And it’s not what they think it is.

My column today takes up the question of how large a liability he will be for Democrats nationally.

The closer Zohran Mamdani has come to winning the New York mayor’s race, the more people have been asking the question Aaron Blake poses in an article for CNN: “How much of a liability could he be for Democrats?” . . .

This debate ignores what might be the biggest danger that Mamdani poses to the Democratic Party. That danger is not that his performance as mayor, assuming his polling lead holds, will turn off swing voters nationally (although it may). It’s that he will excite Democratic activists in all the wrong ways. His example will encourage them to do what a lot of them already want to do: get louder and lefter.

The column has been up for a few hours and the commenters are already doing their thing. My favorite one so far:

They said the same thing about AOC.

There’s something about a young, liberal and brown NYC political ingenue that really scares white conservatives.

(1) As I argue in the column, “they” were right about Ocasio-Cortez. (2) I’m not afraid of her. (3) I’m not white.