You may have heard that NYC mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani has never had an actual job. That’s not entirely true. In 2016, he was trying very hard to make a career for himself as a “rapper,” billing himself as “Young Cardamom.” Here’s an example of his work:

In that video, Mamdani, who as a politician has called for a widespread ban on guns, as a rapper brandishes a gun and, as is so very typical of “rap music” videos, glorifies and glamorizes gun violence, although in this case it’s not set in one of America’s “inner cities” but in the Lowero Triangle of Uganda, north of Kampala, during the Ugandan Bush War of 1980-1986. Zohran Mamdani was born in Kampala in 1991, so his participation in the war is a fantasy.

My takeaway from this video is not that Mamdani is a hypocrite. That’s not really news. He “identifies” as a Democrat, a Democratic Socialist, and is seen by many as a full-fledged Communist, so hypocrisy is pretty much a given; it goes with the territory, and for his hypocrisy to be put on display (as it is in this video, in light of his later statements about guns) should surprise no one.

My takeaway is that the video reveals to us that the real Zohran Mamdani is a fatigues-clad Ché Guevara wannabe, a radical chic poseur, a little puke who harbors fantasies of being a badass revolutionary or a straight-outta-Compton “gangsta.”

That persona proves more, far more (as if more proof were necessary), than just his unsuitability for public office. It also points out the stark contrast between Mamdani, the failed former rapper, and his only viable rival for the office that New Yorkers call “Hizzoner,” Curtis Sliwa.

That’s because Curtis Sliwa’s story involves wrappers: Curtis is the former McDonald’s night manager (and martial arts enthusiast) who organized his crew to clean up the litter around their Bronx restaurant (litter that consisted mostly of McDonald’s wrappers!) and, in the process, wound up intervening in muggings; that begat a volunteer street and subway patrol called “The Magnificent 13” and that begat The Guardian Angels, a now-international group of dedicated volunteer unarmed crimefighters.

And it makes me fantasize that the mayoral race could be determined by a cage match between Mamdani and Sliwa; it would look like a match between Chuck Norris and Dylan Mulvaney (another poseur who presents himself as something he is clearly not); it wouldn’t even resemble a fair fight (and I’m sure neither Curtis nor Chuck would lower himself to take part), but it would nevertheless be immensely satisfying to watch!

I’ll just have to hope that New Yorkers will wise up and see to it that Curtis mops the floor with Mamdani at the ballot box.

Image created using AI.

Stu Tarlowe is a septuagenarian who has been contributing to American Thinker since 2010; most of his work for AT can be viewed here. He also posts on Stu’s Stack o’ Stuff, where subscriptions are still free and where the content is not exclusively political. For more than a decade, Stu was the personal editor for the late Conservative talk radio icon Barry Farber; his tribute to Barry Farber may be read here.