How New York Lost Its Mind
From Athens to New York, democracy’s fatal flaw has always been the same — confusing appetite for justice and charisma for competence.
There is nowhere in the world that matches the energy, the culture, and the sheer magic that is New York City. The city that never sleeps is a metropolitan phenomenon that cannot be replicated, and other capitals pale in comparison. Successive waves of immigrants over many centuries layered their cultures into a unique tapestry that is the greatest city on Earth.
This is the proud legacy of New Yorkers. I, for one, am miserable every morning in which I awake and find myself anywhere but New York. Which brings us to the question that is on the lips of millions of people around the world: what the hell is going on with New York?
Putting aside the past two years of watching “liberal” New Yorkers flirting with chic terrorist groups while sporting their cosplay keffiyehs, New York is now on the verge of electing a full and unabashed socialist.
If that was not enough, he is not a dogwhistle antisemite but actually struggles to condemn slogans like “globalize the intifada.” I remember a time when politicians did not say the quiet parts aloud; they just used code words like banks and media. Mamdani is using language that would make Henry Ford blush.
Keep in mind that New York has the largest Jewish population in the world outside of Israel. New York City has a larger Jewish population than Jerusalem or Tel Aviv. Mamdani, who fully embraces the lexicon and culture of radical Islam, is campaigning to become the mayor of a city that still shares the painful memories of 9/11.
We have seen a steady increase in antisemitism across the world over the past decade, and history suggests that antisemitism is the canary in the coal mine of societal decay. That alone, though, is but a symptom and perhaps a clarion call but does not identify the underlying cause of such irrational and self-destructive behavior on the part of New Yorkers.
For this, we need to delve a little deeper into history to roughly 2,400 years ago. This is 400 years before Christianity, 700 years before the Talmud, and about 1,000 years before Muhammad was born. In “The Republic,” Plato lays out a political roadmap that arguably predicts the current state of New York political affairs and perhaps the United States as well.
To Plato, democracy is the absolute worst form of government and will ultimately end in tyranny. While it starts with noble intentions, values equality, tolerates dissenting opinions, and scorns hierarchy, it will eventually destroy itself from within. According to Plato, democracies will inevitably mistake indulgence for justice, appetite for right, and charisma for competence. Sound familiar yet? Plato was bitter from watching democratic Athens implode and eventually martyr his mentor, Socrates.
This is how a city like New York, that once worshiped excellence, now applauds mediocrity wrapped in moral slogans. It is how a proud nation like the Jews, with a long memory, can suddenly turn on themselves in the twisted belief that this is righteousness personified. Plato would say the democratic soul has turned against its own reason.
Although according to Plato, the current state of New York, and the rest of America by logical extension, is one step away from tyranny, there is reason to hope otherwise. The founding fathers were all very well versed in philosophy and were cognizant of the pitfalls in democracy as laid out by Plato. Until this point, no democracy had been successful, and the list of attempts included Athens, Rome, Florence, the Dutch, and England, all of which ended exactly as Plato predicted.
With these failures in mind, the founding fathers went to great lengths to structure the republic with safeguards and features in the Constitution that would prevent the Platonic spiral. Checks and balances, as well as instituting representation instead of direct rule, were just some of the failsafes built into the system. America was designed with the specific intent and against all odds to prove Plato wrong.
There was one more critical factor that was baked into the United States of America from its inception. Alexis de Tocqueville was a French citizen who in 1835 authored “Democracy in America.” He travelled around the States studying its culture and the experiment of its democracy. His experience in France would have resonated with Plato as a failed revolution that resulted in violence, bloodshed, and multiple collapses. What he saw in America inspired him for it greatly contrasted with the secular revolution of France on several levels.
In his book, he explained that liberty can only be sustained by religion and moral self-discipline, absent of which democracy will evolve into Platonic tyranny. “Despotism may govern without faith, but liberty cannot” was one of his famous quotations as he warned of the pitfalls.
He believed that the genius of America was not in the constitution alone but in the people. He felt that the culture of America, its churches, schools, and civic associations, created a society of restraint. They bound freedom to responsibility and reminded Americans that conscience must always govern appetite and not allow it to run rampant.
His prescient warning to America was that once those moral mediating forces decay, then ideology becomes religion, compassion becomes self-loathing, and proving your virtue means embracing those who despise the very foundations of your society.
Plato’s “Republic” was descriptive, not prophetic. Both thinkers concurred that freedom and democracy are a discipline, not a reward or an entitlement. It does not require a nostalgia for a better time or a theocracy; what it does require is the comprehension that reason is nobler than passion, progress can coexist with tradition, and empathy without justice is just sentimentality.
Plato showed us how freedom dies; Tocqueville showed us how it can flourish. Washington cannot legislate this; it needs to happen organically in our homes, schools, and pulpits. We must teach again the value of liberty and raise our children as citizens, not consumers. Our centers of education must value truth over ideology, our clergy need to preach moral duty over moral fashion, and that freedom depends on gratitude, not grievance. With these steps, we can disprove Plato’s fatalism, restore moral order, and with the grace of God, restore our republic to its former glory.
