2023.
When you can’t deliver substance, go big on vibes.
The “arrest” thing was always pure fantasy, a story the global left-Islamist alliance tells itself about “international law.”
Neither the United States nor Israel ever signed on to the International Criminal Court under which the bogus “indictment” was laid; indeed US law forbids honoring any ICC warrants.
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If Mamdani didn’t know the truth before Tuesday, it’s because he didn’t want to; either way, he kept talking about arresting Netanyahu because the idea cheers his pals and irritates his enemies.
Which is why the “oops, I can’t” speech had to repeat all the “genocide” lies in spurious detail, including fury over a starvation that never happened and a slaughter of aid workers that never took place.
From the start of his campaign, Mamdani’s mayoralty has rested on visions of magically transforming New York City into a Big Rock Candy Mountain of free stuff, social revolution and bitter tears for the enemies of the socialist agenda: homeowners, rich white people, Zionists.
But delivering on his material promises is another matter.
He got the two-year rent freeze — though it won’t cover many of his voters, and may yet implode under court challenges.
But government-run grocery stores look to be years off, at best; free child-care is just a pilot program, mostly for city employees; free buses seem to have fallen off the list entirely.
Nearly all his policing promises are on hold, too — and even his fans can’t be that jazzed that homeless encampments now last longer and free needle exchanges will continue.
So maximum trolling becomes an urgency; lucky he’s good at it!
This is the meaning of his vow to be a mayor with a singular focus on New Yorkers’ needs: His daily posturing will include regular performative rage to satisfy all the city’s Jew-haters, for whom no day is complete without performative wailing about Palestine and the evils of Zion.
It’s the kind of garbage is what you get when you elect a guy because he’s a master of Instagram.