New York City’s new self-described socialist mayor, Zohran Mamdani, was sworn into office on 1 January 2026. The progressive, far-left end of the Democratic Party is excited to see one of their own leading the most populous city in the United States. Meanwhile, Republicans are not so quietly hoping that Mayor Mamdani’s radical ideas will hurt the Democratic Party brand nationally.
Only a week into his municipal administration, it seems that the Republican idea of his mayorship is materializing.
As uncovered by the popular X account Libs of TikTok, the Director appointed to New York City’s newly created Office to Protect Tenants, a woman named Cea Weaver, has posted some quite strange ideas about private property rights on social media. In August 2019, on her now-deactivated Twitter account @ceaweaver, she wrote: ‘Private property including and kind of ESPECIALLY homeownership is a weapon of white supremacy masquerading as “wealth building” public policy’.
Evidently, being against private property goes far beyond the ideas of mainstream democratic socialism in any Western country. In fact, it was German philosopher Karl Marx who wrote in his co-authored 1848 thesis The Communist Manifesto: ‘In this sense, the theory of the Communists may be summed up in the single sentence: Abolition of private property.’
Such a statement by Weaver in the new Democratic leadership in New York City risks alienating the tens of millions of homeowners in the United States.
What’s more, a brief clip of Weaver speaking against homeownership has also been shared. This one was uncovered by another popular right-wing X account, End Wokeness.
In it, the Mayor Mamdani’s cabinet member states:
‘People like homewoenrship, but hence they like control, and that has been perverted by deep racism and deep classism in our society. So, like, we have to not have our racist and classist society. So, that’s like something we have to think about.’
Controversial Statements by Mayor Mamdani
Mayor Mamdani himself has made some radical statements in the past, which received national media coverage when he won the Democratic Primary for the New York City mayorship back in June.
In the wake of the George Floyd riots in 2020, he posted on social media: ‘Queer liberation means defund the police’. Since then, however, he has made efforts to develop a good relationship with the New York City Police Department.
New York City’s new Mayor has also taken a stance for the decriminalization of prostitution, and has described both President Trump and the immigration enforcement agency ICE as ‘fascists’.
Despite all that, he defeated former Democrat Governor of New York Andrew Cuomo running as an independent, and Republican candidate Curtis Sliwa in the mayoral election in November 2025. Mamdani got 51 per cent of the vote, against Cuomo’s 41 per cent and Sliwa’s 7 per cent.
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