Fox News co-host Emily Compagno sounded the alarm this week on The Five after reports that Barack Obama privately praised Zohran Mamdani’s mayoral campaign and offered to be a sounding board. Conservatives have every reason to be uneasy when former presidents use their prestige to normalize radical candidates, and Fox’s on-air pushback reflected a broader unease on the right about what Mamdani’s rise would mean for New York.
The facts are clear: Obama phoned Mamdani and called his campaign “impressive,” offering to advise if Mamdani wins, though the former president’s team said he did not issue a public endorsement. That phone call, reported by multiple outlets, is being framed by Democrats as benign goodwill — but to patriotic Americans it reads like elite validation of a socialist experiment.
Zohran Mamdani is not a mainstream Democrat; he proudly runs as a democratic socialist and surged to the Democratic nomination by tapping into raw populist anger. His agenda — rent freezes, big tax hikes on the wealthy, free transit and other giveaways — reads like a blueprint for runaway costs, capital flight, and a city less friendly to honest work and investment.
This is why conservative commentators like Compagno are terrified: a city that builds policies on class warfare and punitive taxation will chase out jobs, hollow out public services, and reward political theater over competence. Even within the left there is nervousness about Mamdani’s extremism, and the optics of Obama’s praise only embolden Democrats’ far-left base while alienating moderates and business leaders who keep the city afloat.
Democratic leadership is split and scrambling — some big names have publicly hugged Mamdani, others have stayed silent or hedged their bets, and that ambivalence tells you everything about how reckless this experiment really is. The fact that national figures are whispering support instead of openly standing behind him shows they know how toxic a full-throated endorsement would be in the court of swing voters and small-business owners.
Patriots who love New York and love America should see this moment for what it is: a fight over whether our cities will reward producers or punish them. If conservatives and sensible independents don’t organize, donate, and show up at the polls to reject class-warfare policies, the skyline won’t be the only thing that gets hollowed out — opportunity and public safety will, too.
This race is a national story because cities set the template. If Washington’s liberal elites can lift up a democratic socialist nominee in the nation’s largest city, expect more of the same nationwide. Stand firm, spread the word, and let every voter know exactly what’s at stake before they check that ballot.
