New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani picked a fight with millions of overheated residents this week, posting on X that New Yorkers should set their air conditioners to 78 degrees as a potentially historic heat wave bears down on the five boroughs. The response was swift, merciless, and bipartisan.
AccuWeather expects highs of 100 degrees on Thursday and Friday, temperatures the city hasn't seen since 2012. Mamdani's advice? Turn down the cool, unplug your electronics, and share the sacrifice with City Hall.
The mayor's post, which drew immediate backlash, read in part:
"New York: it's hot out there, and the power grid is working overtime to keep us cool. Set your AC to 78 degrees, turn off lights/electronics you're not using, and unplug what you can."
He followed up by noting that city buildings would maintain the same 78-degree rule, that lights would be dimmed during peak demand, and that private partners would be asked to do the same. "A stable grid means the AC stays on, and lives are saved," Mamdani wrote. "Let's ease demand, and get through the heat, together."
New Yorkers were not in a togetherness mood.
Barstool founder Dave Portnoy captured the tone of the online pile-on in a few words: "78 degrees??? Welcome to communism people! Hope you enjoy!" Portnoy has previously said he would consider running against Mamdani for mayor.
Conservative media figure Bonchie responded with pointed sarcasm. "Do you feel the warmth of collectivism yet?" he wrote on X.
One unnamed New Yorker posted a direct challenge to the mayor's authority: "As a New Yorker I'll be setting my AC to 62 degrees for the foreseeable future as a direct retaliation to your authority." Another said they had texted all their coworkers who voted for Mamdani, asking each one to send a photo proving their AC was set to 78.
Moshe Spern, president of the United Jewish Teachers, offered a more colorful take. "My Mayor is Muslim. My Bagel is Jewish. My Christian Dior. Thermostat set to 74. Or lower," Spern wrote. "Only a Communist believes distribution of wealth also means distribution of air conditioning. Send thermostat pics at Gracie and City hall please!!"
The "communism" label isn't coming from nowhere. Mamdani, a self-described democratic socialist, has drawn scrutiny from across the political spectrum for his ideological approach to city governance. His rise has coincided with a broader embrace of democratic socialists within the national Democratic Party, a trend that has alarmed even some traditional party allies.
Critics online zeroed in on a glaring contradiction. If the power grid is truly strained, why are residents in cramped apartments being told to sweat while Times Square stays illuminated around the clock, soaking up massive amounts of energy? Mamdani's post mentioned asking "private partners" to reduce usage, but the mayor offered no specifics on which partners, what reductions, or any enforcement mechanism.
The gap between what the mayor asked of ordinary New Yorkers and what he demanded of the city's commercial energy consumers was not lost on the public. Telling a family in a fifth-floor walk-up in the Bronx to suffer through 78-degree air while neon billboards blaze in Midtown is a hard sell, especially when the request comes wrapped in the language of collective sacrifice.
That kind of top-down, share-the-pain messaging has become a hallmark of the progressive governing style. It also helps explain why union leaders have warned that blue-collar workers are walking away from a party they feel no longer speaks for them.
Mamdani's predecessor, Eric Adams, made the same recommendation in July 2023, urging New Yorkers to set their thermostats to 78 degrees during a heat advisory. Adams caught flak for it too. The advice itself isn't new, the Department of Energy suggests summer thermostat settings of 75 to 78 degrees and recommends raising the temperature when nobody is home.
But context matters. When a mayor who has built his political brand on progressive ideology and government-directed solutions tells working people to turn down their AC, the request reads differently than a dry federal guideline. It reads like a mandate dressed up as a suggestion.
Mamdani's political identity is central to the reaction. He has clashed with federal authority on immigration policy, positioning himself as a leader willing to defy even the Supreme Court. That combative posture toward Washington contrasts sharply with the gentle, collectivist tone he struck toward his own constituents this week. Defiance for thee, compliance for me.
Mamdani's post referenced the power grid "working overtime," but the article does not cite any declared grid emergency, any reported outages, or any official statement from the city's utility providers confirming imminent danger. The mayor's framing, "lives are saved", implies a crisis, but no evidence of one was presented alongside the request.
That doesn't mean the grid isn't under pressure. Hundred-degree heat in a city of more than eight million people will stress any electrical system. But there's a difference between a utility company issuing a conservation alert with data behind it and a politician posting on social media about shared sacrifice. One is infrastructure management. The other is messaging.
And messaging is where Mamdani keeps running into trouble. The democratic socialist brand works well in progressive primaries. It works less well when you're telling a retired grandmother in Queens that 78 degrees is cool enough.
The broader trajectory of progressive politics in New York and nationally provides the backdrop. Mamdani has become a figure of interest well beyond City Hall. Vice President Kamala Harris has courted Mamdani and progressive allies as she positions herself for a potential 2028 presidential bid, a relationship that ties the mayor's local controversies to the national Democratic brand.
Set your thermostat to 78 in a New York City apartment with poor insulation, south-facing windows, and no cross-ventilation, and you may as well not have air conditioning at all. The Department of Energy's recommendation is built for a generic American home with modern insulation and central air. It was not designed for a pre-war railroad flat in Washington Heights.
New Yorkers understand this intuitively. That's why the backlash was so immediate and so personal. The mayor's recommendation felt disconnected from the lived reality of the people he governs, the same disconnect that has fueled a broader democratic socialist surge that promises radical change but keeps delivering lectures.
The heat wave will pass. The temperatures will drop. But the political dynamic on display, an ideologically driven mayor asking ordinary people to sacrifice comfort while offering vague assurances about what the city itself will do, is a pattern, not a weather event.
When the people running the city can't keep the lights on without asking you to sweat, maybe the problem isn't your thermostat.
