There’s a curious phenomenon happening in New York City: a fascination with policies that masquerade as solutions but feel like they’re scripted straight from a fantastical fairytale. At the center of this saga is Zohran Mamdani, the would-be mayor peddling promises that sound sweet but quickly sour under scrutiny. Claiming to wave his magic wand and fix the Big Apple’s affordability crisis, Mamdani—whom one might humorously call the ‘Ugandan wizard’—seems to believe that simply demanding things to be affordable will make them so. It’s an alluring but dangerous illusion.

Mamdani’s platform is built on three major pillars: freezing rents, making public buses free, and ensuring universal child care. These ideas, while grand in ambition, lack the grounding realism that conservative wisdom consistently advocates. Take freezing rents, for instance. To imagine that landlords, plagued by a burdensome list of maintenance costs and regulatory fees, can provide affordable housing without the ability to adjust rents is magical thinking. It’s a classic case of missing the forest for the trees, ignoring that stifling rent adjustments leads not to utopia, but to decay and disinvestment.

Then there’s the promise of free public transportation. Buses could become, almost comically, free and faster all in one miraculous move. But the stark reality is that removing fares doesn’t erase the costs. Instead, it shifts the financial burden onto taxpayers, inevitably leading to higher taxes—turning the “free” ride into a costly detour for residents’ wallets. Beyond finances, we face the unintended transformation of buses into roving shelters, a home for the city’s homeless, overshadowing the needs of daily commuters.

Perhaps the most precarious of all is the push for universal child care. This ‘solution’ ignores the nuanced balance required in raising children. By making daycare ‘free,’ Mamdani seemingly advocates for a faceless society where strangers shoulder the cost and quality caregiving is diluted by understaffing and overburdened resources. Ignoring the finely tuned balance of familial responsibility harms not only children but society at large. We should question the wisdom of steering mothers away from the home, potentially toiling in undervalued cubicles, rather than nurturing the next generation in environments that foster stability.

While these proposals might seem like gifts wrapped in glittery bows, beneath lies a sobering reality: nothing in life comes free except in fantasies and fairy tales. The real world demands practical solutions, ones that respect individual responsibility and embrace economic realism. The allure of free and boundless promises must be met with scrutiny and common sense—a reminder that sustainable solutions require more than just proclamations. They require practical measures grounded in reality, a principle that conservatives have long championed.

So, while Mamdani might charm crowds with dreams of free-flowing buses and costless child care, conservatives will watch with wary eyes. We understand that one cannot simply legislate a perfect world into existence. It’s time to focus on policies that truly work, rooted not in whimsical dreams but in the sturdy ground of conservative values. And when the choice comes to the ballot, voters ought to remember that not all that glitters is gold.