I want to spend just a few minutes on the blockbuster New York City mayoral race, because everybody else seems to be doing it, and very few of them seem to be getting it right.
Zohran Mamdani flattened the establishment Democrat, Andrew Cuomo, in the city’s primary Tuesday because the vast majority of Americans on both sides of the political divide are sick and tired of establishment Democrats and Republicans.
Thanks for reading …
OK, a little more:
Look, the American electorate is angry, scared to death, and finally might be ready for a revolution. I mean, unless you weren’t paying attention to the recent No Kings marches, or that New York City mayoral primary …
Our angry, disenfranchised American electorate is how we got the grotesque Donald Trump again in November, and why Democrats need to start doing a helluva lot more listening to what people are actually saying and doing, and stop trotting out women-groping has-beens like Bill Clinton and Andrew Cuomo to prove my point.
It’s why Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer walks around with two black eyes and a 17-percent approval rating, and why Democrats have never been less popular.
And listen to me: I’m not here to lash out and beat up Democratic politicians because, like it or not, they are the only answer we have to stop Republicans’ sickening, Christo-fascist, authoritarian goose-step toward the end.
I am here to beat up the people in the party who still don’t think it is in some desperate need of radical change, and most of all: some new blood, like Mamdani.
Democrats didn’t lose in November because people didn’t turn out in numbers they hoped for. In fact, new data which reflects how people actually voted is showing us quite the opposite. They lost because, for the first time in memory, they are losing younger voters and minority voters in big numbers.
From the Pew Research Center:
Donald Trump won with a voter coalition that was more racially and ethnically diverse than in 2020 or 2016, according to a new Pew Research Center analysis of the 2024 electorate. Young, nonwhite and irregular voters defected by the millions to Trump costing Kamala Harris both the Electoral College and the popular vote.
Add that to the working-class voters they have been hemorrhaging for years, and, well, “Houston, we have a problem.”
But sure, guys like Clinton, Cuomo and Schumer have an answer for all that, despite beingthe problem.
Serious question: Why won’t they just go away?
Predictably, we are already hearing from some center-Left Democrats and Republicans that Mamdani's progressive policies that would make life more affordable for the majority of Americans are too radical, but minority billionaires like the grotesque Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk and Trump controlling upwards of 50 percent of our nation's wealth aren’t.
This is absurd.
Why is this so damn hard to understand?
I am going to liberally borrow from a New York Times piece written Wednesday to lay out Mamdani’s '“radical” stances on just a few important issues, and why he, unlike other Democrats, was able to connect with younger voters Tuesday:
Affordability
“Every politician says New York is the greatest city on the globe,” Mr. Mamdani said in his first campaign ad, released eight months ago. “But what good is that if no one can afford to live here?”
So began a campaign tightly focused on the cost-of-living crisis plaguing the city. His platform, detailed on his campaign website, was simple: “New York is too expensive. Zohran will lower costs and make life easier.”
One of his ideas to tackle rising costs was to create a city-owned grocery store in each borough. The stores would operate on city-owned land or in city buildings, buy food wholesale and be exempt from property taxes, which would keep the cost of their offerings down, he said.
Experts say the logistics of such a plan are complex, but similar initiatives are already in place in other parts of the United States. Municipalities in Kansas and Wisconsin have operated similar models since 2020 and 2024, and Chicago and Atlanta are working on their own versions.
To fund his affordability initiatives, Mr. Mamdani plans to raise the corporate tax rate to 11.5 percent, which he says will create an additional $5 billion in revenue. He also plans to charge the wealthiest 1 percent of New Yorkers a flat 2 percent tax.Transportation
Among Mr. Mamdani’s most distinctive campaign promises is his vow to make city buses free. As a state legislator, Mr. Mamdani worked with Gov. Kathy Hochul to start a pilot program offering free fares on five bus routes for a limited period. (He later sought to expand the program, but the pilot was not renewed.)
Mr. Mamdani supports congestion pricing and has said the tolling program is succeeding in reducing smog and improving traffic in Lower Manhattan. Mr. Mamdani, who was raised in Manhattan and lives in Queens, told The New York Times earlier this month that he does not own a car. He rides the subway every day, he said, and often bikes.Housing
In outlining his vision for the city, Mr. Mamdani identified the high cost of housing as the leading reason that residents had left New York in recent years. His main campaign promise was to freeze rents for nearly one million New Yorkers via his appointments to the Rent Guidelines Board, which decides on rent increases for stabilized apartments.
He promised to triple the number of available affordable housing units, with 200,000 new homes to be built over the next decade. Mr. Mamdani also said he would double the amount of money the city currently spends to preserve public housing.Immigration
Mr. Mamdani, who was born in Uganda and is a naturalized U.S. citizen, has said that New York City should strengthen its sanctuary laws, which have come under attack during the Trump administration. On his campaign website, Mr. Mamdani pledged to bar Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers from city facilities while increasing legal support for immigrants being targeted and protecting their personal data.
“Trump’s ICE has adopted a policy of guilty until proven innocent with immigrant New Yorkers, disappearing New Yorkers from their homes without charge,” he told The Times in April. “Our city should fight for their release while defending the First Amendment and due process rights.”Child Care
The rising cost of child care is among the most pressing issues for parents in New York City. Mr. Mamdani has promised to make free child care available for children between six weeks and five years old and to deliver “baby baskets” to new parents that would include educational resources and necessities like diapers, baby wipes and swaddles.
For older children, Mr. Mamdani has suggested closing some streets outside schools to car traffic in an effort to reduce the risk of traffic fatalities and pollution affecting students. Mr. Mamdani has also proposed making City University of New York tuition free for all students.
Chilling, “radical” stuff, eh? Only if you are billionaire …
Republicans aren’t scared programs like these won’t work in places like New York, as much as they are terrified they will. THAT is why they are in a frenzy right now blasting them to smithereens. They did the same thing with programs like Obamacare, and social security.
We’ve already tackled why too many Democrats can’t get behind these new, common-sense measures: M-O-N-E-Y. I’d also add intellectual laziness, and a failure to communicate as major, secondary issues.
And nobody is saying the New York City fix is applicable to the fix so many people in the suburbs and our rural areas are in right now. The Democrat best able to articulate how they will address the local concerns of their furious electorate will win going away.
There isn’t a Democrat I have talked to who is satisfied with the direction of the party, but every one of them was at that big march two weeks ago. They want change, and they want it now.
If we can make it to the midterms — and at the pace Republicans are destroying everything in their sight that is a 50-50 proposition — there is going to be some serious bloodletting at the polls in 2026.
Bookmark that.
There will be no such thing as a “safe” seat anywhere, because America is not a safe country right now.
Nothing motivates voters more than fear and anger, and the politician who doesn’t understand that, better be prepared to find some real work.
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D. Earl Stephens is the author of “Toxic Tales: A Caustic Collection of Donald J. Trump’s Very Important Letters” and finished up a 30-year career in journalism as the Managing Editor of Stars and Stripes. You can find all his work here.