It could be a case of deja zoo.
Zohran Mamdani could be the second coming of former lefty Mayor John Lindsay if elected to City Hall — a controversial and polarizing tax-and-spend figure during the 1960s-1970s blamed for the infamous fiscal crisis that nearly bankrupted the city.
Historians and veteran politicos cite Mamdani and Lindsay’s similarities — charismatic figures who attracted young people to their cause and having liberal, big government agendas.
It was Lindsay who proposed and got Albany to approve New York City’s first income tax that Mamdani wants to raise on the wealthy.
“They both inspired young people. They both tapped into the idea that the city is in trouble and big change is needed,” said Vincent Cannato, author of “The Ungovernable City: John Lindsay and His Struggle to Save New York.”
“Both Mamdani and Lindsay are complete outsiders,” he said.
Cannato said former Mayor Bill de Blasio was a “red diaper baby” who nonetheless worked inside the Democratic Party establishment, working for HIllary Clinton and in the Bill Clinton’s administration.
By comparison, Mamdani is a “radical” outsider as democratic socialist, Cannato said.
He did say that Mamdani is to the left of Lindsay, a congressman who served in the Navy during World II.
Lindsay was a “Kennedyesque” patrician, Citizen Union-type Republican outsider running against the Democratic machine.
He would be an oxymoron today — a liberal Republican in line with President Lyndon Johnson’s “Great Society” programs.
He was one of the first major public figures to come out against the Vietnam War and became so unpopular with Republicans that he lost his party primary and won re-election on the Liberal Party line in 1969 and would eventually switch to the Democratic Party and flame out in an ill-fated run for president.
Lindsay, who championed civil rights and was concerned about police brutality against minorities in what waa still a majority white city, was despised by cop unions for pushing a civilian complaint review board.
Sound familiar? Mamdani advocated defunding the police, though he backed away from that mantra as the Democratic nominee for mayor.
Both campaigned against inequality.
Both came from wealthy families — Lindsay’s father was an investment banker and Mamdani’s mom is a fil director and his dad a Columbia U. professor.
Both Lindsay and Mamdani can be moralistic and naive, observers.
“It is a fair comparison,” said Joseph Viteritti, a Hunter College public affairs professor who edited the book “Summer in The City: John Lindsay, New York and the American Dream” and who was a volunteer in Lindsay’s administration.
“There was a naivete to Lindsay. It was naivete and principle. It was a combination of both,” he said.
Critics say the same of Mamdani, claiming some of his proposals are impractical — including major tax hikes on the wealthy and businesses to fund fare-free buses, child care and housing.
Viteritti credited Lindsay with walking through black neighborhoods to defuse tensions after the assassination of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr.
“History has not been kind to Lindsay. He has justifiably taken his share of blame for the discrepancy between revenues and expenditures that led to the 1975 fiscal crisis and the gimmicks that went along with it as well,” he said in a preface to his book.
Strict state fiscal oversight through the Financial Control Board and more stringent accounting practices imposed on the city to prevent another fiscal calamity.
And Mamdani or any other candidate who wins the mayoralty will face constraints that Lindsay did not, including a federal government with hardline stances on spending and a governor, Kathy Hochul, who is running for re-election next year and opposing Mamdani’s tax hikes.
Mamdani’s tax hikes would need approval from Hochul and the state, which is considered a long shot particularly during an election year.
“Lindsay wasn’t from the Tammany Hall,” said former city Comptroller and Brooklyn Congresswoman Liz Holtzman, who worked in the Lindsay’s City Hall as a 26-year-old lawyer.
“Young people have a lot of idealism and want to see the world a better place. They identified with Lindsay,” Holtzman said.
“Mamdani has the same kind of attraction from young people.”
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