Why Tony Soprano Would Be Furious Right Now

Zohran Mamdani has decided that Italians are not real New Yorkers.

Real New Yorkers are from Pakistan or from Bangladesh. There’s “Little Palestine” as well.

Little Palestine, by the way, sounds really terrible if in any way it mirrors the Palestinian areas in Israel.

Mayor Mamdani released a map showing immigrant enclaves, but they missed one called Little Italy, which, of course, is probably the most historically important enclave in New York City.

Instead, Mamdani put out a bunch of neighborhoods that he invented: “Little Pakistan,” “Little Senegal,” or “Little Yemen.”

Who’s in Little Yemen, the Houthis? Anyone want to visit?

These are not real names of neighborhoods. Of course, there’s no labeling of Jewish areas in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, or Borough Park.

In a statement, a City Hall spokesperson said the map was not designed to highlight religious enclaves in the Big Apple. Instead, they said it highlights New York City neighborhoods with substantial foreign-born populations from regions and countries around the world.

Great job. You ignored Little Italy.

And the Italians are angry.

This is where we need to insert the clip of Tony Soprano explaining that Columbus was an American hero.

Remember, Zohran Mamdani is the guy who took a picture of himself and posted it on social media in the Black Lives Matter summer of 2020, flipping off a statue of Columbus with the caption, “Take it down.”

It turns out that the inanimate statue didn’t care.

So Columbus needs to go, but we must, must, must inform visitors to New York where Little Yemen is, where Little Pakistan and Little “Palestine” are.

Sounds awesome.

Mamdani is trying to run the city of New York as though it were its own little polity — its own country. Today, City-Journal reported that a top Mamdani official tried to meet with the Iranian government:

Earlier this week, Ana María Archila, commissioner of New York City’s Office for International Affairs, was scheduled to meet with Iran’s ambassador and permanent representative to the United Nations, Amir-Saeid Iravani. Archila allegedly did not inform Mayor Zohran Mamdani of the meeting and was directed to cancel it.

The State Department instead met with Mamdani and his administration to say, “Guys, you are not allowed to do that. You don’t run your own foreign policy with regard to Iran, as much as Mamdani would like to think that he does.”

City-Journal noted:

On April 16, a message seen by City Journal was sent to staff within the Mayor’s Office for International Affairs asking them to prioritize diplomatic engagement in part based on whether foreign officials “are . . . in political alignment/leftist.”

So they wanted to engage diplomatically only with regimes that agree with them, and the first place they tried was Iran.

I can’t imagine why.

You mean that Zohran Mamdani and his priorities match the priorities of the Iranian ayatollahs?

That’s shocking. I just can’t believe it.

This is where the Democrats have gone at this point.

City Journal continued:

The administration’s international ambitions have not been limited to public comments. Last month, Mamdani intended to meet with leftist Colombian President Gustavo Petro. The meeting was called off after the State Department declined to issue a visa following Petro’s attendance at a rally hosted by Mamdani in September. Archila’s international meetings include a two-day trip to Barcelona in April to participate in a conference hosted by the Party of European Socialists.

Mamdani doesn’t need to be president. He thinks that New York is his flagship city, that he is going to run his own foreign policy, and he’s going to make it unlivable for people he doesn’t like.

I know there are a lot of Democrats saying, “He talks a big game, but he’s not going to be able to do anything.”

Famous last words.

Real estate investors are already fleeing the city.

They should. Because the city that Mamdani runs is not a city that is great for people who traditionally like our country.

It is utterly unsurprising that the same Mamdani who was flipping off a statue of Columbus is perfectly happy meeting with Iran.

It is all the same thing forever and always: The red-green alliance — the Marxist-Islamist alliance — is alive and kicking.

It also has that horseshoe aspect where they have the sympathy of people like Tucker Carlson, Marjorie Taylor Greene, and Thomas Massie.

Erasing Little Italy is just the start.