The polls said it wasn’t going to happen. The polls were wrong. Democratic Socialist Zohran Mamdani took the primary and will be the candidate for Mayor of New York City. Was it his policies, free everything and tax the rich? Was it his position on Israel, which wasn’t at all antisemitic but supported globalizing the intifada, which totally didn’t mean kill Jews? Was it defunding the police and warehousing the homeless in the subways?
Was it the fact that he was a young, charismatic, well-spoken, good-looking millennial who knew how to use social media?
At a time when the Democratic Party searches its soul for its inability to prevail over the likes of Donald Trump, where the schism between liberals and progressives is clearly insurmountable and yet totally denied, there appears to be a new lesson on the table stemming from Mamdani’s win, applauded by his endorsers, AOC and Bernie, as the real future of the alternative to MAGA.
Is it conceivable that New York can offer free universal day care, free subways and buses, city-owned grocery stores and low-cost housing by taxing “the rich”? Is it conceivable that New York can become the socialist Utopia nepo baby Zohran imagines? Have liberals, believers in both equality and capitalism, been wrong all along, and this is the real option to Trumpism and MAGA?
What is the lesson to be learned here? What does that lesson mean for enlightened liberalism, for whom there is no savior in the Democratic Party, at least as far as New York City goes?
*I know it’s not Tuesday, but be a bit flexible. TT rules apply.
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Was this the guy we heard about years ago that won the class election in sixth grade? His platform then was “free ice cream”. Sounds similar.
“What is the lesson to be learned here?” The lesson is that like the poor, the deluded we will always have with us. Their numbers are reflected in the voting tallies for candidates like Mamdani.
With his free everything platform, pretty soon the only “rich people” to tax for all the free stuff are going to be the people and corporations that can’t afford to move out of the city. Good luck with all that.
The problem is that the rich people all voted for it while the people of limited means had the sense to know that there is no such thing as a free lunch.
I’m in. Michigan. I’ll be brief remember that old thing?
Be careful what you ask for … you just might get it
New York is facing the prospect of new taxes to cover an existing $33 Billion MTA shortfall. I do not see free subway happening.
is it at all possible this was just a vote against big money?
I have not followed this election closely but did read something about Cuomo spending 30 million or something on this. Most of it coming from PACs I think.
Of course it was for free shit, I guess it is the opposite of the drain the swamp lies the other side fell for, twice.
I see the Mamdani phenomenon as the zenith of aspirational voting. American politics is so untethered to any reality – e. g., Biden‘s senility, Trump’s daftness, AOC’s rantings – why not? What have you got to lose but your mind?
My leftist friends in NYC have been quite vocal about not ranking Cuomo. I didn’t see that in the factors you listed and I do think that this was a decisive factor. Cuomo represents old power, to younger people, and corruption and sexual harassment. He’s all the nastiness of Trump, but on the left. Even worse for Cuomo, there hasn’t been any conditioning to permit or excuse that sort of thing, in the way that it is so easily and readily dismissed on the right.
He won’t win the election. The vocal fringe is not a decisive force, but the echo chamber will never know.
The lesson to be learned is that populism of two distinct flavors is here to stay. Establishment Dems are going out like never-Trump Reps. In are the democratic socialists and MAGAts. If only the left had a charismatic leader to coalesce around, then they’d properly mirror their counterparts. But that’s only a matter of time. Maybe the mayoral candidate will fit the bill.
Sorry, libs. With no shot at forming a viable third party, you will now have a choice between two tents, neither of which represent your views. It’s what the socialists and libertarians and authoritarians and the independently minded have dealt with forever. The two party system is horrendous, but nothing will change it short of electoral reform or a major political restructuring and good luck with that.
Mocking “free everything” seems to be the consensus so far, but it worked and will likely continue to be attractive just like “deport all the immigrants”. Actually thinking things through is hard and who has the attention span for it anymore?
Why did Mamdani win? For the same reasons that Obama, Trump and AOC won.
1. They ran very smart populist campaigns in which they competently pretended to care deeply about real issues that real people care about. (Watch some of Mamdani’s “street interview” videos to understand how this works)
2. They successfully presented themselves as outsiders, taking advantage of the hatred and disdain that the vast majority of Americans feel toward the establishment.
3. The establishment runs terrible candidates. John McCain, Mitt Romney, Hillary Clinton, Kamala Harris and Andrew Cuomo? All of these are clueless committee-controlled talking-point-reciting robots. They lack charisma and are totally unable to pretend that they care about or even understand the concerns of ordinary Americans. The establishment thinks that they can just spend millions of dollars using the MSM to extol the virtues of their chosen robot, but that no longer works because everyone now recognizes the MSM as part of the despised establishment.
H. L. Mencken once said “”Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.”
It would seem that applies to the voters of New York. I found it interesting the working class neighborhoods one would think would support Mamdini’s transport and government grocery store ideas voted for Cuomo by large margins while gentrified neighborhoods, who would bear the brunt of “pay their fair share” taxes, were his base. I have a feeling New Yorkers will soon have buyers remorse over their choice.
Another curious thing I’ve noticed is that the talk these days about the battle for the direction of the Democrats Party is said to be between liberals and progressives, or the left and far left. The Democrat Party no longer seems to have a place at the table for moderates and conservatives which tend to be the working poor and middle class.
My question is directed toward Mr. Greenfield. Will you commit to taking the train into the city to shop at Whole Socialism once Mayor Mamdani gets it up and running?
[Ed. Note: No. No I will not.]
Leaving New York City to avoid taxes will be no solution.
I followed on YouTube a prominent mail order tech repair shop owner who moved his business out of New York City to Austin, Texas.
New York City (and state, I believe) followed him relentlessly to Texas to keep accessing fresh taxes that he did not owe.
The NYC and NYS tax regime will be relentless to those fleeing confiscation.
I have come to the conclusion that many Americans vote with their gonands.
Free stuff, and bucking the establishment always sell. The electoral map is interesting since according to a Jalopnik.com article Cuomo did well in outer boroughs with high car ownership Mamdani did better in Manhattan and other close in areas. I wouldn’t vote for either one, but I left NY in 1993 and have no plans to return
I though politics was supposed to be about the art of the possible, not the art of the impossible fictitious aspiration.
I’m not old enough to remember, but am old enough to remember reruns of TV shows or movies featuring, NYC 1970s financial crisis and (eventual, after initial refusal by Pres. Ford) help from Federal government. Since Thursday masquerading as Tuesday, see e.g. reference to McCloud episode which I did NOT see first run, but years later, with William Daniels as a character providing Federal government budgetary oversight of NYPD, how I first learned NYC had once had such a crisis: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0644835/
Eventually, several years later, fiscal conservative Democratic mayor Ed Koch was elected…
I only vote in NY Federal elections (US citizen living in Canada, last US residence NYC), but even with that connection I pay some attention to NYC and NY state politics. As an aside (Thursday rules!) I’m content to pay higher taxes for services such as health care here in Canada, sure there are some issues but nowhere near as bad as scaremongers say. I’m okay with competent leadership to the left or right of me, so long as they’re competent and have real budgets and are not indulging in dream financing. Thus, I am not happy with either Republicans or Democrats, though the latter seem to disrespect the Constitution less for most things, so that’s how I lean.
In a city with 5 million registered voters Mandani got 300,000 votes. That appears to work in NYC but I doubt it will work nationaly.