My wife's more rural family is always shocked at the diversity of the place I've chosen to live. They express the same fears..."Those people" ...It's utter garbage, and exposure may not work to change their minds, but it might help.
I lived in rural areas in SW Virginia and then SE North Carolina. Most of the people I worked with were Black and Hispanic. Most of my neighbors were Black or Hispanic. It was great.
Then I moved out here to rural western Kansas and it was the whitest town I'd ever seen in my life (I grew up in the Philadelphia suburbs).
I lived in suburban Seattle for 22 years. Plenty of people I knew had never set foot in the city and were astounded that we not only went into town, we made a point of taking our kids. Don’t get me wrong: there were plenty of other families like ours. There were plenty like theirs, too.
Yay for Mamdani! He is the essence of the very astute group of young people who listen to the needs of the masses. The growing masses that have been drowned out by the rich for a very long time, it’s time for a change.
I’m a Brit, and I can assure you that having a Muslim mayor, as London does, will not make New York into North Korea. Our chap Sadiq Khan has proved himself to be hardworking, efficient and honest, hence his repeated reelection. Mind you, he did follow the whey-faced turd Boris Johnson, so he started with an advantage.
Don't forget that established big money Dems are freaking out as well - they will attempt to push this down in the way that they blockaded Bernie's success.
Why isn't Ruppert Murdoch rushing off to make a "Freedom City" in some empty Red State, where all the FOX broadcasters can live in their new utopia? If they hate all of America's greatest cities so much, this is exactly the kind of motivation they need...
Great and true essay. It's so obvious that the millionaires on up are panicking because they might lose money if people can afford to live in NYC. Millionaires want gouging rents, and expensive transportation, and keep the peasants living paycheck to paycheck, or pension to pension. So they can reap usurious profits and not pay more in taxes. Definitely not pay more in taxes.
If we were talking about older white voters in the heartland, this would be an easy equation to solve. Such voters see any non-white democratic socialist through the lens of the Southern Strategy concept of welfare, taking white people’s money and giving it to lazy minorities. And they’re also more paranoid about Sharia law and alleged plots by Muslims to destroy Christianity.
But New Yorkers? The older white ones have memories of the 1980s crime wave, when Giuliani won the mayorship partly by appealing to racism. And their Islamophobia is almost certainly more directly connected to 9/11 as compared with voters thousands of miles away.
Mr. Mandami is a very impressive person/politician. However I think the use of the label “socialist” is a very bad idea. That term is still defined as a system that is very close to communism. Merriam Webster defines it as “ a system of society or group living in which there is no private property”; “ a system or condition of society in which the means of production are owned and controlled by the state”. The more accurate terms would be “social democracy”/“social democrats”. Using the label socialist is just giving the right ammunition to use against you.
The media is acting like Cuomo lost because he was the old guard, not because he is terrible man — a sexual harasser who bungled the response to covid in NYC (contrary to the media portrayal of him as a hero). It is hard to read the tea leaves on this election.
It seems suicidal for people to think that what works in NYC will work everywhere. I live in a blue city in a purple state. The Democrats that get elected in my city and state are centrists. One size definitely does not fit all when it comes to Democrats winning elections.
I highly recommend going to Bluesky and reading the posts the NY Times Pitchbot. This one is my favorite:
“The fact that Madmani did well with young Jewish New York voters just shows how antisemitic young Jewish New Yorkers have become”
I’m not worried as much about the term, only because the right wing deliberately straw-mans any words and language that its opponents use. While I don’t like labels in general, because they mean different things to different people, I don’t know if they can be avoided completely.
Words do matter — as Frank Luntz proved. Democrats must strive to use labels that accurately reflect what they believe in. They also need to stop adopting words that people like Luntz come up with to improve the image of toxic Republican policies — climate change for global warming, oil exploration for drilling, privatization for turning programs like Medicare over to for profit companies. Now most of the media and many Democrats are using the idiotic “Big Beautiful Bill” terminology instead of something like “Big Brutal Bill” or “Big Budget-Busting Bill”.
This not to throw cold water, but…despite the implications of the video, the returns appear to show that Mamdani’s strength was with middle- to high-income white New Yorkers with a college education. Cuomo ran best with low-income voters of color without a degree. There’s perspective on Mamdani’s win that once again, affluent educated whites are telling everyone else what’s good for them.
What about low-income white voters without a degree? From my experience with blue-collar workers of all ethnicities, it would be reasonable to ask if they perceive Mamdani as too LGBTQ-friendly, particularly trans-friendly. It’s a demographic that values strict gender roles and has a John Wayne idea of masculinity. I’m talking about plumbers, truck drivers, cops and firefighters, as opposed to service workers.
Republicans much prefer performative masculinity over the real thing. Their hero John Wayne refused to serve in WW II while many of his peers volunteered to fight. Reagan also stayed state side and made movies for the military but later claimed to have been present for things like the liberation of a concentration camp. Others put their careers on and risked their lives to serve. For example Jimmy Stewart flew multiple combat missions and Henry Fonda served on a destroyer and Clark Gable flew with combat missions in order to film them.
Then there were those manly chickenhawks Dubya and Cheney who both avoided going to Vietnam despite their claims to have supported that war; in contrast Gore and Kerry served in Vietnam.
Wayne’s choice not to serve drove a wedge between him and John Ford that took the rest of the war to heal. They didn’t make a movie together until 1945. In fairness, Stewart was a Republican and Gable may have been. BTW, Gable’s ignorance was legendary—described as “classic” by one Hollywood historian.
My wife's more rural family is always shocked at the diversity of the place I've chosen to live. They express the same fears..."Those people" ...It's utter garbage, and exposure may not work to change their minds, but it might help.
I lived in rural areas in SW Virginia and then SE North Carolina. Most of the people I worked with were Black and Hispanic. Most of my neighbors were Black or Hispanic. It was great.
Then I moved out here to rural western Kansas and it was the whitest town I'd ever seen in my life (I grew up in the Philadelphia suburbs).
Fortunately, it's gotten much better.
I lived in suburban Seattle for 22 years. Plenty of people I knew had never set foot in the city and were astounded that we not only went into town, we made a point of taking our kids. Don’t get me wrong: there were plenty of other families like ours. There were plenty like theirs, too.
Yay for Mamdani! He is the essence of the very astute group of young people who listen to the needs of the masses. The growing masses that have been drowned out by the rich for a very long time, it’s time for a change.
A New Yorker I know well said simply "It will be good to have a mayor who actually like the city again."
I’m a Brit, and I can assure you that having a Muslim mayor, as London does, will not make New York into North Korea. Our chap Sadiq Khan has proved himself to be hardworking, efficient and honest, hence his repeated reelection. Mind you, he did follow the whey-faced turd Boris Johnson, so he started with an advantage.
Don't forget that established big money Dems are freaking out as well - they will attempt to push this down in the way that they blockaded Bernie's success.
Why isn't Ruppert Murdoch rushing off to make a "Freedom City" in some empty Red State, where all the FOX broadcasters can live in their new utopia? If they hate all of America's greatest cities so much, this is exactly the kind of motivation they need...
Truth. The picture is brilliant. Thank you.
This is so cute: “I’m depressed and sad,” said one hedge fund chief. “
And while we're on the topic of very sad things: "...a nonprofit that advocates for major corporations..."
Great and true essay. It's so obvious that the millionaires on up are panicking because they might lose money if people can afford to live in NYC. Millionaires want gouging rents, and expensive transportation, and keep the peasants living paycheck to paycheck, or pension to pension. So they can reap usurious profits and not pay more in taxes. Definitely not pay more in taxes.
If we were talking about older white voters in the heartland, this would be an easy equation to solve. Such voters see any non-white democratic socialist through the lens of the Southern Strategy concept of welfare, taking white people’s money and giving it to lazy minorities. And they’re also more paranoid about Sharia law and alleged plots by Muslims to destroy Christianity.
But New Yorkers? The older white ones have memories of the 1980s crime wave, when Giuliani won the mayorship partly by appealing to racism. And their Islamophobia is almost certainly more directly connected to 9/11 as compared with voters thousands of miles away.
Jim Cramer nearly shit his pants on the air:
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/cnbc-s-jim-cramer-freaks-out-about-the-prospect-of-mamdani-becoming-ny-mayor-do-the-rich-get-shot/ar-AA1HpUKV
Mr. Mandami is a very impressive person/politician. However I think the use of the label “socialist” is a very bad idea. That term is still defined as a system that is very close to communism. Merriam Webster defines it as “ a system of society or group living in which there is no private property”; “ a system or condition of society in which the means of production are owned and controlled by the state”. The more accurate terms would be “social democracy”/“social democrats”. Using the label socialist is just giving the right ammunition to use against you.
The media is acting like Cuomo lost because he was the old guard, not because he is terrible man — a sexual harasser who bungled the response to covid in NYC (contrary to the media portrayal of him as a hero). It is hard to read the tea leaves on this election.
It seems suicidal for people to think that what works in NYC will work everywhere. I live in a blue city in a purple state. The Democrats that get elected in my city and state are centrists. One size definitely does not fit all when it comes to Democrats winning elections.
I highly recommend going to Bluesky and reading the posts the NY Times Pitchbot. This one is my favorite:
“The fact that Madmani did well with young Jewish New York voters just shows how antisemitic young Jewish New Yorkers have become”
I’m not worried as much about the term, only because the right wing deliberately straw-mans any words and language that its opponents use. While I don’t like labels in general, because they mean different things to different people, I don’t know if they can be avoided completely.
Words do matter — as Frank Luntz proved. Democrats must strive to use labels that accurately reflect what they believe in. They also need to stop adopting words that people like Luntz come up with to improve the image of toxic Republican policies — climate change for global warming, oil exploration for drilling, privatization for turning programs like Medicare over to for profit companies. Now most of the media and many Democrats are using the idiotic “Big Beautiful Bill” terminology instead of something like “Big Brutal Bill” or “Big Budget-Busting Bill”.
This not to throw cold water, but…despite the implications of the video, the returns appear to show that Mamdani’s strength was with middle- to high-income white New Yorkers with a college education. Cuomo ran best with low-income voters of color without a degree. There’s perspective on Mamdani’s win that once again, affluent educated whites are telling everyone else what’s good for them.
What about low-income white voters without a degree? From my experience with blue-collar workers of all ethnicities, it would be reasonable to ask if they perceive Mamdani as too LGBTQ-friendly, particularly trans-friendly. It’s a demographic that values strict gender roles and has a John Wayne idea of masculinity. I’m talking about plumbers, truck drivers, cops and firefighters, as opposed to service workers.
Republicans much prefer performative masculinity over the real thing. Their hero John Wayne refused to serve in WW II while many of his peers volunteered to fight. Reagan also stayed state side and made movies for the military but later claimed to have been present for things like the liberation of a concentration camp. Others put their careers on and risked their lives to serve. For example Jimmy Stewart flew multiple combat missions and Henry Fonda served on a destroyer and Clark Gable flew with combat missions in order to film them.
Then there were those manly chickenhawks Dubya and Cheney who both avoided going to Vietnam despite their claims to have supported that war; in contrast Gore and Kerry served in Vietnam.
Wayne’s choice not to serve drove a wedge between him and John Ford that took the rest of the war to heal. They didn’t make a movie together until 1945. In fairness, Stewart was a Republican and Gable may have been. BTW, Gable’s ignorance was legendary—described as “classic” by one Hollywood historian.
It’s a good question. We’ll find out once the deep dives into the actual turns begin.