NYC socialist Zohran Mamdani doubled down on taxing richer and Whiter neighborhoods this weekend, drawing sharp conservative backlash. He insisted his proposal isn’t racist but a matter of tax fairness.
“That is just a description of what we see right now,” Mamdani told NBC’s Meet the Press. “It’s not driven by race. It’s more of an assessment of what neighborhoods are being under taxed and overtaxed.”
His plan, titled “Stop the Squeeze on NYC Homeowners,” explicitly aims to “shift the tax burden from overtaxed homeowners in the outer boroughs to more expensive homes in richer and Whiter neighborhoods.” He noted those homeowners “pay less than their fair share” and proposed reassessing them accordingly.
Pressed on the phrasing, he added, “I’m just naming things as they are.” He claims his motive is fairness, not racial targeting: “The use of that language is just an assessment of the neighborhood… It is not to work backwards from a racial assessment.”
Mamdani also took aim at extreme wealth, declaring, “I don’t think that we should have billionaires, frankly. It is so much money in a moment of such inequality.”
Conservatives see his rhetoric as divisive identity politics, not genuine policy. They argue targeting neighborhoods based on racial composition sets a dangerous precedent and risks driving away investment.
Mamdani’s campaign has had time and opportunity to change the wording of his tax platform to remove the “Whiter” phrasing from the text. This would more accurately reflect Mamdani’s claims that his policy is wealth-based rather than racially motivated. As of this reporting on June 30, Mamdani’s campaign has refused to do so.
