The Mamdani Puzzle

I try not to pay too much attention to New York politics, but as I often fail it’s worth sharing some of the things I’m reading…

Smarter members of the Establishment recognize the existential threat posed by the nascent movement. “Mamdani’s the face of a new demographic in New York,” Hank Sheinkopf, a longtime Democratic campaign strategist, told The Wall Street Journal. “He’s reflective of a change in urban politics, where the old ethnic alliances we once had no longer exist.” Sheinkopf, who has worked on hundreds of elections, is not happy about the wave of pro-Mamdani young voters who espouse left-leaning socialist views. “New York’s a Democratic city, and the kids are also going to be the death of the Democrats. Not just in New York but nationwide,” he told the Journal. “All I know is that Mamdani must be stopped.”

And:

The race for mayor in New York City took an unusual and turbulent turn on Monday as some Democrats lined up to suggest ways to defeat Zohran Mamdani, the one candidate officially running on their party’s line.

Former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo and Mayor Eric Adams, two Democrats currently planning to run in the November election as independents, each called on the other to drop out.

A third independent candidate, Jim Walden, was less specific in his similarly themed proposal last week. He suggested that a poll be taken in the fall to determine who among what he referred to as the four “free-market candidates” has the best chance of defeating Mr. Mamdani in a race that “pits capitalism against socialism.” Mr. Mamdani’s left-leaning platform and democratic socialist affiliation have alarmed some of the Democratic establishment.

Whoever doesn’t win the poll, Mr. Walden said, should pledge to bow out and support the winner.

Mr. Walden’s proposal was backed on Monday by Mr. Cuomo as well as former Gov. David A. Paterson, a Democrat who held a news conference to announce his support alongside the Republican billionaire John Catsimatidis and Sid Rosenberg, a radio host and supporter of President Trump.

The underlying notion is that in a city where Democrats outnumber Republicans six to one, the only way to defeat Mr. Mamdani is for his challengers — the three independents and Curtis Sliwa, the Republican candidate — to consolidate their support behind just one of them, and avoid splitting the vote in a five-way race.

Some disordered thoughts:

• Nonsense like this makes it more difficult to argue with third party dead-enders about party solidarity. If the party does not back Mamdani then folks who want to vote Green in 2028 will be that much harder to convince.
• That said, it’s incredibly unlikely that Mamdani yes or no will have a significant impact on the future of the Democratic Party at a national level. New Yorkers need to get a grip on their own self-regard.
• I understand that part of this is just about the distribution of spoils, and concern that not enough money and attention will flow in the directions that they have typically flowed. The people who are part of the Machine should probably trust in the machinery; it will be a lot harder for Mamdani to undo 150 years of corruption than folks seem to think.
• None of Mamdani’s actual proposals seem that far out there. I think that free buses are a bad idea, but the question of free transit vs. almost free transit is not the issue upon which the Revolution will be decided.
• If the NYC Democratic Party had produced something more useful than Eric Adams and Andrew Cuomo, all of this would be unnecessary.
• I appreciate that there’s a zero-sum aspect to the balance between Jewish and Muslim interests in NYC, but while the foreign policy powers of the mayor of New York City are not trivial, they’re also not significant enough to actually change anything that’s happening in Gaza or the West Bank.

Last point: Mamdani’s supporters need to get used to disappointment, or at the very least developed a strong sense of patience. Part of the city are going to resist Mamdani bitterly regardless of how much he wins by. It is very possible that he will not be allowed to undertake many of his goals, and will have to compromise others to an extent that will leave his supporters angry and disillusioned. Such are the wages of political coalitions that depend on young voters. I’m old enough to remember when progressives in NYC regarded voting for Bill de Blasio as THE MOST IMPORTANT THING EVER, and that curdled real fast. Slow boring of hard boards and all that…