Category: The American Spectator
‘Those Who Can Leave Will’: Mamdani, ‘Partner In The Hammer And Sickle’ In For Rude Awakening, Says Campaign Vet
Socialist Democratic New York City mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani named his administration’s two top advisers, as he gears up to lead the Big Apple in a decidedly left-wing direction that may cause some residents to bolt. Mamdani announced his current chief of staff, Elle Bisgaard-Church, a fellow Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) member, will stay in […]
ICE makes pitch to NYPD cops after Mamdani promises radical overhaul
A poll conducted ahead of the New York City mayoral election found that 9% of residents would “definitely” leave the city and another 25% would “consider” relocating if Democratic Socialist Zohran Mamdani proved victorious on Nov. 4.
It is yet to be seen whether NYC will ultimately hemorrhage millions of residents in the coming months. It appears, however, that Mamdani’s rise to power has already prompted departures at the New York Police Department.
‘How do you work for somebody who considers you racist and anti-queer and wants to defund the police?’
Citing sources familiar with the situation and Police Pension Fund data, the New York Post indicated that a surge of police officers quit in the weeks leading up to the mayoral election, when Mamdani was a clear favorite to win.
In October, the NYPD reportedly saw a 35% spike in police of all ranks leaving the force. Whereas 181 left the force in October 2024, this year 245 officers left during the same stretch.
Detectives Endowment Association president Scott Munro told the Post, “Morale is down because everyone is concerned about the policies Mamdani wants to put in place.”
“You have a person who is supposed to be running New York City that does not believe in law enforcement,” continued Munro. “What’s coming out of everyone’s mouth is, ‘We’re in trouble.'”
RELATED: Here’s what exit polls reveal about Tuesday’s electoral bloodbath
Photo by TIMOTHY A. CLARY/AFP via Getty Images
Mamdani, who takes office on Jan. 1, has made no secret in recent years of his antipathy toward the NYPD.
The mayor-elect suggested, for instance, in a June 28, 2020, tweet that the NYPD “is racist, anti-queer & a major threat to public safety” and stressed that it was necessary to “defund the police.”
“How do you work for somebody who considers you racist and anti-queer and wants to defund the police?” said one retired cop. “Things are hard enough already. If you’re eligible to leave, why would you want to stay in that situation?”
Mamdani now claims that he doesn’t want to defund the police; however, he has indicated that he’s not interested in hiring more police to address the NYPD’s near-record-low numbers and appears keen to replace police in certain circumstances with social workers.
On the campaign trail, Mamdani proposed the creation of an agency aimed at preventing “violence before it happens by taking a public health approach to safety.” The so-called Department of Community Safety would have a budget of over $1 billion — drawing $605 million from existing programs — and would appropriate some of the responsibilities of police, including responding to mental health calls and dealing with erratic homeless individuals.
Some individuals with actual experience dealing with the city’s mentally ill and homeless have suggested that Mamdani’s proposal is disaster waiting to happen.
A Bronx cop told the Post, “How’s that going to work when the person pulls out a gun or a knife?”
“You can’t do this without police — it’s impossible,” Richard Perkins, a behavioral nurse with 14 years’ experience told the Gothamist. “No one in their right mind would do this alone. You’re going to get hurt.”
Mamdani’s appointment of Elle Bisgaard-Church as his chief of staff signals he’s likely serious about the DCS. Bisgaard-Church, who serves as Mamdani’s campaign manager, was reportedly the proposed agency’s “chief architect.”
In addition to effectively replacing police with social workers on certain calls, Mamdani has ruffled feathers by committing to both closing Rikers Island prison and shifting the final say on police disciplinary actions from the NYPD commissioner to the anti-police Civilian Complaint Review Board.
‘It seems to me like there may be people from there looking for jobs.’
“Nobody wants to be a New York City cop,” a police union consultant told the Post. “It’s not worth the money, the stress, the danger, especially working for a mayor who wants to take the department apart.”
Blaze News has reached out for comment to the New York City Police Benevolent Association and the Sergeants Benevolent Association of the NYPD as well as to the mayor’s office.
Retired NYPD Chief of Department John Chell recently told Newsmax that about 4,000 police officers of every rank are eligible for retirement in January but suggested that “it remains to be seen” whether there will ultimately be a mass exodus.
In the meantime, law enforcement organizations in other jurisdictions are extending offers to disenchanted NYPD officers.
The Houston Police Officers’ Union, for instance, released a flyer earlier his month telling New York cops “disgusted with the election of Zohran Mamdani” that the Houston Police Department is hiring and offering “competitive pay with [a] 36.5% pay raise just approved over 5 years.”
The Franklin County Sheriff’s Office was one of the outfits in Florida that is similarly trying to recruit from the NYPD, reported WMBB-TV.
“With the changing of what’s going on in New York City with a new mayor and probably a different way of doing things for law enforcement up there, it seems to me like there may be people from there looking for jobs,” said Sheriff A.J. Smith. “And I have jobs. And I would love to have anybody from the NYPD or anywhere up that way that may be affected by the change to apply here.”
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is also seizing on the opportunity to recruit New York cops alienated by the incoming mayor.
ICE shared a recruitment poster to social media last month captioned, “NYPD OFFICERS: Work for a President and a Secretary who support and defend law enforcement — not defund or demonize it.”
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Maryland school district allegedly indoctrinates 7th graders about gender: ‘Girl, boy, both or neither’
A middle school lesson is reportedly promoting the idea of “gender identity” and being “assigned” sex at birth.
Montgomery County Public Schools in Maryland allegedly has an assignment designed for grade-seven students that pulls directly from pro-transgender sources.
‘Embrace family diversity, create LGBTQ+ and gender inclusive schools.’
The alleged assignment, provided to Defending Education, asks students to match a list of terms with a list of possible definitions. The terms are “sex assigned at birth,” “gender identity,” “transgender,” “gender expression,” and “cisgender.”
One of the definitions allegedly given refers to a person’s “internal sense of being male, female, or transgender,” further explaining that is “how you feel. Girl, boy, both or neither.”
Another definition refers to an “individual’s presentation,” which includes appearance and clothing as they relate to how the individual communicates “aspects of gender or gender role,” according to a screenshot on Defending Education’s site.
A person’s sex is also referred to as what “doctors/midwives” assign to someone when they are born, while gender identity is “how you feel,” the alleged exercise indicated.
Four of the definitions directly cite a program from the Human Rights Campaign, an organization that promotes transgender surgery and hormone therapy for children.
The lesson references WelcomingSchools.org, which describes itself as the “most comprehensive bias-based bullying prevention program” in the United States, meant to provide “LGBTQ+ and gender inclusive professional development training, lesson plans, booklists and resources” for educators who have access to children.
“We uplift school communities with critical tools to embrace family diversity, create LGBTQ+ and gender inclusive schools, prevent bias-based bullying, and support transgender and non-binary students,” the website says.
Erika Sanzi, senior director of communications for Defending Education, told Blaze News in a statement that the apparent vocabulary lesson requires students to “buy into an ideology that many reject.”
“Does MCPS require that students subscribe to gender ideology in order to fulfill the district’s family life requirements for middle schoolers? Because if so, that seems like viewpoint discrimination in a public school,” Sanzi stated.
At the same time, MCPS recently introduced harsher penalties into its code of conduct, which include suspension and expulsion for incidents involving drug possession, for example.
At least one local activist group said the new rules were detrimental to “black and brown students.”
“When we talk about intersecting into experiences of these black and brown students, they intersect to then lead them to be out of the classrooms, which means less time with academic study,” said Dorien Rogers from Young People for Progress, a Maryland group.
As reported by WJLA-TV, Rogers was also disappointed that the code of conduct was written only in English. The school system told WJLA that the new rules would soon be available in six languages.
MCPS did not respond to multiple requests for comment from Blaze News.
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Lowering the bar doesn’t lift women up
For years, Americans have been told a comforting lie: Anyone can do anything, be anything, and succeed at anything, regardless of limits or differences. But ideological fantasies collapse on the battlefield, where physics, endurance, and human limits matter more than slogans.
After years of social experimentation, the military is rediscovering a basic truth: Equality of opportunity makes the force stronger, while equality of outcome weakens it. The return to gender-neutral standards announced last month by Secretary of War Pete Hegseth marks a long-overdue step toward restoring merit, discipline, and respect across the ranks.
Pretending that men and women have identical physical capabilities doesn’t empower women; it endangers them.
For most of our history, the armed forces held one clear principle: Anyone, male or female, could serve in any position if they met the same standard. The promise was simple and fair — the uniform didn’t care about sex or gender, only performance.
That began to change in 2015, when the Army opened all-male combat units to women. At the time, the Pentagon promised no dilution of standards. But in 2018, when the new gender-neutral Army Combat Fitness Test was introduced, 84% of female soldiers failed. Instead of maintaining expectations, the Army rewrote them.
By 2022, the ACFT 4.0 came with gender-based scoring — a quiet admission that standards had become negotiable. The result: Combat units staffed with soldiers unable to meet the physical requirements of their jobs. That puts missions, morale, and lives at risk.
Worse, it undermines respect for women who do meet the standard. When the bar moves, doubt replaces trust. Hardworking female soldiers — the ones who earned their places — are forced to prove themselves twice: once in training and again in the eyes of their peers.
Diversity by design, weakness by consequence
In 2021, U.S. Special Operations Command declared that “diversity is an operational imperative.” But this new “imperative” wasn’t about the real diversity already found across the military — people from every background, race, and income level serving side by side. It was about engineering statistical parity, even in elite combat units where performance alone must decide who stays and who goes.
That mindset has consequences. Combat units can’t afford ideological experiments. The job is to close with and destroy the enemy — not to serve as laboratories for social theory. Lowering standards in the name of inclusion doesn’t just weaken readiness; it puts soldiers in unnecessary danger.
And no woman who trains to fight wants pity disguised as progress. The women who seek out elite units don’t ask for special treatment — they ask for the same chance to prove themselves by the same rules. When standards drop, those women lose too.
Strength in truth
Gender-neutral standards don’t discriminate. They recognize that men and women are different and that most people — men included — simply can’t meet the demands of combat. That’s not “oppression.” It’s just reality.
Women who pass those standards have demonstrated extraordinary strength, skill, and resolve. They deserve admiration, not suspicion. And those who don’t — along with the vast majority of men who don’t — can still serve honorably in the hundreds of vital roles that keep America’s military functioning.
RELATED: How America lost its warrior spirit when it feminized its academies
Photo by Kevin Carter
A sex-neutral standard is an act of fairness, not exclusion. It’s a recognition that excellence demands truth, not ideology — that merit, not identity, keeps soldiers alive and wins wars.
Restoring purpose
The military’s duty is national defense, not social engineering. Pretending that men and women have identical physical capabilities doesn’t empower women; it endangers them.
Reaffirming one standard for all isn’t an attack on women — it’s a defense of every soldier’s dignity. It calls each person to rise to the challenge, to serve according to one’s God-given abilities, and to be judged by results.
If we want a stronger force — and a stronger nation — we must stop confusing fairness with fantasy. Let’s demand standards worthy of the uniform, and let every soldier, male or female, earn respect the same way: by meeting them.
Church-hopping: Confessions of an itinerant worshipper
I have been church-hopping since the summer of 2020. This means that a lot of “concerned evangelicals” have felt justified in asking, “What are you searching for?”
That first summer, I claimed to be searching for holy ground. However, I already knew that this was wherever a saint steps — wherever God speaks to us and we listen in prayer.
We had spent a wonderful evening with an elderly Latter-day Saints couple who found us hitchhiking, then brought us home to ‘show us some literature.’
I have never been searching for anything as much as I have been interested to see what it is that others claim to have found. It thrills me to see that it is all pretty much the same, in minor degrees. Some pastors are more boring than others. Everyone makes claims about the “other” churches in town. Everyone has their rituals, their deeds, the words that are not works. And very few are curious about the others.
“Seek and ye shall find,” they murmur among themselves in the territory of their home church, patting one another on the back because they somehow found truth without seeking it. Why aren’t the others seeking it? They’d be here among them if they sought — if they loved the truth as they loved the Bible.
Not all. Only the majority. Maybe not even that many — only a few loud ones.
I, too, among them, also vocal, a little charismatic, a little opinionated, forgetting what it means to seek before you find.
The world is not our home
Now I have dragged my husband in on the game of flirting with the appearance of universalism. And yet we are no more universalist than Paul or St. Francis of Assisi or C.S. Lewis. We are curious, alive, and nonplussed by the promissory comforts of the world. This world is not our home, and neither is a single building.
And yet, if you seek, ye shall find. It matters not that my intentions were no different from those of an atheist — to attend, to observe, to write. I am relating to the woman at the front of the church who is not Catholic but is hired to sign the sermon and songs for the deaf attendees, thus hearing every word of the priest and chorus more thoroughly than any of the parishioners and finding that her job has morphed into a spiritual awakening.
I am finding community, kindred spirits, truth outside my understanding of it, and a narrow path. I am becoming less curious as a larger passion consumes my heart and soul.
We intended to attend Mass while on our honeymoon — something difficult to do when you have no agency over where you will be day to day, as hitchhikers reliant upon the goodwill of strangers and public transit. We joked about putting up a cardboard sign, our thumbs in the air, “TAKE US TO CHURCH.” Maybe someday.
Instead we went where we could.
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A.M. Hickman
A church for widows
The first place was an Anglican church in Newfoundland that seemed to be run by little old ladies — 30 of them, to be precise, scattered in the pews, in the choir, and at the altar. There were only five men, all of them seated. This did not bode well, we thought.
But it was truly a church for widows, a church that was doing its very best to remain active, putting on plays and picnics even though there were no young people or children. The Spirit was there with those little old ladies. It was comforting them, pushing them forward even though they had lost much. It was reminding them of all that awaited them in paradise. And they were ready.
They gave us cookies and greeted us with forgetful, motherly smiles, as if we were not mere strangers but apparitions of heavenly promises. We were their reminder to keep hoping, and they were our nudge toward charity. We sat, we witnessed, and we listened.
Seventh-day supper
After that we found different Catholic churches to pray in, which somehow always seemed to be far away when Sunday came around. There was a large one — a shrine — on the border of Quebec, Labrador, and Newfoundland, then another a little farther into Quebec, in an Inuit village. This one hearkened to the traditions of these people, too. How beautiful, I remember thinking, the way the Church uses each people’s specific culture and history to express the truth.
Then we walked by a window that sported “Seventh-day Adventist” in a French-Canadian Maine town. It was a Thursday, and we had already determined to stay in town for a French-Acadian Mass on Sunday.
“Let’s go there,” I told my husband. “It might be a little frustrating, but it’ll be a good experience for you.”
He agreed, and so we brought ourselves and our backpacks there Saturday morning. The church was new — it looked more like a Main Street business because of its location and the large windows. There were only six or so people inside.
“Can we join you all?” I asked. “No, I am not Seventh-day Adventist, but I’ve attended many services because my family keeps Sabbath on Saturday.”
We put our bags in front of a pile of unopened boxes of “The Great Controversy,” and they handed us a booklet on Romans and two pens. The room was ugly, like a warehouse, except for the lace curtains in the windows.
For the next two hours, we “studied the Bible,” mostly discussing how wonderful Jesus is and what it means to pray — how often we should pray and what makes prayer sincere — and how all Protestant churches are basically Catholic because they acknowledge the authority of Rome and the pope to change the Sabbath from Saturday to Sunday.
The church service was bland, hard to follow. I tatted a lace bookmark to try to keep awake. The speaker was likeable, but he droned on about a Bible story, not really recounting it accurately. I don’t think that was the point of his speaking, though — they were simply allowing him a moment to speak, because he was a man and the church had few members and needed participation from everyone in order to keep the spirit alive.
They did not give us cookies, but something better — a meal of various bean and rice dishes. There was fresh homemade hummus, too.
Nine out of Ten
As we ate, everyone continued to ramble on about how awful it was that other churches didn’t care to follow all of the Ten Commandments.
“Evangelicals want the Ten Commandments in schools, and yet they do not want them in their churches.”
“If children came home from school and refused to do their homework on Saturday, most Christian parents would not be happy.”
“There’s a church in town that has the Ten Commandments hanging on the outside of their building,” the pastor began.
So I talked to them about it and asked them why they don’t care about the fourth commandment. Oh, boy! The pastor said he’d get back to me, and let me tell you, oh boy, oh boy, that he finally decided that he could piecemeal a bunch of verses today and how he thinks he can prove that Jesus wants us to keep all the commandments now except that one.
That night the pastor let us stay in his house, and as he showed us all his proof for Saturday Sabbath and how the Catholic Church has duped nearly all mainstream churches, Andy finally confessed, “I am a Roman Catholic, and I believe the Church had the authority to change the Sabbath to distinguish us from the Jewish faith.”
The man started. Then he said, “Well, I think Jesus will save Catholics, too, even though they are only keeping nine of 10 of God’s commandments. But they will be judged for disregarding the Sabbath Day.”
We were friends now.
Answered prayers
In the middle of Maine, we attended one other church. All the days leading up to it were edifying. We had spent a wonderful evening with an elderly Latter-day Saints couple who found us hitchhiking, then brought us home to “show us some literature.” It was not the “Book of Mormon.” They handed us a glass of orange juice and a box of raisins and played old 1960s and 1970s love songs for us, then told us their love story — of how they had a temple wedding in Switzerland; of their 14 children, 88 grandchildren, and 17 great-grandchildren.
After we played a game of cards, they brought us to our destination, where we stayed with a Quaker-esque hippie Christian family. This family brought us to their church the next day.
It was as if God was answering our longing for Mass. Although the church was small and non-denominational, it felt how an early church might feel or how a Catholic service might feel if it were in someone’s home. They prayed and sang some of the songs you’d hear in a Catholic church, along with songs from an Assemblies of God or Baptist-type non-denominational church. They said the Apostles’ Creed together and took communion as a Catholic church does, with everyone coming up front and receiving it in long lines from the pastor.
The sermon was sound — like a homily — and did not feel as scattered with pieces of scripture as many non-denominational church services are. We were spellbound. If it weren’t for how modern everyone seemed to be dressed, I would have thought we had been transported to an era before the Reformation.
Shared roots
After it was over, I asked the pastor if their church had any Catholic influence.
He laughed and said no, that if there were ex-Catholic members, they would probably oppose these traditional Orthodox inclusions. No, these were things he had included because from his studies and experiences, he had come to believe that there was a lot that Protestantism lost when it spurned tradition and ritualism, and he was slowly trying to incorporate it back into church. “It’s in our roots, too.”
I talked to his wife and told her about my Living Room Academy (she had heard of it) and how it was partially inspired by my travels in woke circles when I realized that many lesbians and liberal women were doing a better job of being women and passing on beauty and skills than Christian women. Her eyes opened wide. “You’re right.” I’ve heard that since we left, she has decided to open her own iteration of the Living Room Academy for the girls in their church.
What I loved about their church was that they didn’t seem to be stuck in their bubble. Their church wasn’t really their “home” as much as it was them trying to find out what home means by looking to the past and looking to paradise. They seem to be doing a very good job at making it work — their church was filled with children, happy-looking teenagers, and a diversity of fashion from very beautiful dresses to jeans with frilly purses. There seemed to be room for expression of faith.
Coming home
After that we finally made it to a Mass in Fitchburg, Massachusetts. And I must admit, it kind of felt like coming home.
I hadn’t realized how much I had come to love attending Catholic churches with my husband. There are still many questions I have had to sort through about the Church and whether or not I can in good conscience submit myself to its authority. However, being there, surrounded by the beauty of the type that God requested when He detailed the temple He wanted from the Jews, feels like being at home … in paradise.
Everything else feels so earth-like, so business-minded and corporate and mechanical. Even though the “music” of mainstream churches claims to have more life in the show, there’s nothing quite like the chorus in a cathedral. And while you might get a good sermon in a Protestant church, you’re not going to hear near as much scripture read as is read at Mass.
Most Protestants would complain if they had to sit through half of what is read — they want a Bible verse that corroborates a sermon. Meanwhile, you might get about 15 minutes of rich preaching at a Mass — the rest is pure scripture.
It’s almost a hobby now — I will certainly never stop church-hopping, comparing and pondering. I want our children to have these experiences. So many wonderful conversations have sprung up between my husband and me because of these visits, and we are finding ourselves growing more spiritually aligned because of it.
And so I will continue to exhort anyone of any faith: Visit the churches around you, no matter their denomination. Every church has something to offer you and will give you an opportunity to practice humility and charity.
Editor’s note: A version of this essay earlier appeared on the Polite Company Substack.
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