New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani posted a message on X on Wednesday asking the city's 8 million residents to set their air conditioning to 78 degrees, turn off lights and electronics, and unplug devices — while forecasters predicted temperatures hitting 112 degrees Fahrenheit with a heat index near 110.
Two days earlier, his $125.8 billion city budget passed the City Council with the $70 million earmarked for 580 new NYPD officers quietly scraped out.
"Set your AC to 78 degrees, turn off lights/electronics you're not using, and unplug what you can," Mamdani wrote, adding that the city was "maintaining the 78 degrees rule in our buildings, dimming/turning off our lights during peak electricity demand." This is the mayor of America's largest city — a member of the Democratic Socialists of America — telling people to sit in a room that's basically the temperature at which most people turn the AC on in the first place.
The backlash was immediate. Barstool's Dave Portnoy fired back: "Welcome to communism people! Hope you enjoy!" Senator Ted Cruz weighed in: "In a first-world country, you could turn on the A/C...." Spencer Pratt kept it simple: "Show us your thermostat, commie."
The AC guidance might be written off as standard grid-management theater — former mayors Eric Adams, Bill de Blasio, and even Republican Rudy Giuliani issued similar guidance during past heat waves. Fair enough. But none of them paired it with gutting the police budget the same week. Put both decisions together and the governing philosophy comes into focus: the city will regulate how cool you're allowed to keep your home and will not invest in additional officers to respond when the heat turns deadly. That's not a coincidence. That's the platform.
Mamdani's executive budget had originally included $70 million for 580 additional NYPD officers to bring the force to proper staffing levels. The NYC Democratic Socialists of America pressured him to reverse it, publicly calling on the mayor "to reverse this proposed expansion of the NYPD and invest the money in community safety programs instead." He folded. The final budget keeps NYPD head count frozen at 35,000. Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch was brought out to provide cover, saying they'd "identified ways to keep the NYPD head count at the originally authorized 35,000 while also meeting all of our crime-fighting needs." The City Council passed it 46-5, with most no votes coming from Republicans.
So here's where New York stands heading into a holiday weekend with triple-digit heat. The mayor — a self-described democratic socialist who campaigned on rent freezes, free bus fare, city-owned grocery stores, and keeping the police flat — is now governing exactly the way he promised. No additional cops. Thermostat at 78. The city deploys COOL vans, extends pool hours, and opens eight extra cooling centers at libraries. That's the emergency plan for a city of 8 million people facing 112-degree heat.
Mamdani ran on this. The DSA backed him on this. New York City voted for this.
This feels like NYC has officially entered the first stage of communism.