From Sinatra to Subsidies

In Mamdani’s New York, No One Has to Make It. They Just Have to Complain Loudly Enough.

“If I can make it there, I’ll make it anywhere.”
— Frank Sinatra, “New York, New York”

That line wasn’t just a lyric; it was an ethos. For decades, those words captured the very soul of New York: the city that rewards hustle, grit, and ambition. It was a promise, brutal and beautiful, that if you could survive here, thrive here, and earn your place here, the world would open up for you.

But today, that spirit is being suffocated. And leading the charge is Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani, who has built his political career on the opposite idea:

“If you can’t make it here, we’ll subsidize you until you stop trying.”

From Sinatra to Subsidy

Mamdani is leading what can only be called a resentment revolution. He doesn’t mobilize people to aim higher; he organizes them to pull others down. His agenda? A list of government-backed shortcuts for those who’ve given up on the Sinatra dream and now want the government to deliver them a new one.

• Free bus rides

• Rent freezes

• Universal healthcare, regardless of cost or practicality

• Public ownership of utilities

• State-run grocery stores, yes, really.

It’s not a platform for progress. It’s a worldview made for people who see success and think, "Why not me?" but then pick activism over accountability.

This isn’t about helping the vulnerable. It’s about building a permanent political constituency of the underachieving, the aggrieved, and the subsidized. And it’s working, at least politically. Because Mamdani understands a key truth about human nature: it’s easier to resent success than to replicate it.

His supporters don’t want to make it in New York; they want New York to make it for them. They don’t want to climb the ladder; they want to break the top rungs and install a public elevator labeled “Equity.” Sinatra’s lyrics celebrate struggle. Mamdani’s movement dismisses it.

And Who Pays for This New York?

The wealthy, of course. Always the wealthy. Mamdani’s revolution relies on taxing a shrinking group of high earners, the very people who still believe in Sinatra’s promise. But here’s the problem: those people are leaving.

From 2019 to 2024, New York lost nearly 18% of its millionaire tax base. Some are fleeing crime, but most are fleeing confiscation masquerading as compassion. States like Florida, Texas, and Nevada are rolling out red carpets while New York rolls out higher taxes and shame campaigns.

State-Run Groceries and the Politics of Surrender

It’s not enough for Mamdani to make your electricity “democratically owned.” He also wants to control your food supply. His campaign has proposed the idea of municipal grocery stores because, apparently, what New York really needs is the DMV experience applied to produce.

But this is precisely the endgame when you build a political movement based on resentment. You run out of millionaires, and you begin rationing bananas.

Let’s be clear: Mamdani’s ideology doesn’t come from compassion. It stems from the soft bigotry of no expectations. It tells able-bodied, educated, and capable people that they are helpless without government intervention. It tells strivers to sit down and the stagnant to stand up and demand more.

It’s not generosity. It’s surrender.

New York used to be the place where the best came to prove themselves in a city that never sleeps. Today, under Mamdani’s vision, it risks becoming a city where the bitter come to be cared for. Where excellence is elitism, aspiration is oppression, and the anthem is no longer “Start spreading the news”—it’s “Start spreading the welfare.”

If Sinatra’s lyrics still mean something, and if we still believe in New York as a test of talent, drive, and resilience, then we need to reject Mamdani’s vision before it calcifies.

Because if “making it there” no longer matters, then “making it anywhere” is next.