Jeffrey Blehar writes for National Review Online about New Yorkers’ reasons for turning to a socialist mayor.
I might be an outsider to the Big Apple, but I think I understand well enough the dynamics that have made next week possible. New York City is currently glutted by young professionals whose shared sense of grievance transcends other racial or cultural differences: They face shrinking career horizons, ballooning debt, and an astronomical cost of living. Andrew Cuomo is not a candidate who speaks to these anxieties, to put it mildly.
Cuomo is the grim, joylessly corrupt embodiment of everything that people feel isn’t working about the New York Democratic establishment — and he’s allegedly a tush-groping creep on top of it all. Electing an inexperienced progressive outsider who promises free gifts and redistributive revenge against the wealthy — and moonlights as an intifada enjoyer — might not normally seem like a smart move, but when faced with Andrew Cuomo as your other serious choice? Well, in that case, second look at the communist. I’m not surprised city Democrats are rejecting the former governor, though I myself wouldn’t feel enthusiastic about driving headlong down a blind alleyway either.
Seen from that perspective, the newcomer is going to win this race because the rest of the field disqualified itself. But make no mistake: Zohran Mamdani is no generational talent, regardless of what the progressive left would have America believe. As Democratic elections analyst Lakshya Jain points out in a fine piece of analysis over at The Argument, Mamdani isn’t even terribly popular for a Democrat in New York. He plays specifically to a youth demographic’s moment of cultural and professional frustration — good enough to win access to Gracie Mansion but hardly a coalition with much hope of taking the next step up the ladder, either statewide or nationally.
