Mamdani’s ‘citizen engagement’ scam is nothing but taxpayer-funded astroturf

What a sick joke: Mayor Zohran Mamdani is burning city cash to stage angry crowds to demand the Rent Guidelines Board — already controlled by his appointees! — make good on his rent-freeze campaign promise.

In political circles, “astroturf” is the term for fake “grassroots” activism-for-hire; this is just taxpayer-funded astroturf.

The mayor actually boasts of how his Organize NYC will pay professional hacks to recruit people to put on this pointless show as the RGB “considers” whether to freeze regulated rents for 1 million city apartments.

He’s basically spending public funds (amid what he insists is a budget crisis!) on recruiting his own Mao-style Red Guards to bully any dissenters into line.

Or perhaps he’s just that deep into self-aggrandizing cosplay: Witness the slickly edited social-media recruitment video (“Uncle Mam wants you!”) in which Mamdani opens his Gracie Mansion door to two organizers (one named Mohammed, clad in a chic keffiyeh) informing him of the upcoming RGB hearing.

The mayor says it’s about “engagement” and that he wants landlords there too, but it’s all wink-wink, smirk-smirk.

Any landlords who dare show up to protest that the freeze will push their buildings into bankruptcy will instantly be surrounded by fanatics shouting them down, while Mamdani’s appointees pretend to be impressed by this “show of public opinion.”

It’s the farthest possible thing from an organic engagement of neighborhood residents, a paid political show to misrepresent the mayor’s misrule as a matter of popular will.

This “cultural revolution” won’t stop with the RGB; next the cadres will besiege other public meetings in support of some other Mamdani initiative, whether closing streets, demanding the city buy the apartment buildings he’s bankrupting, killing Gifted & Talented programs or divesting from Israel. 

For all the tut-tutting when his critics called Mamdani a “commie,” this supposed Democratic Socialist is proving he doesn’t give a whit about actual democracy.

He may not be an actual old-school communist, but he plainly loves to play one.