Imagine if you were a Marxist who hated New York City for its status as the de facto economic capital of the world’s foremost capitalist state, and yet you are clever and resourceful enough to capitalize upon the American left’s increasingly dominant and reflexive anti-Americanism and socialism to get yourself elected mayor of that very city. Would you pursue policies that would be destructive to the well-being of New Yorkers? Of course you would.
But surely I couldn’t be talking about the socialist wunderkind, New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani, could I? After all, he has promised to make the city affordable and welcoming of all people — a veritable model of fair economic practices and all the diversity the most committed leftist could ever want. Surely I am not so mean-spirited as to suggest that that very same Zohran Mamdani would actively make a decision because he knew that it would likely result in harm to New Yorkers, am I?
Of course I am not. I’m certain that the wondrous incoming Twelver Shi’ite socialist mayor has nothing but love for New Yorkers, and that when it came to filling the job of commissioner of the Fire Department of New York (FDNY), he cast a steely gaze upon the available candidates and chose, without fear or favor, the one whom he thought would do this best job of keeping the Big Apple towering inferno-free.
The ace firefighter whom Mamdani chose is one Lillian Bonsignore, but there’s just one catch: she has never actually been a firefighter. As a news report stated, “she’s confident that won’t matter.” With Mamdani standing supportively beside her, Bonsignore insisted: “I know the job. I know what the firefighters need and I can translate that to this administration who’s willing to listen.”
What’s that? She has to “translate” the needs of the firefighters to the Mamdani administration? Is the new mayor, who has been known to adopt the accent of whatever group he happens to be addressing at any given moment, planning on governing the city in a language other than English? Or is the FDNY so filled with non-Americans at this point that it needs translators for basic communication?
Of course, Bonsignore didn’t mean either of those things; she was merely referring to her claimed ability to relate both to the firefighters and to city officials. Yet even if she has that ability, that’s not why she got the job. Nor was her long experience as an emergency medical technician (EMT) what snagged her the FDNY top spot.
No, the reason why Lillian Bonsignore is the incoming commissioner of the FDNY is because she is a woman, and a lesbian. The first woman to serve as FDNY commissioner, Laura Kavanagh, was thrilled at the news that Mamdani had tabbed Bonsignore for the job, and remarked: “When I was sworn in, I said it only meant something to be first if I wasn’t the last. I’m so happy I didn’t have to wait long for that to be the case.”
That’s swell, but note that Kavanagh didn’t say anything about Bonsignore being superbly qualified in terms of being a firefighter. Kavanagh also had no experience as a firefighter when she became FDNY commissioner, so clearly she doesn’t think such experience matters. And maybe everything will be all right. We can all keep our fingers crossed. Nevertheless, there is abundant reason to be concerned.
After all, we have been here before, and not all that long ago. Kristin Crowley was Lillian Bonsignore’s counterpart in Los Angeles: not only the first female chief of the Los Angeles Fire Department, but the first lesbian. Everyone felt wonderful about how inclusive Los Angeles was until Jan. 2025, when catastrophic fires broke out in Pacific Palisades and Eaton Canyon.
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The following month, when another far-left blue city official, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass fired Crowley, the mayor remarked: “Acting in the best interests of Los Angeles’ public safety, and for the operations of the Los Angeles Fire Department, I have removed Kristin Crowley as fire chief. We know that 1,000 firefighters that could have been on duty on the morning the fires broke out were instead sent home on Chief Crowley’s watch.”
That’s just it. Leftist politicians seldom seem all that concerned about public safety until their virtue-signaling and taste for DEI appointments come back to bite them. Will the appointment of Lillian Bonsignore come back to bite Zohran Mamdani? For the sake of New York City residents, we can hope not. But in the course of human events, there are innumerable fools who tempted fate, and the God of fate, and thought the fire they were playing with would never burn them. If such fires break out in New York, don’t count on the FDNY.
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