In a New York Times op-ed, New York Governor Kathy Hochul endorsed Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani for Mayor of New York City. It’s a tepid, generic endorsement, lacking in praise for anything he stands for and ignoring his positions as a Democratic Socialist to defund police, abolish prisons and globalize the Intifada. But it is an endorsement.

I am endorsing Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani.

In the past few months, I’ve had frank conversations with him. We’ve had our disagreements. But in our conversations, I heard a leader who shares my commitment to a New York where children can grow up safe in their neighborhoods and where opportunity is within reach for every family. I heard a leader who is focused on making New York City affordable — a goal I enthusiastically support.

I also shared with him my priorities, making it very clear that our police officers should have every resource to keep our streets and subways safe. I urged him to ensure that there is strong leadership at the helm of the N.Y.P.D. — and he agreed.

This is carefully crafted to say absolutely nothing about what he plans to do to accomplish any of these goals. It’s akin to saying “we want good things to happen and he agrees that good things should happen.” What those good things are is unclear, and how  those good things will come about is unmentioned.

There is good reason for this. Everything Mamdani stands for is anathema to liberal values and beliefs, those things that used to be at the core of the Democratic Party before it split into two warring groups that might share a few goals, at least to some extent, but seek to achieve them in very different ways. The liberal wing of the Democrats, which for now remains the majority as older Dems hold tight to constitutional rights and enlightenment values, finds the progressive wing, variously called Social Justice Warriors, Woke and radical fringe, dangerously wrong, simplistic and childish in its grasp of human nature, economics and the subjugation of humanity to their ideological purity.

To say the obvious, the progressive wing views the liberals as right wing MAGA nutjobs. Anyone right of the left edge is an arch conservative to them, and they hate them for it.

But Hochul has taken what she no doubt sees as the pragmatic route.

Families cannot wait another year, another month, another election cycle. They need urgent action now. Since taking office in January, Mr. Trump has killed jobs and dragged down our economy with tariff tax hikes that make life more expensive for working families. He’s gutted Medicaid and food assistance, slashed federal funding New York City relies on and threatened a federal takeover of New York — all while trying to put his thumb on the scale of our local elections.

New York needs leaders who will put aside differences, stand up and fight back against Mr. Trump.

Perhaps she can rationalize this as “the enemy of my enemy is my friend,” and Mamdani is certainly no friend of Trump’s. Then there’s the problem of alternatives, Cuomo and Adams, neither of whom have the support to win over Mamdani. If Mamdani is going to be mayor with or without Hochul’s endorsement, isn’t it better to try to make friends, make peace at least, with the man who would be mayor?

And Hochul makes it abundantly clear that she and Mamdani are strange bedfellows.

Some will say Mr. Mamdani and I are unlikely allies: a mom governor from Buffalo and a 33-year-old assemblyman from Queens. To me, that’s the beauty of this moment. What New Yorkers deserve right now is not grievances or grudges, but steely resolve to fight like hell.

This Trump-level gaslighting. Nobody gives a damn about her being a Buffalo mom or his age or even that he comes from the same bridge and tunnel crowd as Trump. No, “some” will not say that. Nor are “many people saying.” It is unfortunate that Hochul is taking cues from Trump’s playbook.

Mr. Mamdani and I don’t see eye to eye on everything, and I don’t expect us to. I will always reserve the right to disagree honestly and to argue passionately. But I also believe that New York State and New York City are at our best when we stand together against those who attempt to tear us apart.

Under other circumstances, this would be an example of “gertruding” since nobody agrees about everything and under ordinary circumstances, it would be pointless to make this a point. But Hochul is doing so to create plausible deniability when Mamdani does what Mamdani has campaigned to do, promised to do, screamed he will do. Free public transportation? Freeze rents? Will Hochul use New York State tax money to pay for Mamdani’s cool social tricks? After all, subway cars aren’t free and the folks who run and maintain them still want to get paid. Where does the money come from, Gov?

But the biggest problem is that by this endorsement (and if one reads the now-closed comments in the NYT praising Mamdani), the hope of the Democratic Party to pull its collective head out of its failed butt, reject its progressive fringe and return to the party of principled liberal values has taken a hard kick to the groin. Much as I despise the vulgar, deceitful, narcissistic ignoramus, I reject the alternative of the woke. And with this endorsement, the dream of a principled alternative to Trump fades like Trump’s promises to end the Ukraine war or release the Epstein files.