The only thing that truly surprises me
about what happened to New York City's beloved mayor (and when I say beloved I
mean by the far left across the country) is that it took this long for it to
happen.
As I wrote in an article on Mayor Mamdani
last month nearly eight months into his first term the majority of his campaign
promises are either stalled or have been put on the backburner. It's actually
been getting worse for him in the last month. His proposed second home tax was
struck down by a Staten Island court. The New York City Council has been making
pointed inquiries into the paid influencers that make up so much of his
campaign. And when Netanyahu attended the UN conference a couple of weeks ago
and numerous pro-Palestine protestors were arrested by the police Mamdani was
busy having a meeting with a diplomat from the Netherlands involving climate
change in Gracie Mansion.
Mamdani has been all talk and no action
when it comes to all of the policies he's won the mayor's race on last
November. And since the overwhelming majority of his talk has made it very
clear what side he was on in regard to Israel, he's spent much of the last
several months increasingly taking flak from the Jewish voters in New York. The
fact that he chose to show up at an October 7th anniversary vigil
wasn't going to earn him any points from that group but considering he's spent
so much time actively isolating them he was no doubt doing so to throw them a
bone – one they absolutely weren't going to take.
With all that said, it clearly came as a
shock to him when the inevitable pro-Palestinian protest came to that vigil and
specifically called him the worst names imaginable. Mamdani has been known for
his trademark cheerful attitude in the face of anything but there's footage
that is now available in the Times showing him looking stone-faced and even
ashen as he leaves the vigil. At this point Mamdani is clearly wondering what
he did to deserve this.
Well the answer he is he ran for public
office. The one thing that remains a constant among the activist left is that
they truly believe that the problems of today can't be solved by politicians. Many
members of the DSA may have considered him their hero but it was always going
to have a shelf life the moment Mamdani's campaign promises ran into the
reality of governing.
And the DSA truly believes government is
not the solution to the problem, government is the problem. (Yes I did quote
Reagan, what's your point?) The left has spent the 21st century
insisting to anyone who will listen (and even those who don't) that no one in
government has the interests of the people – by which of course I mean the left
– at heart. They have blamed the special interests, the one percent, Citizens
United and in many cases the voters themselves for not fully putting into
action a progressive, socialist government.
Which they obviously could do but only don't because they want to own
the libs.
All of this yelling and screaming has
always been to disguises that the Justice Democrats and DSA candidates are
staggeringly unpopular with the electorate at large. This hasn't changed
despite everything Trump has done to destabilize the government and it
continued to play out during the 2026 election cycle. The Justice Democrats ran
fourteen candidates for Congress: seven won and six lost. The DSA ran 27
candidates in primaries: 8 won, 19 lost. They've had some successes in the
Senate – Abdul El-Sayid in Michigan, Angie Nixon in Florida – but Graham
Platner spectacularly flamed out and while Troy Jackson is running even with
Susan Collins in Maine, it doesn't take away from the disaster. And Francesca
Hong, running as a socialist in Wisconsin's gubernatorial primary, was defeated
by David Crowley for the nomination.
Despite the Republicans protracted effort
to label all Democrats as just versions of Mamdani and the most extreme
versions of them, this cycle has been dominated by moderates at every level. At this point the
Democrats are likely to win control of both the House and the Senate as well as
a majority of the governors' race this fall. And the overwhelming majority of
these candidates are moderates and centrists, things that those devoted to
Mamdani hate with a passion. The only victories the Justice Democrats and DSA
candidates were able to win this cycle were deep blue districts where the
left-wing message was the strongest. Angie Nixon has little chance of winning
in Florida and by and large left-wing candidates have failed to win primaries
for other statewide races. The ones who might win, such as Annie Andrews in
South Carolina, may win just because of outside factors that have little to do
with them. And by and large the candidates who are likely to win Senate seats
this cycle, such as James Talarico and Roy Cooper, along with outside
possibilities such as Dan Osborn in Nebraska and Adam Hamilton in Kansas, will
win by rejecting the traditional left-wing calls and running to the center
where most voters are.
There are many long time Democrats who have
become dissatisfied with the party in large part because of the loudest and
most left-wing voices running this cycle as well as Mamdani and the Squad. But
they've never been anywhere close to the majority of the Democratic Party and
they won't be even after this cycle. At most they will be under double digits
in the DSA and at most a dozen in the Justice Democrats. They get all the
attention for the same reason that everyone in the Freedom Caucus does. They're
by far the squeakiest wheels and no amount of grease will quiet them. That
doesn't mean they represent the entire party by a long shot.
The reason I'm mentioning Mamdani is
because the fact that his own circle have turned on him – less than a year
after he won the mayorship – should be the biggest flashing warning light
possible to candidates such as Clare Valdez and Darializa
Avila Chevalier in New York,
Melat Kiros in Colorado and Adam Hamawy in New Jersey and Abdul El-Sayid in
Michigan. It took the very people that helped you win your primaries nine
months to turn on the elected official that you've been holding up as your
template ever since you ran for office.
The moment you win office; you're on a
clock. Everything that you've been saying about the John Fetterman's in
Congress they will be saying about you the moment you don't deliver on your
campaign promises. The second you vote
for something that doesn't completely meld with anything that they agree with
(and who knows what it'll be in 2027) they will start protesting you and saying
nasty things online and calling you traitors and sell-outs. They think what you
say on the campaign trail is carved in stone and that you will deliver it
the day before you are sworn into Congress, if not sooner. They don't want
to know how Congress really works; they don't want to be told about checks and
balances or the realities of governing.
They turned on Bernie the moment he started working with the Biden
administration and the DSA is very split on whether AOC should run for
President or be primaried. And the fact that Trump is still in the White House
is only going to give you two years at most of cover. Then many of you will
have to run for reelection. Good luck trying to win the anarchist vote.
Now if my fellow establishment Democrats
and moderates can get away from the understandable schadenfreude you are
feeling seeing Mamdani beginning to reap what he sows, you can take comfort in
the fact that you've been right all along about how impossible it is to please
the far left. And I would suggest using this as a cudgel as much as possible
when the new Congress convenes and hopefully you have the majority you so
richly deserve. But you have to take certain lessons to into account.
First for those of you who have chosen to
recognize AOC and her ilk less as elected representatives but 'influencers who
create content' (as a recent Times article has quoted Sean Maloney) you are of
course correct. And it's important to realize that AOC is a model of every one
who she has galvanized to vote for her. Like her, they have no understanding of
how government is supposed to work and even if they bothered to take a civics
lesson it would make a difference.
You see the young have always believed that
government should work as simply as pressing a button. And having been raised
on their cell phones they are completely incapable of understanding how the
world works. If you can order anything you want online, get rides, order food,
find sexual encounters and even make commentary derided the internet and social
media all without taking their hands off their phone, then in their minds it
should be just as simple to pass a law, amend the constitution or impeach the president
simply by making a post on TikTok. That
is in fact exactly how Mamdani tried to govern and as has been illustrated that
won't work with a generation that was so deluded half of them believed Mamdani
could make a citizen's arrest of Netanyahu in New York and the other half are
angry when he confirmed he couldn't.
For the last decade the Democratic Party
has acted entirely in reaction to Trump, either by trying to mirror the worst
parts of the Republican party or by trying to win over the left flank from the
Sanders wing. They have mirrored bad behavior with bad behavior, disruption
with disruption, chaos with chaos. This is done either to try and win the Trump
voter back with similar behavior or the far left who both loathe everything he
does and simultaneously want the same version to create a perfect progressive utopia.
The talking heads will say that our
government, established 250 years ago, is not equipped to deal with the
problems of 21st century America. If the definition is it can't
adapt with the 24 hour news cycle or those who believe everything should move
at the speed of Instagram, you're correct. But considering that this is a pace
that no human being can hope to live at, maybe stop trying to consider that a
vice. To those who will argue about the horrible approval numbers of Congress
in polling, one of the better points of democracy was that it was built on
compromise and patience and the utilitarian model of doing the most good for
the most people. The preamble begins 'in order to build a more perfect
union'. Those young people who think
all democracy should be perfect by design clearly haven't read it.
Not even the darlings of the far left can
satisfy the empty void that is the average progressive. So since we can't hope
to beat them at their own game, let's stop playing their game. And let's not
play the right's game either which means when Trump says frog, they jump. We're
supposed to be the grownups and that means stop giving into the demands of
children, whether they are among the Freedom Caucus or the Progressive Caucus.
When the New Congress is sworn in if it
goes according to trends both Schumer and Jeffries need to lay down the law to
their majorities and make it very clear who's in charge. They want to
grandstand and do their little dances in front of the cameras, fine. But when
its time to vote for anything they shut their mouths and do what they were
elected to do. Tell them that a 'no'
vote counts against the party whether they do it or the Republicans do it. Some
of them clearly didn't get that message during Biden's term so try to do it
using flash cards if that point doesn't register. If they act up maybe walk
them over to the Freedom Caucus or John Thune and say: "You want to sit
with them instead?"
And every time they start acting like they
speak for the people, find the clip of Mamdani being booed online. Tell them:
"Those are your people. Now how about speaking for all the others? Last
I checked they made their opinions pretty clear this year." Remind him of
the difference between what he promised and what he delivered. Most of all,
remind him even he was willing to meet with the President for the greater good.
That won't shut them up for long but you might be able to get things done in
the meantime and some of it might even help the far left, even if they'll never
appreciate it.
No comments:
Post a Comment