An array of different opinions —- but what is universal in all the content is that Momdani’s victory was truly revolutionary. An upset. That alone is a wonderful pedagogical event— because it forces everyone to ask Why? How? It defies conventional wisdom. And that is good.
Nothing is guaranteed— our future, Momdani’s future, NYC’s future. But I say—- let’s do everything possible to help Momdani’s succeed— not only in Nov ‘25, but as the new leader for NYC.
Many in the boomer generation are as fed up with the legacy Democratic Party as younger voters are.
Democrats used to understand what it means to stand up for a strong working class and growing middle class - until monied interests began their strategic takeover of legislatures, media, the courts and politicians in the mid-1970s.
Since then, as a result of political policy choices and court decisions, the transfer of wealth to the ultra rich has been staggering, and the middle and working classes have seen their economic and future sense of security disappear.
Trump used popular discontent to gain power but won’t deliver on promises to those who no longer have anything to offer him. On the contrary, billionaires who hate laws that constrain them and paying any taxes are the only constituents he and MAGA Republicans serve.
It’s always, always the economy, stupid. Legacy Democrats didn’t/don’t seem to grasp that GDP and stock prices don’t mean daily living isn’t a battle for fading hopes of anything approaching the American dream. Big investors, including private equity and foreigners, dominate access to housing, healthcare, higher education and other basic necessities.
Democratic New York voters are saying what the DNC doesn’t want to hear: no more! Represent the majority of us who live with soaring prices and shrinking opportunities, or move over for those who will.
Amen! As a 76-year-old lifelong Democrat, I am as fully fed up with the top establishment Dems as the young activists are--and just as fully excited about Mamdani's win. All this hand-wringing about the dangers of the word socialist, blah blah blah, and yet wanting to adopt Mamdani's tactics in order to push their own stale agenda, blah blah blah. They don't understand that the tactics are useless without the underlying values. The big dogs of the party (and their advisors) just need to get out of the way at this point. Their world is long gone.
I'm a 81 year old male that is totally behind jettisoning the Democratic party establishment. Saying you are going to help X, Y, and Z. is ineffective. Where is the action!, We know where the money is. People make decisions based on emotion not on slogans. The winning message is not this or that, it is what actions have I felt? And if we want to win it needs to start NOW! Here is my proposal: Rather than wasting money on a lot of ineffective advertising, get out in the communities and organize. Take the money saved and put it in a foundation that funds local initiatives that the community comes up with.
I know that messaging is important to you, so here's a frame that is very important to get right.
Mamdani is a *democratic socialist,* not a socialist. Yes, he's on the left, although that is as much a function of the Overton window as anything right now. Bernie is a democratic socialist. AOC is a democratic socialist. People now get what they are about, and have seen how they've been able to work with their colleagues in Congress. With democracy so under attack, it needs to be reinforced at every opportunity that there are people who still believe in democracy *and* believe that it can be much better than the oligarchy we have.
The right wing wants to conflate democratic socialist with socialist with communist. So do centrist Dems, with their faux concern about whether a socialist can effectively govern and what it does to the Dem brand. Right now, it only enhances the Dem brand, because Mamdani's campaign has energized those who would say there's no difference between the Republicans and the Democrats when it comes to being beholden to billionaires. Those are the people who stayed home last November.
Whatever you think of Bernie going on Joe Rogan, there's no denying that the Dems covet Joe Rogan's audience. But the way to do that is to be honest and authentic about the issues that matter to them, not keep trotting out the same old candidates for decades.
Don't use the right wing and centrist Dem frame. Talk about how democratic socialists don't want to overthrow the system, but they do want to make it work better for everyone who isn't a billionaire. We don't need a red scare within a blue party.
I really don't align with several of the takes shared in this post:
This one... 😭
“I do think it’s worth separating out the style of politics from the policy,” co-host Jon Favreau said. “Because we could have a whole debate about what policy positions can win... but if there’s a center-left candidate who campaigns like Mamdani, that person could be president.”
^^This take seems to miss a major point. A "center-left" candidate CAN'T campaign like Mamdani. The campaign wasn't simply rooted in style, it was also rooted in substance. Mamdani isn't campaigning on a platform he thinks can WIN. He's campaigning on a platform he genuinely thinks can WORK, and then going out there and selling in that vision such that it DOES win. He started off low in the polls and then sold in the platform until he became the favorite. Many establishment candidates are so set on winning being the end game that they poll to come up WITH the platform in the first place, but what good is a platform where winning is the end game?? Frankenstein platforms of pulling together policies that cover the widest voter base are illogical and suspicious, which is also why I think they often lose. It is disingenuous. Humans don't actually exist on a left-right political spectrum as conventional strategist promote. If the platform is sound, and it is sold in effectively, it can garner support across a wide range of voter backgrounds, regardless of how "leftist" the platform is, and how conventionally "right-wing" the voter was. I think Arizona is proof that the left-right voter spectrum is a false construct, where Trump won the presidential vote, but abortion rights were protected - all on the same ballot.
And this take... 😖
"So Mamdani’s victory needn’t be some kind of death knell for a winning Democratic party coalition in 2026 or 2028. It needn’t be a death knell for a centrist party in the tradition—now that you mention it!—of Truman and Kennedy. It should be a death knell for an ossified Democratic establishment that needs to be put out of its misery. And it should be a wake up call for non-socialist Democrats to show some of the audacity and the ability of Mamdani."
^^It almost sounds like people who align with this take prefer when a Republican is in power so that when there’s genocide and poverty they can blame Trump or whoever, because they seem too afraid of what material actions need to be taken to actually deal with those issues at their core. If their ideal centrist candidate wins, it just becomes a sort of rebrand of the present reality, rather than a bold shift in policy action to genuinely change course: “I feel better about today’s poverty and war because at least our leader talks like they care about those things, while keeping the status quo in place that I'm actually very much ok with and afraid of doing too much to change it.”
No one serious about affordability and access is talking about “free things”. The issues are what government services the majority of citizens want, and what taxes and laws are most likely to achieve that result. These issues require fresh energy and ideas, and the mayoral campaign is -and needs to be - focused on this.
An array of different opinions —- but what is universal in all the content is that Momdani’s victory was truly revolutionary. An upset. That alone is a wonderful pedagogical event— because it forces everyone to ask Why? How? It defies conventional wisdom. And that is good.
Nothing is guaranteed— our future, Momdani’s future, NYC’s future. But I say—- let’s do everything possible to help Momdani’s succeed— not only in Nov ‘25, but as the new leader for NYC.
Many in the boomer generation are as fed up with the legacy Democratic Party as younger voters are.
Democrats used to understand what it means to stand up for a strong working class and growing middle class - until monied interests began their strategic takeover of legislatures, media, the courts and politicians in the mid-1970s.
Since then, as a result of political policy choices and court decisions, the transfer of wealth to the ultra rich has been staggering, and the middle and working classes have seen their economic and future sense of security disappear.
Trump used popular discontent to gain power but won’t deliver on promises to those who no longer have anything to offer him. On the contrary, billionaires who hate laws that constrain them and paying any taxes are the only constituents he and MAGA Republicans serve.
It’s always, always the economy, stupid. Legacy Democrats didn’t/don’t seem to grasp that GDP and stock prices don’t mean daily living isn’t a battle for fading hopes of anything approaching the American dream. Big investors, including private equity and foreigners, dominate access to housing, healthcare, higher education and other basic necessities.
Democratic New York voters are saying what the DNC doesn’t want to hear: no more! Represent the majority of us who live with soaring prices and shrinking opportunities, or move over for those who will.
Amen! As a 76-year-old lifelong Democrat, I am as fully fed up with the top establishment Dems as the young activists are--and just as fully excited about Mamdani's win. All this hand-wringing about the dangers of the word socialist, blah blah blah, and yet wanting to adopt Mamdani's tactics in order to push their own stale agenda, blah blah blah. They don't understand that the tactics are useless without the underlying values. The big dogs of the party (and their advisors) just need to get out of the way at this point. Their world is long gone.
Amen!
💯 💯 💯 my thoughts exactly. Dem leadership, you better change your ways or we will change your job.
I'm a 81 year old male that is totally behind jettisoning the Democratic party establishment. Saying you are going to help X, Y, and Z. is ineffective. Where is the action!, We know where the money is. People make decisions based on emotion not on slogans. The winning message is not this or that, it is what actions have I felt? And if we want to win it needs to start NOW! Here is my proposal: Rather than wasting money on a lot of ineffective advertising, get out in the communities and organize. Take the money saved and put it in a foundation that funds local initiatives that the community comes up with.
The actions I have felt recently are not coming from Dem leadership nir the billionaire supporters of the Dems. DITCH THE BIG MONEY FOLKS!!!
I am 79 and I want someone like Zohran, and I am not a marxist, lol . I believe in capitalism but certainly along the lines of Zohran.
Remarkable.
I know that messaging is important to you, so here's a frame that is very important to get right.
Mamdani is a *democratic socialist,* not a socialist. Yes, he's on the left, although that is as much a function of the Overton window as anything right now. Bernie is a democratic socialist. AOC is a democratic socialist. People now get what they are about, and have seen how they've been able to work with their colleagues in Congress. With democracy so under attack, it needs to be reinforced at every opportunity that there are people who still believe in democracy *and* believe that it can be much better than the oligarchy we have.
The right wing wants to conflate democratic socialist with socialist with communist. So do centrist Dems, with their faux concern about whether a socialist can effectively govern and what it does to the Dem brand. Right now, it only enhances the Dem brand, because Mamdani's campaign has energized those who would say there's no difference between the Republicans and the Democrats when it comes to being beholden to billionaires. Those are the people who stayed home last November.
Whatever you think of Bernie going on Joe Rogan, there's no denying that the Dems covet Joe Rogan's audience. But the way to do that is to be honest and authentic about the issues that matter to them, not keep trotting out the same old candidates for decades.
Don't use the right wing and centrist Dem frame. Talk about how democratic socialists don't want to overthrow the system, but they do want to make it work better for everyone who isn't a billionaire. We don't need a red scare within a blue party.
I really don't align with several of the takes shared in this post:
This one... 😭
“I do think it’s worth separating out the style of politics from the policy,” co-host Jon Favreau said. “Because we could have a whole debate about what policy positions can win... but if there’s a center-left candidate who campaigns like Mamdani, that person could be president.”
^^This take seems to miss a major point. A "center-left" candidate CAN'T campaign like Mamdani. The campaign wasn't simply rooted in style, it was also rooted in substance. Mamdani isn't campaigning on a platform he thinks can WIN. He's campaigning on a platform he genuinely thinks can WORK, and then going out there and selling in that vision such that it DOES win. He started off low in the polls and then sold in the platform until he became the favorite. Many establishment candidates are so set on winning being the end game that they poll to come up WITH the platform in the first place, but what good is a platform where winning is the end game?? Frankenstein platforms of pulling together policies that cover the widest voter base are illogical and suspicious, which is also why I think they often lose. It is disingenuous. Humans don't actually exist on a left-right political spectrum as conventional strategist promote. If the platform is sound, and it is sold in effectively, it can garner support across a wide range of voter backgrounds, regardless of how "leftist" the platform is, and how conventionally "right-wing" the voter was. I think Arizona is proof that the left-right voter spectrum is a false construct, where Trump won the presidential vote, but abortion rights were protected - all on the same ballot.
And this take... 😖
"So Mamdani’s victory needn’t be some kind of death knell for a winning Democratic party coalition in 2026 or 2028. It needn’t be a death knell for a centrist party in the tradition—now that you mention it!—of Truman and Kennedy. It should be a death knell for an ossified Democratic establishment that needs to be put out of its misery. And it should be a wake up call for non-socialist Democrats to show some of the audacity and the ability of Mamdani."
^^It almost sounds like people who align with this take prefer when a Republican is in power so that when there’s genocide and poverty they can blame Trump or whoever, because they seem too afraid of what material actions need to be taken to actually deal with those issues at their core. If their ideal centrist candidate wins, it just becomes a sort of rebrand of the present reality, rather than a bold shift in policy action to genuinely change course: “I feel better about today’s poverty and war because at least our leader talks like they care about those things, while keeping the status quo in place that I'm actually very much ok with and afraid of doing too much to change it.”
Free things are never free. Antisemitism is spreading. No experience matters. Anyone can go out promising free things.
No one serious about affordability and access is talking about “free things”. The issues are what government services the majority of citizens want, and what taxes and laws are most likely to achieve that result. These issues require fresh energy and ideas, and the mayoral campaign is -and needs to be - focused on this.
Dems are gonna screw up the midterms.