Between the fireworks, flyovers, and the largest numbers of tall ships in the harbor since King George’s navy fled to England, it was an action-packed Independence Day weekend in New York City.
The swarm of people and soaring temperatures put a massive strain on the city’s already weak power grid — and that was before Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce tied the knot at Madison Square Garden.
Buckling under the pressure, 10,000 homes in Queens had their power cut to prevent a total city-wide collapse.
One of those homes belonged to my 80-year-old mother.
Luckily, like another 80-year-old Queens native who serves as commander-in-chief, Mom is strong and survived. Yet when choosing the city section to lose power, it’s curious that the most Republican part was first in line.
A red dot in a sea of blue, southwest Queens is the most GOP-leaning part of New York City. In 2024, President Donald Trump flipped three of Queens County’s 18 Assembly Districts, as part of a surge to the right that few pundits saw coming.
Sixteen years ago, these neighborhoods were represented by a Republican in Congress named Bob Turner, who happens to be my uncle. After the 2010 census, New York Democrats redrew the map to ensure the Republican neighborhood would be thoroughly diluted. The area has since been represented by 15-term Rep. Gregory Meeks (D., N.Y.) ever since.
While there is no smoking gun that this neighborhood, which voted 70 percent against Mayor Zohran Mamdani, was targeted specifically for its politics, the fallout was brutal.
It wasn’t just the heat, but the loss of food. These are predominantly Italian neighborhoods, and during the July 4th weekend, everyone bought everything to celebrate. Local mom and pop bakeries and delis lost everything without refrigeration.
To quote the Mayor, mom and her neighbors felt “the warmth of collectivism” — warmed, congealed, rancid, spoiled collectivism.
For context, the average house in Queens uses about 1.5 kilowatts of power. Madison Square Garden uses 15,000 kilowatts. Eerily enough, the rough equivalent of 10,000 homes. Safe to say, Mamdani could have ordered Mr. and Mrs. Swift to shut down their wedding to save the grid rather than punish elderly widows.
To borrow a line from Taylor, losing power in a heatwave is not a champagne problem.
To be clear, I don’t begrudge Taylor her lavish wedding. Every pot deserves a lid, and with a net worth of two billion dollars, who wouldn’t orchestrate an over-the-top extravaganza? That’s free market capitalism and success and should be celebrated.
It’s not her responsibility to protect the welfare of New York City’s 8.5 million residents. That job falls to Mayor Mamdani and to Gov. Kathy Hochul (D., N.Y.), and they have fallen woefully short.
First, the former (and disgraced) governor Andrew Cuomo sacrificed reliable coal and nuclear power generation at the green altar of climate change. Governor Hochul has followed his disastrous example. Queens already pays 110 percent higher than the national average for electricity with no relief in sight. Hochul has blocked natural gas pipelines into the state bringing much needed reliable, affordable energy. Thankfully, the Trump administration bypassed Hochul’s anti-energy position by using federal land in Brooklyn to bring more natural gas to the citizens of New York.
Second, as a New York State Assemblyman representing Queens, Mamdani voted for climate bills and courted the support of green group who view climate change activism as means to spread socialism. New York’s lack of energy production is no coincidence but the logical consequence of ignorant energy policy. Wishing it away with talk about “tackling climate change” does nothing.
Thankfully, Mom’s power was restored the next day. There has been no reporting on severe injuries or death, but then again, there has been little reporting on the matter at all. It’s as if everyone is dutifully ignoring an ominous story foreshadowing a perilous future.
100 degree days will come back, and the elected Democrats’ position seems to be “fingers crossed” and mandates on 79 degree air conditioning in public.
Let us hope it’s not too bad. Let us hope there is no blizzard or hurricane or heatwave or any other event which compromises the grid. Hope and faith are wonderful virtues but terrible policies.
The nation’s largest, most powerful city deserves so much better. So does my mom and all her fellow New Yorkers. They deserve at least as much reliable power as Taylor Swift got.
They deserve one of the favorite terms of the socialist left: “equity.” Except “equity” means something very different to that crew. This is the movement of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.) decrying “income inequality” on a private jet tour. Or Rep. Ro Khanna (D., Calif.) screaming about “hoarding wealth” while his two toddler children own three private golf courses.
In their eyes, equity means regular people are plunged into poverty by their elected officials, while the elite live very well in abundance.
Energy poverty can be New York’s undoing. Just as with crime, drugs, illegal immigration, the biggest obstacle to energy progress is extreme leftists who prefer the misery of the status quo rather than admitting the failure of their policies.
Daniel Turner is the founder and executive director of Power The Future, a national nonprofit organization that advocates for American energy jobs. He also runs a sheep and cattle farm in rural Virginia. Contact him at daniel@powerthefuture.com and follow him on Twitter @DanielTurnerPTF
