Earlier this month, New York State Rep. Zohran Mamdani handily trounced former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo in a stunning upset victory that didn’t just surprise New Yorkers but grabbed the attention of Democrats nationwide. Grabbed them by the short hairs, if you will. Because the disgraced former Gov. Cuomo wasn’t just defeated by some other Democrat, he was defeated by a very young Ugandan American Muslim Democratic Socialist.
I mean damn.
High-profile mainstream Democrats began sounding the alarm that Zohran’s victory wasn’t a victory at all but an aberration that had to be fixed and fixed quickly. Otherwise, they feared, their party would pay a serious price for flirting with what they view as the radical left. Apparently, the prospect of a disgraced politician who was accused of sexually harassing at least 11 women, according to a report released by New York Attorney General Letitia James, and later forced to resign as a result, was the better option. Yeah, let’s do this again, shall we? Give the mayor’s seat to a sexual predator as a consolation prize. Sure. Sounds good. Thumbs up.
While Cuomo has since re-launched his campaign as an Independent – same as current disgraced Mayor Eric Adams – New York Democrats are reportedly still less than thrilled with their options.
“New York Democrats cool to their party’s Big Apple mayoral nominee Zohran Mamdani are weighing their options as the 33-year-old progressive makes his own pitch to centrists that they should back him.
“The Democratic establishment has been looking for alternatives, but none really satisfy.
“Former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo last week announced an independent run after losing the Democratic primary to Mamdani, but a number of Democrats who spoke to The Hill have doubts he can win. Some also haven’t forgotten past Cuomo controversies.
“Incumbent Eric Adams is also a Democrat running as an independent, but he has had a scandal-tarred career, and his tilting toward MAGA and Trump World hasn’t won him too many friends in the Democratic establishment.
“Political observers say there aren’t enough moderates to go around for one — let alone two candidates — and if the establishment wants to prevail, either Adams or Cuomo should exit the race.”
In other words, rather than support a progressive, New York Democrats believe the best solution to their perceived problem is for one of the two corrupt candidates (neither of whom is still a Democrat, by the way) to drop out of the race so that the other corrupt no-longer-a-Democrat candidate can (please God) prevail.
Similar to what happened with Zohran, Fateh was running against a much better-funded candidate who was expected to win the party's endorsement, especially since he is the incumbent. But instead, the dark-skinned Muslim guy won.
And once again, there was a whole lotta shock reverberating throughout the Democratic ranks, as in ‘How Could This Happen and WTF? There were claims that the voting apparatus had malfunctioned – a claim that was later slapped down by Minneapolis DFL party official Briana Rose. Nevertheless, incumbent Mayor Jacob Frey’s campaign plans to appeal the result to the state-level DFL Party, so stay tuned for that. Also, although this victory was good news for Fateh supporters, it is still no guarantee that Frey won’t be able to rally his troops and come back stronger in November as he has done before.
Nevertheless, the writing on the wall seems to be conveying a strong message in very large, all-caps block letters: GO PRO. As in Go Progressive.
Democrats should embrace the new wave within their ranks, not make the sign of the cross, as if it’s a threatening vampire come to suck out the lifeblood of the party. To the contrary, candidates such as Zohran and Fateh may well represent the best hope of Democrats moving forward, especially if they want to keep younger voters engaged. Old school politicos like Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer deserve a lot of credit for what they managed to accomplish over the years and deserve better than to be mocked or tossed aside. But they do need to step aside.
Because did those establishment Democrats happen to notice those massive anti-Trump Fighting Oligarchy Tour rallies earlier this year led by Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC)? Where they attracted overflow crowds of up to 30,000? In Republican states?
So yeah. Sometimes, the more things change, the more things really are changing. And sometimes that means you’d better pay attention to what’s changing and why.
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I am very much what you would call a Social Democrat if we were in Europe. If you want young lefties to come out and vote, you can't give them cocktail-party liberals. Mamdami and people like him are not Bolsheviks. He can't establish a Stalinist government in New York. (To be clear, he doesn't want to.) It's clear that we have to fight hard against the well-established belief in the U.S. that electing socialists will end with bankers and businesspeople up against a wall. Or even worse: Someone might lose their tax breaks.
I am very much what you would call a Social Democrat if we were in Europe. If you want young lefties to come out and vote, you can't give them cocktail-party liberals. Mamdami and people like him are not Bolsheviks. He can't establish a Stalinist government in New York. (To be clear, he doesn't want to.) It's clear that we have to fight hard against the well-established belief in the U.S. that electing socialists will end with bankers and businesspeople up against a wall. Or even worse: Someone might lose their tax breaks.
“Read the room” is an understatement! I can say that for the DNC as well!