If New York City voters decide tomorrow to hand over their mayor’s office to self-described “Democratic Socialist” (read ‘Communist’) Zohran Mamdani, Kansas must react by putting a hook in the water to snag some of those Mamdani refugees fleeing the decline and fall of The Big Apple.
New York’s misery may be our opportunity. Hopefully Governor Laura Kelly and Commerce Department Boy Wonder David Toland are hunkered down in the secret Hutchinson Salt Mine Bat Cave banging out the recruitment campaign as we speak.
Because it’s just about over but the shouting. Mamdani leads all the polls; the new class of ignorance which has apparently taken over the NYC electorate will be electing a man whose policies practically guarantee another exodus of jobs, investment, and productive people from the nation’s largest city. So…let’s bring some of them and their investment potential to Kansas!
Mamdani has already made it clear: he wants to raise taxes on the wealthy, expand public control over private enterprise, and “democratize” business through state regulation and redistribution. It’s the same old Marxist playbook, and it’s never worked anywhere it’s been tried—from Venezuela to Detroit. What it does accomplish is to drive out employers, entrepreneurs, and families who still believe in free markets and the dignity of work.
Local television news has reported polls that say some 9 percent of NYC residents – some 765,000 people out of the city’s 8.5 million souls – say they will definitely bail if Mamdani is elected. An additional 25 percent (some 2.12 million) say they’ll consider leaving.
Kansas should be ready to welcome them with open arms. For all the Left’s talk about “equity” and “fairness,” nothing crushes opportunity faster than punishing success. New York’s political class seems determined to find out the hard way. When the city’s small businesses and corporate employers are told they’re the villains rather than the backbone of the economy, they’ll do what any rational people do: they’ll bug out.
That’s where Kansas comes in. We have what New York City no longer does — room to grow, a fair tax climate, comparable affordable land, and communities that still believe in personal responsibility.
Instead of waiting for the smoke to clear in Manhattan, Kansas leaders should prepare a red-carpet plan – and advertise it openly and directly – to attract the first wave of escaping firms. We can start by creating a one-stop business relocation office that helps firms set up shop in days with inventories of available real estate, fast-track zoning approval, a confidential pool of workers ready to start jobs or leave their present work for new opportunities; a dial-in response on Neighborhood Revitalization tax rebate plans and seamless utility connection information in Kansas communities large and small.
While New York politicians sneer at capitalism and the industries that have built the world’s biggest economic engine, Kansas still celebrates them. Let’s launch a “Freedom to Prosper” marketing campaign in the Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, and business journals, showing that our niche in the Heartland still believes in the American dream.
Kansas and its communities have a choice: we can sit back and watch coastal chaos unfold, or we can prepare now to turn their failure into our opportunity. When New York’s businesses decide they’ve had enough of socialist, collectivist experiments, Kansas should be the first state to say: “Welcome to Kansas — where freedom still works.” ###
Dane Hicks is a graduate of the University of Missouri School of Journalism and the United States Marine Corps Officer Candidate School at Quantico, VA. He is the author of novels "The Skinning Tree" and "A Whisper For Help." As publisher of the Anderson County Review in Garnett, KS., he is a recipient of the Kansas Press Association's Boyd Community Service Award as well as more than 60 awards for excellence in news, editorial and photography.
