Copyright newrepublic
Mamdani’s focus on New York’s affordability crisis is as close as these three candidates get to offering something that the party should adopt universally. It’s simple and brilliant, as is the way he talks about it. When he talks about the working class, he actually sounds like he means it: “I fight for working people. I fight for the very people that have been priced out of this city. And I fight for the same people that [Trump] said he was fighting for. This is the same president who ran on a campaign of cheaper groceries… ultimately, it is easier for him to fan the flames of division than to acknowledge the ways in which he has betrayed those working-class Americans.” Democrats should all try to learn from this. The other thing I wish they’d learn from him is that you can’t succeed in this day and age by merely saying who, and what, you’re for. You have to show people what—and who—you’re against. And I don’t just mean Trump. That’s a gimme. I mean huge donors who very obviously compromise the Democratic Party’s ability to take aggressively pro-worker positions. Specifically, there needs to be a reckoning in the party, and soon, about tech money and crypto money. There was a great story in Wired not long ago by Steven Levy about how tech money is deserting the Democrats and going to Trump. I say good riddance. Can’t happen fast enough. Having said all that: New York City’s national applicability is limited indeed, and Mamdani fans would do well to remember that. New Yorkers hate hearing this, but New York City, which I covered for about 15 years before I moved to Washington, hasn’t been important to national politics in a very long time. Developments in New York get loads of media attention because it’s the country’s media capital, but few political trends that started in New York City in recent history have taken root across the country. Occupy Wall Street may be the lone exception, but that movement was powered by people, not politicians. Meanwhile, three recent mayors have run for president, each one’s performance more embarrassing and irrelevant than the one before it (yes, Trump was from New York, but he was not of the New York political culture).
