Who’s afraid of Zohran Mamdani? The answer, it would seem, is the entire establishment. The 33-year-old democratic socialist and New York City mayoral candidate has surged in the polls in recent weeks, netting endorsements not just from progressive voices like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Bernie Sanders but also his fellow candidates for the mayoralty, with Brad Lander and Michael Blake taking advantage of the ranked-choice voting system in the primary and cross-endorsing Mamdani’s campaign.
With the primary just around the corner, polls have Mamdani closing the gap on Andrew Cuomo, the disgraced former governor of New York. This has spooked the establishment, which is now doing everything it can to stop Mamdani’s rise.
Take Michael Bloomberg, who endorsed Cuomo earlier this month and followed this up with a $5m donation to a pro-Cuomo Pac. The largesse appears motivated not by admiration for Cuomo – during his mayoralty, sources told the New York Times that Bloomberg saw Cuomo as “the epitome of the self-interested, horse-trading political culture he has long stood against” – but animosity towards Mamdani and his policies.
Mamdani wants to increase taxes on residents earning more than $1m a year, increase corporate taxes and freeze rents: policies that aren’t exactly popular with the billionaire set.
The dipshits that got us here are the Republican party and the Heritage Foundation. Not to mention all the “leftists” who never show up to Democratic primaries but complain endlessly about the candidate, then go on to vote third party or not vote at all. Bad Democratic candidates are a symptom of the dipshits responsible.
You’re the problem. I’m trying to do damage control to limit the scope of the problem. Did you have a proposed alternative vote that would have come closer to working out? Because not voting for one of the two major parties is counterproductive until one of them collapses. I don’t respect the electoral opinions of people who don’t understand elections.
I don’t support the electoral opinions who keep doing the same thing over and over again expecting change.
Keep casting your votes for pathetic, loser, corporate democrats even though they don’t give a shit about you and even though they keep lying to you again and again.
That’s what I just heard you say.
But I would prefer we blame the shitty politicians instead of each other.
Question: do you live in a red state or a red county or something?
Like voting third party, or not voting? That has the same result every time, why keep doing it?
The most perfect candidate in the world is totally worthless in an election they have no chance of winning, and worse than worthless when supporting them splits the votes which oppose fascism, allowing it to take hold.
Lesser evil with a chance of winning is better than perfect with no chance, every single time.
The longer you treat Democrats as traitorous allies, the longer it’ll take you to understand. They are not allies. I don’t vote for them because I agree with them, I vote for them because the only alternative with any chance of winning is worse.
They are not your friends. They are temporarily useful enemies.
And who nominated those shitty politicians in their primaries? We the people. If the politicians don’t represent your demographic, then there are exactly two explanations:
Voting third party is stupid, not voting is stupid. Voting in primaries is smart, encouraging others to vote in primaries is smart, educating people so that more of the voters in primaries agree with you is smart. Do smart things, not stupid things.
I do. So do many others. Third party might be slightly less stupid in a safe blue state, but it’s mind-bogglingly stupid as a general strategy.
If I lived in a red state in a red county and I knew the candidate was going to lose I would probably be more likely to vote third party….
I live in a blue state in a blue county where there is basically zero chance for a red candidate to win our districts… I can leave troublesome candidates blank.
The only time I would even consider voting for a candidate I didn’t like would be if our district has a reputation for being close to 50 50, and even then it would be a tough choice for me….
For national senate seats I do use different judgement calls but I really despise voting for neoliberals and centrists…
Thankfully our state has mail in voting for both primaries and the national election, so it’s super easy to vote in primaries….
I hear you it’s a tough call to make, but one thing I suggest we do is stop blaming each other…
I did it and you did it too, and it’s really dumb….
The blame lies with the shitty ass democrat party…
And fyi I don’t generally downvote folks I’m chatting with here fyi so, I do try to listen to folks I’m ranting and rave with and at