Will a Ugandan Communist Become Mayor of New York City?
By Rob Beiswenger, Idaho Freedom Caucus Member
On Tuesday voters will decide if a self-proclaimed Ugandan Communist will become Mayor of the largest city in the United States, New York City.
Following the familiar Barack Obama political playbook, Mamdani got elected to a state legislature at a young age. Like Obama, he kept a low profile in the legislature, rarely voting, offering few ideas, but carefully building his image. Now, powered by the identity politics of the left in New York, he’s being promoted as the perfect, perhaps even Manchurian, candidate.
In a recent speech following socialist/Democrat congresswoman AOC, Mamdani listed his top priorities:
“Affordable housing” through government price controls on rent
Free bus rides and faster busing
More taxpayer-funded housing projects
It must be fun to campaign on spending other people’s money for endless “free” programs. Almost all Idahoans instantly recognize the insanity and economic destruction of these kinds of proposals. Not only are they harmful and wrong, but they won’t even accomplish the goals they intend to achieve.
The Idaho Freedom Caucus is committed to limited government spending, lower taxes and getting government regulations out of the way of the entrepreneurial and the independent spirit Idahoans treasure. Just this year, we voted to cut income taxes across the board and eliminate income taxes on veterans’ benefits. These are real reforms that strengthen freedom instead of eroding it.
We pushed back, and will continue to push back, against the big spenders in Boise who see taxpayers as their personal piggy bank. If we keep spending down, we can continue to cut tax rates even further. And we need to! Most of our neighboring states have already eliminated their state income tax, and there’s no reason Idaho can’t do the same! By focusing on essential, constitutional priorities, and eliminating wasteful programs like Launch, we can create room for real, lasting tax relief, perhaps even one day eliminating property taxes altogether.
Please join us in opposing socialist and communist ideas that have infected the Democrat Party nationwide. Let’s hold the line for free markets, less government and personal responsibility, the values that make Idaho an exceptional place to live.
Let’s make Idaho an even better place to live!
Representative Rob Beiswenger
People love free stuff that's paid for with other people's money. In hard times, this desire to receive and offer free stuff becomes even stronger. People undergoing hard times readily adopt communist, socialist, Marxist ideas like those of Obama and Mamdani. They support illegal immigration because they believe such support shows compassion, provides cheap labor (especially in an agricultural state like Idaho), and brings in cheap left-leaning votes (many states allow illegals to get drivers licenses and vote).
Unfortunately, we're seeing left-leaning ideas creeping into Idaho at an alarming rate. We've lived here only since 2021, but have seen the move to the left in just a few years, especially as the incoming population increases and more illegal residents arrive in our cities and towns.
Many Idaho candidates register Republican to get elected, and then implement left-leaning policies and float bills that provide an easier path to popularity. (Many are Democrats in Republican affiliated clothing.)
We looked at nearly every Idaho legislative bill in 2025 (https://tinyurl.com/2s6njae2). Some wonderful conservative bills passed into law (including Idaho Medical Freedom Act); but we also saw left-leaning, corporation vs. citizen supporting, and unintended consequence bills pass that will haunt us for a long time to come. Some conservative bills (e.g., school and city flag displays) had no enforcement mechanisms, so blue cities were free to flaunt the law. The over-the-counter ivermectin wasn't truly over the counter as many discovered who tried to buy this drug at their local pharmacy.
In Idaho, public education has become a panacea, with cities, towns, legislators, and the executive pouring more money into a failing system (e.g., LAUNCH, supplemental tax levies). Health and Welfare (including Medicaid) gobbles more and more of Idaho's budget due to reliance on federal funds and unwillingness to cut wasteful expanded-scope programs.
Idaho voters are apathetic as well, thinking they're in conservative Idaho now and don't have to worry. So they don't bother voting in off-year elections where local tax levies, mayors, and city councils are on the ballot. But local elections matter and should not be skipped (VOTE on November 4, folks!).
We've also seen Idaho voters who should know better focusing mostly on national politics, which may be fun and dramatic, but often have little impact here at home (except for abominable mandates and extravagant federal spending; but again, many of these problems can and should be solved locally).
We're also seeing a push for "affordable housing" and more density in many Idaho cities; support for Islamic philosophies including by the mayor of Mountain Home, whose air force base likely will host Qatari pilots in training; and the kinds of ideas and behaviors many of us hoped to leave behind when we fled blue states. Boise, Mountain Home, Coeur D'Alene, Twin Falls, and other cities are all moving left. Even rural areas, traditionally resilient and conservative, are succumbing to the lure of more services, more costs, and more government.
Conservative Idahoans and legislators must remain strong in their principles and not cave to pressures that will turn this state purple, then blue (Arizona, Colorado, Texas, and even California were once red).
New voters in Idaho should know: Republican party affiliation does NOT always mean conservative red. One only has to look at voting records of Idaho Republican legislators to realize that many Republicans actually are supporting left-leaning policies. We always compare the left leaning IACI score cards (https://scorecard.iaci.org/#/) with the conservative leaning Idaho Freedom Foundation score cards (https://index.idahofreedom.org/) when evaluating Idaho legislators. The scores -- not just party affiliation -- reveal much about a state legislator's actions. (Other scorecards from liberal and conservative organizations show similar results.)
Sorry this is so long, but Idaho conservatives must remain vigilant. We appreciate that members of the Idaho Freedom Caucus and the Gang of 8 are holding strong for Idaho. But we need more legislators, voters, and our executive branch to exercise the same vigilance if we want Idaho to remain one of the few remaining truly red states in America.
Well stated. Now how do we get majority of legislators to have the common sense needed to implement these ideas?