It took only a few words for Donald Trump to once again remind the nation that he doesn’t know how democracy works, or simply doesn’t care about it.
While discussing the upcoming New York City mayoral candidate, Zohran Mamdani, Trump managed to turn a routine political comment into a full-blown constitutional crisis.
Speaking to reporters on Tuesday, the MAGA boss was asked about polls showing progressive New York Assemblyman Mamdani leading the race over his endorsed candidate, Andrew Cuomo. His response was pure Trump logic: “Looks like we’re gonna have a communist as the mayor of New York. It’ll be very interesting, but here’s the good news: he’s got to go through the White House. Everything goes through the White House, at least this White House, it does.”
For someone who keeps shouting that he’s “not a king” (despite his outrageous stunt), Trump seems to have forgotten that mayors, including the ones he dislikes, don’t “go through” the president for approval. Cities govern themselves. It’s called federalism, a word he would have known the meaning of if he ever read the Constitution. But his stupidity always gives the internet a field day.
When the clip of his unreasonable statement went viral on social media, people quickly shattered his King dreams. “Afraid not. The voters will choose. Did you miss the whole No Kings thing? Someone read him the CliffsNotes,” one user said. Another cut straight to the heart of it: “Since when does a mayor have to go through the White House? This ain’t a game of Monopoly, Don. You don’t get to run the board just ’cause you went bankrupt on Boardwalk.” They added,
“And let’s be clear, next time you want to visit that crusty, gold-plated roach motel you call Trump Tower, you’ll have to go through NYC’s actual mayor. Good luck with that…. Trump’s not mad the mayor might be a “Communist,” he’s mad the mayor’s got a spine.”
But underneath the mockery lies a darker reality. Trump’s “everything goes through me” rhetoric isn’t just ignorance, but authoritarian muscle memory. He’s already tested these boundaries before by pressuring governors to “be nice” to get pandemic aid, sending federal agents into Portland and Chicago over local disagreements, and now casually implying he’ll control local governments from Washington.
One user on X summed up a perfect reply to Trump’s fascist dreams: “No, in the actual United States of America, everything doesn’t have to go through the White House. I know you want to be a corrupt authoritarian who decides which cronies get what, but we’re going to stop you in your tracks.”
The fact that Trump publicly expressed his wish for Mamdani to drop out of the election despite New York citizens supporting him, just so he can have his pawn, Andrew Cuomo, in the seat, is enough evidence that he’s planning an evil takeover of the city. But the tragedy here isn’t just Trump’s dictatorship dreams, but how millions still cheer it on.
Have a tip we should know? [email protected]
