By Ray Cardello for November 9, 2025, Season 33 / Post 15

It seems like there are a plethora of issues that are jamming the minds of the electorate. Everyone has their unique way of prioritizing the issues we face. Many of the problems are intertwined, like illegal immigration and national security. One that has worked its way to the top, especially during the heavily emotional off-year elections of 2025. But there is one that I did not see coming a couple of months ago, and it speaks to the effectiveness of the Socialist candidate for mayor of New York City, Zohran Mamdani. Mamdani coined the term affordability and convinced thousands of young New Yorkers that he had a plan to make their lives easier through the wallets of white rich guys who have apartments overlooking Central Park. He would freeze their rents (albeit at all-time highs), give them a free bus pass, pay for their child’s daycare, and even educate them if they were ready for college. He was going to make living in the Big Apple affordable. He called this plan Democratic Socialist, but we who have not taken from the Kool-Aid pitcher call it Marxism or Communism.

By his name, he says his plan will work. By our name, we can point to 10 instances where it didn’t and none where it did. The biggest problem Mamdani faces is that these wealthy New Yorkers can just as easily be called rich Floridians. These people are highly mobile and have reached the brink of excess taxation by the city and state of New York. It is estimated that as many as 10% of New Yorkers will leave Metropolis and that means one million taxpayers taking their cash elsewhere. That’s a lot fewer people to pay for the millennials and Gen-Z folk who would rather sit on their couch all day watching reruns of The View than use their degree in East Asian Fairy Tales to find a job. Sadly, our parents may have been the Greatest Generation, but we could be the last Working Generation.

Voter turnout was low in New York on Tuesday, but Mamdani got enough of the 18-44-year-old voters to outdistance two even lesser candidates.
Topics that had been on the nightly news for years, like illegal immigration, public safety, sovereignty of our nation, gas /energy prices, cost of groceries, and inflation, have been replaced by affordability.

Our young people do not appreciate opportunity when it means work. What good is working when the extra income would trigger an increase in monthly rent? The Republicans need to jump on this topic and learn to message it effectively. We are not the Party of free handouts, but we do have programs to ease the cost-of-living burden on all Americans. In just his first year of his second term, Trump has overseen an increase in income, lower taxes, the cheapest grocery basket and gas prices in four years, and new weekly highs in stock prices. Inflation is non-existent, and we are at full employment. These are making life in America more affordable for everyone. We need to educate everyone on what it means to them.