By Dr. Miklos K. Radvanyi
Every nation across the globe possesses a political culture that binds together citizens of different ethnicities, religions, and moral principles through an existing constitutional framework, and a shared understanding of national identity. In the United States of America, that culture has historically rested on individual liberty, the rule of law, limited government, private enterprise, freedom of speech, religious liberty, and allegiance to the Constitution rather than to any political or religious ideology. Throughout American history, vigorous disagreements have strengthened rather than weakened the Republic because they occurred within this constitutional tradition. The question confronting Americans today is whether a growing segment of the Democrat Party and within it the so-called Democratic Socialist movement have moved beyond advocating different public policies, and has instead begun challenging the very constitutional principles that have defined the American way of life for two and a half centuries.
Clearly, the presently rudderless Democrat Party and within it the Democratic Socialists of America both resemble Sisyphus of the Greek Mythology. Not because they lack conviction, but because they seek to impose an ideological vision that has always collided with economic, constitutional, and political reality. Every ambitious promise – free services, expanded public ownership, sweeping rent controls, or far-reaching redistributive policies – must eventually confront the same immovable Sisyphean boulder: fiscal limits, market incentives, constitutional constraints, and the necessity of democratic compromise. Should those constraints frustrate their agenda, the temptation is to blame capitalism, the Jews, wealthy interests, or political opponents rather than reconsider the premises of the programs themselves. The Sisyphean boulder necessarily rolls back down the proverbial mountain, and the inevitable climb begins anew. For these reasons, the Democrat Party and the American Democratic Socialists are not the happily heroic figures of Sisyphus depicted so self-servingly in Albert Camus’ essay The Myth of Sisyphus. On the contrary, they are tragically unhappy individuals who combine Sisyphus’ detachment from reality with the arrogant chutzpah of another Greek Mythology figure by the name of Icarus whose ideological overconfidence led to his inevitable demise. In particular, the Democratic Socialists of America are incorrigibly devious revolutionaries oblivious to honestly confronting political and economic realities. Moreover, they are Revolutionaries who are in a never ending search for absurd counterrevolutions that require perpetual conflicts with the overwhelming majority of mankind.
Presently, the American Democratic Socialists’s most visible political representative is the New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani who – on the account of his hubristic campaign as well as his egomaniac governance must be called “The Mayor of Menacing Unreality.” Most importantly, his psychopathic pied-a- terre tax list identifying by names and addresses the “enemies of the people” coupled with his anti-Judaism psychosis directly link him to the terroristic Islamism of the Muslim Brotherhood, and Stalin’s Cultural Bolshevism. His “enemies of the people” concept is a political and legal label intended to identify anyone whom Mayor Mamdani considers an actual, potential, or imagined threat to his inhuman Islamic-Marxist tyranny. In this context, his rhetoric is deliberately broad, allowing him to eliminate political rivals, intimidate the inhabitants of New York City, and justify future repression.
Even more tyrannical is Mayor Mamdani’s definition of who the “enemies of people” are? On the top of his list are the Jews in general. Just slightly below them are all the intellectuals who disagree with his destructive worldview, religious leaders of every non-Muslim denomination, the so-called billionaires, all members of ethnic minorities accused of disloyalty to him personally, and even Muslims who oppose his extremist ideas. The end result, according to Mayor Mamdani, must be the elimination of real and potential rivals, the creation of the atmosphere of fear and instability, justifying political and economic failures by blaming primarily the Jews, striving for ideological conformity, and concentrating total power in his hands. In this sense, “enemy of the people” is not merely a rhetorical insult – it is an administrative category that will enable Mayor Mamdani to expand and maintain indefinitely absolute personal control over New York City.
Clearly, Mayor Mamdani represents not merely an extremist undemocratic set of political preferences, but a conception of politics in which ideological certainty displaces constitutional restraints. His tyrannical Islamist and Stalinist aspirations inspire him to embrace the “One of the bedrocks of our city is protest” mentality by willfully achieving unconstitutional results, namely the overthrow of the Republic. Mayor Mamdani has already committed several willful constitutional violations. He knew that his threat of arresting a head of state based on an ICC arrest warrant lacked legal authority, while his public call for New Yorkers and beyond to take to the streets to protest Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s visit constitutes incitement under 18 U.S.C. Paragraphs 241 or 242. The Constitution of the United States of America reserves the conduct of foreign affairs to the federal government, not the city halls. Moreover, Mayor Mamdani has also violated the First Amendment by intentionally ignoring his constitutional responsibility. In addition, public officials must also be judged by the standard of prudence, fidelity to office, and respect for the institutional limits of their authority. Mayor Mamdani’s oath is not a ceremonial recitation. It is a constitutional commitment. It obligates the officeholder to support the Constitution and faithfully discharge the duties of the office. Unambiguously, these duties do not include attempting to transform New York City into an independent actor in international diplomacy or criminal justice. Finally, when Mayor Mamdani has repeatedly used his office to encourage mass political mobilization over issues lying beyond the city’s legal authority, the distinction between governing and incitement begins to erode.
This danger is not only political. It is institutional too. Therefore, Mayor Mamdani’s actions concern the very character of the American constitutional government. Mayor Mamdani who willfully ignores this distinction threatens the very constitutional order he swore to defend. The threat of the replacement of the liberalism of the American Republic by an utterly ridiculous politics of permanent mayhem called “Democratic Socialism” would undoubtedly lead to the ultimate collapse of the United States of America.