Zohran Kwame Mamdani was born in 1991 in Uganda, an authoritarian state whose leadership suppresses political opposition, free press, free expression, and peaceful assembly.

When Mamdani was 7-years-old, he and his parents, yearning for liberty, migrated to America's shores, settling in New York City.

Zohran had the good fortune to be accepted to an elite public school, the Bronx School of Science. Afterwards, he received a degree in African studies from Bowdoin College.

During his undergraduate years he embraced socialism and was a founder of the Students for Justice in Palestine — an anti-Semitic organization.

Returning to New York, he lived off his parents and for a time performed as a rapper.

After joining the Democratic Socialists of America and the Muslim Democratic Club, he got his first real paying job when he was elected to the New York Assembly in 2019.

In 2025, promising to create a socialist paradise, he was elected the Big Apple's mayor. What is most disturbing to me is Mamdani's support of a new "democratic constitution."

He and his comrades call for a second constitutional convention "to write the founding documents of a new socialist democracy." They would, among many things, abolish the U.S. Senate and extend voting rights to non-citizens.

Considering the fact that Mandani and his family escaped an oppressive regime, one would think he would have an enlightened view on America's civil liberties.

But he doesn't. And the City Hall televised speech he delivered from George Washington's desk on the eve of America’s 250th anniversary proves it.

In addition to highlighting the nation's faults, he made the ludicrous claim that America is a country "where only a select few are allowed freedom, where not all are created equal."

What Mamdani fails to grasp, is that the U.S. was founded on the belief that the "laws of nature and nature's God make men equal."

For the Founders, man is equal in the eyes of God, equal before the law, and entitled to equal opportunities to pursue his road to happiness, making the most of himself.

Therefore, the task of the national government is to protect self-evident truths not by imposing abstract schemes on society but by representing it.

For a radical like New York's mayor, liberty to pursue happiness and property contradicts equality.

Zohran Mamdani's brand of equality has no interest in economic growth or rewarding talent in industriousness.

He rejects competitive individualism that stresses differences in favor of egalitarian collectivism that eliminates differences.

Mamdani did get it right in his speech when he said patriotism "has never been about pretending our nation is without flaws."

But he got it wrong when he declared that patriotism is "every act of righteous dissent."

Patriotism, properly understood, is one’s unconditional love for one’s country.

G.K. Chesterton summed it up when he quipped, "My Country, right or wrong" is akin to saying "My mother, drunk or sober."

In other words, we love our country and our mothers—despite their faults.

Mamdani also has a warped definition of American exceptionalism.

For him it means "nothing is fixed in place."

There are indeed things fixed in place. They are the basic liberties described in the Declaration of Independence and codified in the U.S. Constitution.

America is exceptional because it was founded on a creed, not on blood or soil.

To understand what makes America truly exceptional, Mayor Mamdani should heed the words found in the critically acclaimed book, "A History of the American People," by the distinguished British historian, Paul Johnson:

"The story of America is essentially one of difficulties being overcome by intelligence and skill, by faith and strength of purpose, by courage and persistence.

"America today . . . is a human achievement without parallel. That achievement — the transformation of a mostly uninhabited wilderness into the supreme national artifact of history — did not come about without heroic sacrifice and great sufferings stoically endured, many costly failures, huge disappointments, defeats, and tragedies.

"There have indeed been many setbacks . . . many unresolved problems, some of daunting size, remain. But the Americans are, above all, a problem-solving people. They do not believe that anything in this world is beyond human capacity to soar to and dominate. They will not give up.

"Full of essential goodwill to each other and to all, confident in their inherent decency in their democratic skills, they will attack again and again the ills in their society, until they are overcome or at least substantially redressed. . . .

"The great American republican experiment is still the cynosure of the world’s eyes. It is still the first, best hope for the human race.

"Looking back on its past, and forward to its future, the auguries are that it will not disappoint an expectant humanity."

Amen to that.

George J. Marlin, a former executive director of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, is the author of "The American Catholic Voter: Two Hundred Years of Political Impact," and "Christian Persecutions in the Middle East: A 21st Century Tragedy." Read more George J. Marlin Insider articles — Click Here Now.