Zohran Mamdani just crushed it in the first Democratic primary to be the next mayor of New York. The 33-year-old socialist was an underdog throughout the campaign, with the establishment choosing to line up behind disgraced pervert Andrew Cuomo.
In retrospect, New Yorkers deciding they’d rather vote for the guy offering free bus fares and rent freezes rather than the famed sex pest shouldn’t be a huge surprise. Even so, Mamdani’s pledge to make the wealthiest New Yorkers pay their fair share to support public facilities received the same reaction as if he’d unveiled a gulag in Central Park.
First came the racists, saying that even the prospect of a Muslim mayor was an insult to the memory of 9/11, that Mamdani would instigate some kind of citywide holocaust, and that Jewish people should evacuate the city immediately. Then, across rolling news, came an avalanche of pundits with a slender grip on reality.
But the award for Most Unhinged Zohran Take has to go to former stockbroker Joe Kernan, who appears to believe that Mamdani will rule New York like Tom Hardy’s Bane ruled Gotham in The Dark Knight Rises:
“If you’ve seen what Batman is up against in Gotham, and what the guy running for mayor is up against, that’s what it reminds me of. They’re taking Wallstreeters and making them walk out onto the ice in the East River and then they fall through!”
Wall Street ghouls are having a normal one pic.twitter.com/SPlIvWxCOS
— Frasier Season Eight Episode Two (@dorseyshaw) June 25, 2025
Kernan’s co-panelist pauses, presumably wondering if Kernan is aware that The Dark Knight Rises wasn’t a documentary and interjects “…i-in the movies, yeah?”
Now’s not the time for fear. That comes later.
Sadly, Mamdani is not Bane. Though, frankly, in the 13 years since The Dark Knight Rises, we’ve seen the wealthiest 1% grow their wealth to obscene levels as the poorest suffer with failing public services and infrastructure. These days, it’s hard not to nod to Selina Kyle vowing that the rich “are going to wonder how you ever thought you could live so large and leave so little for the rest of us.”
Heck, if Mamdani really wants to make some waves, why not look to Bane for his next campaign speech? “We take New York from the corrupt! The rich! The oppressors of generations who have kept you down with myths of opportunity, and we give it back to you… the people. New York is yours. None shall interfere. Do as you please. The powerful will be ripped from their decadent nests, and cast out into the cold world that we know and endure!!” The drug mask is optional.
He’d have my vote! And sure, maybe a justice system based around the whims of a drug-addled man dressed as a scarecrow isn’t ideal but, dammit, you can’t deny the man gets results.
