‘South Africa Is the Model for New York’

No matter how bad you think Zohran Mamdani is, you have grossly underestimated him. 

Yes, I know that sounds like hyperbole, but that’s the great advantage that evil has: it’s so off the charts bad that it’s impossible to believe it could be real. 

”South Africa is the model for New York” literal nightmare headline pic.twitter.com/vAHEgaqbwd

— Drew Pavlou 🇦🇺🇺🇸🇺🇦🇹🇼 (@DrewPavlou) January 6, 2026

It’s real. Americans—in the financial capital of the world, no less—have elected a bona fide communist whose agenda is based on one of the worst models in the world: South Africa. 

No doubt he picked South Africa because it fits his model of decolonialization. A white dominated government was peacefully, sort of, overthrown and replaced with one dominated by the oppressed. It’s a nice sort of story, as long as you don’t actually know how it worked out in the real world. 

“Kill the Boer, the White farmer!”

The media labels it as a ‘protest song’, yet White farmers in South Africa are killed on a daily basis. The media is complicit. pic.twitter.com/Yov9eN4RCz

— iamyesyouareno (@iamyesyouareno) October 21, 2024

Mamdani looks to the African National Conference for moral and economic guidance, and it is no doubt an attractive model if the whole point of gaining power is to install a corrupt regime that strip mines the polity for resources and gins up anger and division to keep the ruling party in power. 

So what can New Yorkers look forward to under their energetic and muscular new form of socialism? Mayor Mamdani gave them clues, advising them to “look to Madiba and the South African Freedom Charter.” The charter that Madiba – Nelson Mandela – helped forge with the ANC was the blueprint for post-apartheid South Africa. It opens with the words “our people have been robbed of their birthright to land, liberty and peace by a form of government founded on injustice and inequality.” Suggesting that apartheid is alive and well in New York will have brought another big gulp from Schumer and the Democratic establishment. The Democrat Socialists of America have so far failed to persuade the country that apartheid exists in Israel, so it’s ambitious to think they can make the case for its existence in New York. This is testing the very limits of grievance politics. And the current almost failed state that is South Africa, with white farmers fleeing to America as refugees, bodes particularly ill as a template for New York.

As in South Africa, the enemy in Mamdani’s New York is often white people. He has already vowed to target “whiter neighborhoods” for higher taxes. In his inaugural speech he zoned in on another set of unprosecuted criminals: billionaires. They think they “can buy our democracy” and for too long New York has belonged to “the wealthy and well-connected.” Billionaires seemingly the scourge of the city and also neatly the solution to its problems – just increase their taxes.

However, the Robin Hood mask slipped when Mamdani spoke about plans to fix the “long-broken property tax system,” which will not see billionaires and oligarchs pay more, but middle-class property owners.

On the one hand, we shouldn’t be surprised that Mamdani looks to South Africa as a model. If you see the world entirely in terms of an oppressor/oppressed dialectic, few places fit the model better than South Africa. 

And if you want to know what the “oppressed” will do once they get in power, and that is how Mamdani thinks of himself, South Africa should scare you to death. 

Granted, South Africa isn’t Zimbabwe, so there is that. For all the creakiness that has entered the economy, there is still some wealth to strip mine yet, although the economy is shrinking in real terms as the former wealth gets eaten up by corruption and socialism. 

In per capita terms, real GDP peaked in 2013 and has been falling ever since. This means South Africans have been getting poorer, on average, for more than a decade. 

Coronation’s economics unit explained this decline in economic growth as a function of declining productivity from South Africa’s labour force. 

A large part of this is simply due to the share of unemployed South Africans, who do not contribute to economic activity as strongly as those with jobs, rising significantly since 2010. 

It said that from 2008, the labour component of economic growth shrunk rapidly and productivity growth effectively collapsed. 

After 2010, productivity across key sectors fell sharply as capacity collapsed and state-owned enterprises absorbed billions in capital without increasing their output. 

For example, Eskom’s capital stock doubled between 2010 and 2019, yet electricity production plummeted, resulting in severe load-shedding. 

Mining and construction also lost efficiency as energy and logistics constraints deepened, with the economy pivoting towards less productive sectors, such as public administration and community services. 

As with the leftists who have taken to the streets in defense of Maduro, Mamdani’s supporters view their interests in terms or harming their class enemies, not in terms of making life better for everyone. 

Yesterday I wrote about Mamdani’s communist friend, who he put in charge of housing. Her priorities are very clear: harm white people. That is not an interpretation of her intentions. She SAYS it. 

Next up – views on white people:

“this country built wealth for white people through genocide, slavery, stolen land & labor”

“white supremacy built the north and the south” pic.twitter.com/ZHqihzrHi8

— Michelle Tandler (@michelletandler) January 5, 2026

Warning – this one is creepy:

“I wish I believed in god so I could believe that all men who take credit for women’s work and all white men who take credit for the work of women of color would one day burn” pic.twitter.com/ZDrBtatQA9

— Michelle Tandler (@michelletandler) January 5, 2026

White liberals will roll their eyes and explain that we really shouldn’t hyperventilate about some harmless communist posturing, to which I say: you supported the guys who love Cube, defend Maduro, approved of the Soviet Union, and want to globalize the intifada. 

Mamdani is open about using South Africa as a model. Well, look at it. If that is what you want, say so. 

But as far as I can see, “defending democracy” these days means importing the political values of failed African states. 

Editor’s Note: Democrat politicians and their radical supporters will do everything they can to interfere with and threaten ICE agents enforcing our immigration laws.

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