The new Democratic political machine has better branding and TikTok videos.
W hen most Americans think of New York politics, they picture cigar-chomping, whiskey-drinking bosses in smoky rooms cutting deals for patronage. New York’s greatest political machine, Tammany Hall, closed its doors long ago, but that political culture never really went away.
In the wake of this year’s Democratic primary for New York City mayor, it’s clear that a new machine now dominates Democratic politics: less transactional, less rooted in old-school corruption, more ideological, and more interested in culture wars. It doesn’t, and would never, call itself a machine. On the contrary, it insists that it’s a “movement.” But its function is the same: to consolidate power, enforce rigid ideological conformity, and decide who’s allowed to govern. Welcome to the era of hipster Tammany.
This new machine doesn’t operate through clubhouses and envelopes. It moves through left-wing nonprofits, activist-aligned unions, social media pressure campaigns, and progressive political consulting firms that do everything from fundraising to getting out the vote to narrative control. At its center is the Working Families Party (WFP), a progressive outfit that often operates less like a party and more like a political cartel.
The WFP doesn’t just endorse candidates — it creates them. This year, in primaries across New York City, it worked with the equally left-wing Democratic Socialists of America to run candidates for city offices. These weren’t grassroots uprisings. They were top-down operations run by seasoned strategists, funded by outside donors and New York City’s generous public campaign finance program, and enforced through ideological discipline.
This didn’t happen by accident. It’s a strategy. In solidly blue cities, the real election is often the Democratic primary, in which maybe only 15–25 percent of registered Democrats even bother to vote. That gives machines the advantage. It always has. The old machines dominated low-turnout primaries with promises of patronage. Through voter apathy, hipster Tammany has figured out how to dominate today’s primary elections.
None of this happened overnight. In fact, this new machine had a rocky start in the Empire State. Hipster Tammany backed progressive primary challengers to then-Governor Andrew Cuomo in both 2014 and 2018. Cuomo beat them both handily and went on to win his second and third terms. Four years ago, in New York City’s mayoral Democratic primary, Eric Adams, a centrist and vocal opponent of the far left, prevailed and went on to be elected mayor.
But the tide has been turning. Hipster Tammany in recent cycles has been able to defeat a number of older, moderate state legislators with younger progressives. One of the young lefties to oust an incumbent centrist Democrat and win a seat in the state legislature was none other than Zohran Mamdani. With Mamdani’s victory in the 2025 Democratic primary for mayor of New York, the new machine appears to now dominate Democratic politics in the Big Apple just as Tammany Hall once did.
New York City isn’t the only place where this new machine is now the dominant political player. On the same day Mamdani won the Democratic mayoral primary, progressives dominated races throughout the Empire State. By comfortable margins, progressives won mayoral primaries in Buffalo, Syracuse, and Albany. Like Mamdani, these candidates were all backed by the Working Families Party and benefited from the WFP’s direct-mail campaign and activist canvassers.
The pattern is clear. In one-party cities, radical progressives don’t need to win over the majority. They just need to control the slice of the electorate that matters: primary-voting Democrats. They then claim the moral authority of “the people,” even with victories in elections in which only 10 percent of all registered voters cast a ballot.
There was a respectability to the old Democratic machines, which were pragmatic, patriotic, and always willing to compromise. Hipster Tammany enforces rigid ideological orthodoxy. Step outside the line on Israel, Trump, rent control, or immigration, and you’ll be labeled a traitor to the movement. Say the wrong thing, and you’re out. The media, academia, and the nonprofit-industrial complex, often unwittingly, play along. After all, the new machine speaks the language of social justice and equity. But, like that of all political machines, its real goal is power. And like the old Tammany Hall, it’s very good at accumulating it.
New York’s Democratic political establishment didn’t see this coming. County leaders became comfortable, and county organizations atrophied. Local clubs died out. The party committees couldn’t turn out the vote as they once did. What was left was a vacuum, and left-wing activists moved in. Mamdani and his crew didn’t storm the gates; they found them unlocked and walked in.
Hipster Tammany wears hoodies and sneakers instead of fedoras and wing tips. It claims to be taking on the establishment. But don’t be fooled. It now is the establishment, and it’s a machine like any other — just one with better branding and TikTok videos.