"Think globally, act locally."
Remember those bumper stickers that used to be so popular with your lefty friends and neighbors? To me, seeing one was always a tell that the owner of that car — whatever happened to "property is theft," bub? — might as well fly the hammer and sickle, whether they knew it or not.
They had drunk deep of the strawberry Kool-Aid, blindly repeating a mantra that any Soviet commissar would have instantly recognized. Spasibo for your attention to this matter, Comrade.
The international communist revolution was made possible by local action, which is exactly why you always see the most radical Democrats running for offices that you might not have even known existed, or effectively mobbing city council meetings to try and make their radical ideas seem mainstream.
So give the communists credit where it's due: For people who want to live off other people's money, they sure know how to hustle in the public sector.
Which brings us to New York City mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani and his latest appearance on the city's ABC-7 News.
Mamdani sat down on Sunday with ABC 7's Bill Ritter for an Up Close segment, and Ritter asked, "You said you'd arrest [Israeli PM] Benjamin Netanyahu, based on the 2024 International Criminal Court arrest warrant. Next general UN assembly, would you do that?"
But here's the part of Mamdani's reply that ought to prepare New Yorkers to get what they voted for, good, hard, and without the benefit of foreplay.
“I believe this is a city of international law," Mamdani told Ritter, "and being a city of international law means looking to uphold international law.”
Talk about getting too big for your britches. Mamdani seems to think his job is to work the will of the international left — aka Commies — rather than attend to the needs of New Yorkers. You know, the idiots who idiotically voted for this unaccomplished cupcake.
Never you mind that even if Mamdani did have ICC authority (he doesn't), UN visitors enjoy diplomatic immunity — much to the chagrin of New Yorkers trying to find a parking spot when some UN ninny is double-parked and can't be made to pay the fine.
Here's the thing, though, and the reason I have some small hope that Mamdani will go down as a one-term failure.
Whatever else you might have to say about former Republican Sen. Al D'Amato's conservative credentials, he came up in local NYC politics and understood constituent services like hardly anyone ever. He paid such close attention to his city that — even while serving in the United States Senate — he was known as "Pothole Al." If voters complained about a pothole, Al made sure it got fixed.
Mamdani, on the other hand, is exactly the kind of "think globally" dunderhead likely to mistake the mayor's office for leadership of the USSR's Fifth International or some similar lefty calling.
New Yorkers — and God bless 'em because those fools will need it, badly — will soon learn that instead of the "free this and free that" they were promised, they'll get a mayor focused on his global communist jihad.
Those potholes will wait, suckers.
Recommended: In Which We Applaud Fareed Zakaria for Belatedly Seeing the Blindingly Obvious
Want more of the unvarnished truth? Get exclusive columns, podcasts, and video live chats with your PJ Media VIP membership — now 60% off during our FIGHT promotion.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member