Of the many things the voting masses are known for, selecting the best policies has never been one of them.
The quote “[T]he American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public’s money” is often misattributed to Alexis de Tocqueville, but the sentiment remains salient.
Zohran Mamdani swept the New York City mayoral Democratic primary last Tuesday against a field of challengers, most prominently former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, on a platform “promising everything from rent control to a $30 per hour minimum wage.”
Mamdani’s hallucinatory economics have elicited concern from reasonable observers and adoration from socialists, communists, and Democratic partisans sacrificing remaining principle upon the altar of millennial turnout.
Psychologist Rob K. Henderson labels Mamdani’s movement as a key example of “luxury beliefs,” proposals styled as serving the oppressed such as defunding the police that win support largely among wealthy liberals. Indeed, Mamdani’s campaign was not a primarily working-class affair; he even won Wall Street.
However, he also demonstrated remarkable strength in areas of New York where President Trump outperformed or even won. The Trump-Mamdani voter is a real archetype in the Big Apple.
Mamdani’s triumph has been labeled “the death of the old Democratic Party.” Whether it is truly so important remains to be seen. After all, every leading candidate has lost a Democratic mayoral primary in New York City for generations. Andrew Cuomo’s formidableness as an opponent can be overstated, seeing as he was still tinged by sexual harassment and his oppressive handling of COVID-19.
However, what if the doomsayers are right about Mamdani ushering in a new era of the American Left? In this case, Democratic strategists learning the right lessons from the Mamdani campaign would pose a more serious challenge for Republicans going forward than the past decade of woke.
James Carville, the political wizard who packaged and sold Bill Clinton to America in 1992, coined the quip “It’s the economy, stupid.” The Clinton campaign went out of their way at every turn to relate issues back to the everyday experiences of American voters.
In contrast, the centerpiece of the 2024 Democratic campaign was allegations that Republicans were fascists out to destroy American institutions. This charge was remarkable when their opponent had previously been president and not destroyed the republic. Just as importantly, it was immaterial.
Other progressive planks were simply too focused at the patronage of particular groups to go anywhere.
White liberals are the group that expresses the most left-wing views on race. A supermajority of black Americans do not regard discrimination as an issue of regularity. Meanwhile, Democratic racial policies targeted at certain groups alienated white and Asian voters discriminated against by affirmative action programs.
A fraction of a fraction of American adults identify as transgender. Democratic rhetoric on the group was aiming for a tiny target and members of their base for whom it was a matter of affirming another woke luxury belief. Where the Left gave discourse over a miniscule group, conservative rhetoric appealed to the masses by being about preserving everyday institutions such as bathrooms, schools, and sports.
The most substantive, large-scale issue the Harris campaign dealt with often was abortion. Abortion is a moral tragedy, but it remains quite popular. Nonetheless, at its very most abortion is of direct personal relevance to half the population, and very few women will actually receive abortions. Ending unborn lives is not a kitchen table issue.
Conservatives rightfully attacked Mamdani for past extreme statements, such as the tired leftist line “queer liberation means defund the police.” However, we must give Mamdani credit for recognizing his weaknesses. His campaign was largely mum on “queer liberation” and very loud about issues that directly affected most people.
Mamdani’s policies include free childcare, freezing rent, free public transit, and the properly ridiculed proposal of government owned grocery stories. These range from difficult to implement to socialistic, but they deal with people.
People have children, pay rent, take public transit, and shop for groceries every day. The very fact that Mamdani is under controversy for these, as opposed to being under national attention for fringe issues such as gender reassignment surgeries for children, is a colossal victory for his campaign.
Republicans have had it easy against a Democratic Party that has, time and again, chosen to avoid issues appealing to the preponderance of Americans in favor of sectional purity tests. The wide appeals it has made have been nebulous.
In a party of minority and special interest groups, Zohran Mamdani peddled his snake oil to everyone. Even with its new degree of extremism, Mamdani’s everyman radicalism has the ability to resonate with more voters than “no kings” ever could.
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