Rats are living their best lives in Mamdani’s New York

Although New York has always had problems with garbage, the last few days after the historic snowfall that has affected the United States, New Yorkers are more desperate than usual. The new socialist mayoralty of Zohran Mamdani is providing a paradise for the rats that roam through garbage piles more than two meters high. The streets are still full of snow, contaminated with urine and dog excrement, and all the trash that falls from the garbage bags accumulated on the street for weeks.

Some social media users have highlighted the smell that all this chaos produces and the difficulty to walk between sidewalks covered by garbage and rats. And in addition to the complaints about the mess that most of the city is experiencing, many New Yorkers report that, surprisingly, the streets around Gracie Mansion, where the mayor lives, are clean.

In addition to the filth, at least 18 people have died from the cold, some of them homeless. The mayor's critics have recalled that during his campaign, Mamdani assured that he would eliminate "sweeps," which are procedures in which encampments are dismantled and homeless people are forced into shelters. The mayor's office has not given clear data on the circumstances under which these people have died, and they have assured that in the midst of the storm available shelters have been increased. But for many, the death of so many people leaves at least the doubt as to whether this is one of the many negative consequences of the new mayor's socialist policies.

Mamdani has also assured that the New York Department of Sanitation (DSNY) is working to catch up with garbage collection, and that the low temperatures that have been lingering for days make the job more difficult. The mayor has asked for patience from New Yorkers, but after more than a week of trudging through snow, rats and garbage, the request is unacceptable to many.

It is true that this cold snap has caused problems in different parts of the country and that in general New York has always had problems with its garbage collection system, so we could give the new mayor the benefit of the doubt and try to think that the system has always been insufficient and in the face of this storm there was little the Democrat could do. However, it is impossible not to relate this situation to the long history of disasters that socialism has caused. Even historic ecological disasters.

The Soviet Union is one of the best examples to remember the tragedy caused by socialism not only in economic matters, but also in matters of cleanliness and the environment. Full of extremely polluted cities, streets full of garbage, rivers and lakes polluted and poisoned by industrial waste, and how to forget the disaster of the Aral Sea, completely destroyed. Of course we cannot fail to mention Chernobyl either...

In general, state-run entities do not usually perform well. New York's garbage collection system is state-run. If Mamdani wanted to seek a real solution to the garbage crisis, the right step would be to move towards a mixed system like most states in the country, and hopefully eventually a completely private one. Unfortunately, asking for this kind of change from a socialist is unrealistic, so for now New Yorkers will have to wait for public complaints and media reports to pressure the mayor to try to do a better job with an entity that already has enough flaws. And above all, that the mayor values his policy of not forcing homeless people into shelters, at least in extreme situations like a historic snowstorm.