New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani earned national attention in a not-good way when he recorded himself in front of Ken Griffin's Manhattan home revealing the billionaire's address. He tapped the lens in a threatening manner and said guys like Griffin are going to pay more taxes.

Griffin is the founder and CEO of Citadel, a giant hedge fund. The wisdom of raising taxes on expensive second homes can be debated, but doxxing Griffin in that nasty, personal way was flat stupid. Griffin accurately described Mamdani's stunt as "creepy and weird," in addition to showing a "profound lack of judgment."

It was quickly revealed that Citadel employed about 2,500 people in the city who had paid $2.3 billion in city and state taxes over the past five years, according to Barron's. About 2,500 of them sit on local nonprofit boards. Griffin himself has donated $650 million in charitable gifts to New York hospitals, museums and related good causes. Meanwhile, Griffin's penthouse overlooking Central Park was filling the city's coffers to the tune of over $500,000 a year in property taxes.

Griffin wasn't done. He put on hold his $6 billion plans to redevelop a Park Avenue office building that would have created 6,000 construction jobs and lead to 15,000 permanent jobs. That video, he said, reinforced his decision to "double down" on Miami, where Citadel is headquartered, rather than expand in New York.

Over in Seattle, the new leftist mayor, Katie Wilson, idiotically taunted her city's economic powerhouses. After learning that Starbucks was building a 2,000-employee corporate center in Nashville, reporters asked Wilson whether she was concerned that local billionaires were leaving town for friendlier and lower-taxed climes. Cameras caught her blank face delivering a juvenile sing-song response, "Like, bye."

Shortly after being elected, Wilson had attended a barista union rally and declared, "I am not buying Starbucks, and you should not either." Amazing for the mayor to say that about a homegrown company that helped make Seattle "cool."

Starbucks co-founder Howard Schultz wrote in the Wall Street Journal the obvious, that her attitude "vilifies employers, even while she continues to rely on them for revenue."

Back in New York, Mamdani tried to clean up his mess by reaching out to Griffin, offering to meet him for a nice, "I'm-there-to-listen" conversation. As of this writing, Mamdani has been met with radio silence. Griffin is "ghosting" him, the New York Post reports.

And why shouldn't he? It's becoming rapidly clear that Griffin is more important to New York City than Mamdani is. Same goes for Schultz in Seattle, even after he moved to the Miami area.

Seattle's Wilson isn't nearly as polished a social media performer as Mamdani is, but they share an equally deep well of ignorance over how a big city funds itself. Neither ran as much as a lemonade stand before thinking they could bully the corporate leaders powering their economies.

Both are on the fringe left and exploited the Democratic Party to get themselves nominated. They should not be confused with Democratic politicians running their towns with pragmatic smarts. It happens that Democrats in Nashville were instrumental in seducing Starbucks to expand their way.

Who elected these child mayors? Child voters largely ignorant of urban affairs and uninterested in learning about them. This is an electorate glued to social media feeds and their flood of political manipulation.

Thus, we see Mamdani in a hard hat flooding the media with "Mayor Mamdani Advances New York City's First Free Child Care Program Pilot for Municipal Workers." It covers all of 40 children. (More kids live in a single tenement.) And their parents have to work for the city.

Words can't describe ...

Follow Froma Harrop on X @FromaHarrop. She can be reached at [email protected]. To find out more about Froma Harrop and read features by other Creators writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators webpage at www.creators.com.

Photo credit: Patrick Tomasso at Unsplash