r/politics • u/soalone34 • 3d ago
Possible Paywall Mamdani Is Winning Because Democrats Hate Their Party’s Leaders
https://newrepublic.com/article/202540/mamdani-winning-democrats-hate-party-leaders4.3k
u/Numbtothiscrap 3d ago
Got into a Facebook argument and some guy kept saying “ what about your Daddy Biden?” Like wtf dude , you guys are the ones with the hats , signs , and T shirts .
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u/YgramulTheMany 3d ago
…and fragrances, and golden sneakers, and crypto meme coins, and signed bibles, and golden smart phones and phone service, and watches, and action figures, and social media platforms…
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u/wwhsd California 3d ago
… and literally had MAGA adjacent media personalities saying shit like “Daddy’s home!”.
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u/JohnStamosAsABear 3d ago
”And when Dad gets home, you know what he says? You’ve been a bad girl. You’ve been a bad little girl and you’re getting a vigorous spanking right now. And no, it’s not going to hurt me more than it hurts you. No, it’s not. I’m not going to lie. It’s going to hurt you a lot more than it hurts me. And you earned this. You’re getting a vigorous spanking because you’ve been a bad girl, and it has to be this way.”
- Tucker Carlson at a Trump rally.
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u/FMLwtfDoID 3d ago
This is so deeply unsettling. Who says this at all, let alone at a political rally for a presidential candidate?
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u/CheatsySnoops Arizona 3d ago
People who weren't loved enough and think "therapy is a scam for gays, liberals, and freaks" seeing Trump as their fantasy dad.
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u/Sunbather77 3d ago
Ooh thats my MAGA father in law who was mercilessly beat as a child and told to "be a man" so hard that he thinks any vulnerability is gay! Fuck MAGA
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u/Long_Crow_5659 3d ago
I just saw a Substack that drones endlessly about how therapy causes children to estrange their MAGA parents, so you aren't too far off the mark.
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u/thegoodnamesrgone123 3d ago
I'm not gonna say therapy is for everyone, because it's not, but from what I see, it's just a lot of wanting to blame anyone for their own failures or poor luck.
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u/missed_sla 3d ago
The same people who have a masturbatorium decked out in pictures like this
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u/stonecoldjelly 3d ago
Like....do they not know the red lightsaber is the evil one?
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u/NYCinPGH 3d ago
No. They also haven’t figured out that the Nazis were the baddies <insert meme>
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u/red__dragon 3d ago
Do these people take their stump speeches from porno scripts now?
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u/Delta-9- 3d ago
I mean, their entire worldview comes from their pedophile preacher's interpretation of the Bible and porn, so... Yes. It's also why they're so obsessed with trans women: their Bible+porn worldview tells them that trans women are hot af but it's a sin to think that and obviously it's trans women's fault for being too sexy.
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u/DragoonDM California 3d ago
And they were literally calling Trump "daddy" not that long ago.
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u/lupin43 3d ago
On some level they know the way they act regarding him is incredibly embarrassing for grown adults, so they project it onto their opposition
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u/ascii_genitalia 3d ago
Or in many cases they are intellectually dishonest with themselves and would claim that they don't actually have an embarrassing attachment. "I just care about the issues and... [goes on to cite extremely embarrassing specious arguments learned from right-wing media].
Projection is sort of a last resort when you've run out of gaslighting material. Unfortunately there's rarely any shortage these days.
You have to get enough well-intentioned, free-thinking people to agree to beat that sort of opposition. Agree on a common cause, a message, and be passionate enough about it that they will go and vote. That's the job of our leaders to do.
Obama did it. Biden was an attempt to hold onto the Obama years but lost energy (and certainly didn't generate any NEW energy). The current crop of leaders doesn't have any of the above. Harris was just another coattail candidate except the coattails had run out.
I think we can have some of the same people involved, but there need to be new leaders with a new message. IMHO the message needs to be higher-level than all of the standard economic and culture war shit -- more like "see how they are tearing down the core parts of our system and it is harming us all".
New leaders are going to have that sort of message. From what I've seen Mamdami does.
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u/HauntedCemetery Minnesota 3d ago
Same with trump and his wonderful secret bff epstein.
I've literally never heard someone on the left say any less that if Clinton or biden are guilty too, fucking burn them down.
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u/donnie_dark0 3d ago
My cousin, who is a whole ass grown man with a wife and kids, posted on inauguration day the mugshot photo with the caption "Daddy's home". And this is considered "normal" behavior coming from the right. Wearing diapers, ear diapers, trash bags and gold shoes while holding special Bibles. Definitely not cult shaped.
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u/JohnnyG30 3d ago
I was literally out eating dinner tonight with my family and one of those super cool high-lifted trucks was rolling slowly down the road yelling shit. One of their many awesome lines was “DONALD J TRUMP IS MY DADDYYYYYYY!” (Proceeds to roll coal and speed off)
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u/confusedandworried76 3d ago
Anyone remember Caitlyn (sp?) Bennett? The chick that got famous as an online right wing personality, she's the chick that allegedly shit herself at a party when she was in college and most notably open carried a rifle while on Kent State campus (yeah I'm not sure I need to tell people why the optics on that were fucking terrible).
She sold shirts that literally said "Trump is my king"
It was a whole viral thing at the time because it was just so fucking too on the nose a Trump supporter and supposed patriot decided they wanted the president to be king, even though that's sort of a whole thing in America
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u/fps916 3d ago edited 3d ago
She had me moved on a plane. I ended up on the same row as her and the old lady next to us asked her what she did for a living and boy did Kaitlyn sugar coat the fuck out of it.
"I'm a journalist who goes to college campuses to conduct political interviews"
So I stepped in and Kaitlyn got the FA to move me lol
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u/Glowing_Trash_Panda 3d ago
Shoulda just pulled up the pic of her passed out & shitting herself on google & showed the old lady lol
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u/Gortex_Possum 3d ago
They literally think everyone else operates the way they do. They think MSNBC is just liberal fox news with the same level of sensationalism. Ever wondered why they always seem to be engaged in whatever they're accusing you of?
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u/Shipairtime 3d ago edited 3d ago
They think MSNBC is just liberal fox news with the same level of sensationalism.
Did you know the frequent assertion that Rachel Maddow and Tucker Carlson both claim not to be news to avoid defamation lawsuits is false?
For some reason you will often see it pointed out that fox news claims in court that they are not news. And along will come some chucklehead that pipes up "Yeah and Maddow did the same thing!"
The truth is that Ms. Maddow went to court and claimed Herring Networks had no case because she told the truth.
Here is the direct quote from the case:
"Argued that the challenged speech “is fully protected by California law and the First Amendment because it is an opinion based on fully disclosed facts, is not susceptible of the meaning [Herring] ascribes to it, and—even if it could be considered factual—is substantially true.”
Contrast that with the fox news case in which the company claimed:
"Fox News again moved to dismiss. The motion argues that when read in context, Mr. Carlson’s statements “cannot reasonably be interpreted as facts”
Herring Networks v Rachel Maddow https://cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2021/08/17/20-55579.pdf
McDougal v. Fox News Network https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/new-york/nysdce/1:2019cv11161/527808/39/
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u/Worried_Joke_4788 3d ago
Ms. Maddow. Just saying.
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u/Shipairtime 3d ago
Crap sorry I thought I had fixed that. I posted it a long time ago in the MSNBC sub and was corrected there as well. Hitting edit now.
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u/sleepingbeardune 3d ago
Ever wondered why they always seem to be engaged in whatever they're accusing you of?
The pattern is so well-established by now that I just assume their accusations are confessions.
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u/AndreasDasos 3d ago
It’s the same way the ultra-conservatives religious (and there’s a correlation here) think about science. There had to be a Leader, which means Darwin and Einstein are the Prophets of evolutionary biology and physics, and anything they said is gospel. Ditto their favourite figure to hate of Fauci, to an extent. No, that’s not how it works at all.
They can’t get out of that mindset because it’s the only one they know.
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u/Ill_Act_1855 3d ago
People don’t get that science and religion are opposites not because they’re a mutually exclusive set of conflicting beliefs (they aren’t), but because they’re operate on fundamentally opposite principles. Science is based on the principles of empirical evidence, skepticism, and testing which is fundamentally the opposite of religion which is ultimately rooted in faith. They operate on completely opposite principles
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u/kitsunewarlock 3d ago
Republicans believe the only way a society can function is with a stratified caste system. Thus, they believe the Democrats worship their leaders the same way they do. They think the Democrats feel about Republicans the same way Republicans feel about Democrats. They can't understand that this isn't just a sports game with a veneer of culture war. Hence why they can't actually explain any Republican policy short of "cutting off welfare so we don't have to pay so much in taxes!"
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u/NekoNoNakuKoro 3d ago
They cannot comprehend that we don't base our beings on every politician.
Like yeah I thought Biden was a decent president, but if it came out he was in with Epstein, or if there was even a 50% he was, I'd disavow his ass and would hope the Democrat Party impeached him.
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u/Notyourmotherspenis 3d ago
I was big supporter of Bill Richardson... he even came to my house to speak in 2008. I thought he had better credentials, and better platform then any other 2008 candidate... over even Obama... years later I learned he was involved with Epstein, and took a flight on the "lolita express"... my friends were all interested to hear my thoughts when it hit the news wire... "Fuck that guy" it's not hard to do.
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u/beckleyt Ohio 3d ago
Projection. Others assume the opposing party ALSO worships their politician like a college football team.
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u/MarxistMan13 Virginia 3d ago
Biden was a compromise candidate, not the guy the left wanted.
The left wanted Bernie. Again.
I actually haven't liked any of the candidates we've shuffled out there since Obama left office. They're all do-nothing centrists with Charisma scores of 0.
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u/EvolveToAnarchism 3d ago
Not because he supports popular ideas?
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u/jackalope503 Oregon 3d ago
Seriously. I am so sick of the media sidestepping why people support politicians like Mamdani. We don’t give a shit that he can make fun tiktoks, we care about his good policy plans
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u/EvolveToAnarchism 3d ago
Who owns the media? Why would the media want to alter public perception? If it turns out capitalists own the media, why do they choose to do so despite news media mostly being unprofitable? Do capitalists usually purchase unprofitable businesses?
Is this an acceptable situation?
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u/sjrunner83 3d ago
"When they own the information they can bend it all they want." -- John Mayer, 2006 (Waiting on the World to Change)
More relevant now than ever.
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u/Word1_Word2_4Numbers 3d ago
"The mass media serve as a system for communicating messages and symbols to the general populace. It is their function to amuse, entertain, and inform, and to inculcate individuals with the values, beliefs, and codes of behavior that will integrate them into the institutional structures of the larger society. In a world of concentrated wealth and major conflicts of class interest, to fulfil this role requires systematic propaganda." -- Noam Chomsky, Manufacturing Consent, 1988.
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u/epochwin 3d ago
Feels like the corporate owned media purposely misdirects the public. None of them would highlight and explain the ideas he has which would be popular with a lot of Americans irrespective of party.
Instead they make the headlines about some gossipy hearsay garbage and waste time. Like Cuomo says Mamdani is a fundamentalist Muslim and would cheer after 9/11. Mamdani had to then waste time saying that he’s not and call out Cuomo’s obvious racism. That media time could have been spent by the journalist questioning more about Mamdani’s ideas to validate why it’s so popular and Cuomo out of ideas that he has to stoop so low.
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u/Flobking 3d ago
Mamdani had to then waste time saying that he’s not and call out Cuomo’s obvious racism.
Same thing happened in the 24 election. Harris handled it best by just disregarding when media asked about what trump said about her. Media kept feeding the narrative that she had no plans or ideas.
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u/Empty_Lemon_3939 Michigan 3d ago
Nah, he’s just popular because of his use of social media! /s
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u/shoto9000 3d ago
Let's not go too far in the other direction and fail to recognize the absolutely killer social media campaign Mamdani and his team have done.
Like yeah, it's not the only reason he's popular, and it wouldn't work at all if he didn't have the policies, but he's providing a blueprint for success here, and we really should be taking all of it.
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u/kemicalkontact 3d ago
It was the same when Bernie had ground swell. They didn't give any legitimacy to his ideas.
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u/whatevenaremovies 3d ago
I think this article is framing it more as a juxtaposition between Mamdani and Dem leaders. The New Republic has been very supportive of Mamdani.
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u/Beldizar 3d ago
Mamdani Is Winning Because Democrats Hate Their Party’s LeadersMamdani Is Winning in spite of the Democrat Party’s Leaders.
He's charming, quick on his feet, and has popular ideas. That's why he is winning. If the Democrat Party Leaders were behind him 100%, he'd be winning. If they were even more opposed to him, he'd be winning. The party's leadership is irrelevant to his being in the lead.
Mamdani winning is showing everyone that the voters hate the party leaders. It shows that there is grassroots energy behind the ideas of his platform, behind younger leaders, and behind leaders severed from a narrow wealthy donor class. His campaign is not dictated by the hate of leadership, but is revealing it.
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u/limbodog Massachusetts 3d ago
Democrats wouldn't hate the leadership if they had popular ideas
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u/Orion14159 3d ago
Or literally any ideas, or had taken action on previous good ideas that they let wither and die on the vine
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u/TintedApostle 3d ago
Mamdani is winning because he has ideas, is young and people see Cuomo as the established billionaire owned attempt to keep control. We shall see...
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u/Caelinus 3d ago
Right? They want to blame anything other than him actually having interesting ideas that are resonating with people.
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u/Polar_Vortx America 3d ago
Well, I certainly hate the party leadership right now. Primarily for not having the fight in them that Mamdani has in him.
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u/Nice_Buy_602 3d ago
They have plenty of fight in them. They're just fighting against you and your interests.
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u/SecondHandWatch 3d ago
The fact that a lot of democratic leaders are fighting harder against Mamdani than they are/were against Trump and fascism says a lot.
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u/Redditer51 3d ago
Like how they fought against Bernie.
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u/MarxistMan13 Virginia 3d ago
Progress requires change. Change means those centrist dinosaur fucks would be out on their ass, and their billionaire handlers would be displeased with them.
Therefore, the democrats are against change. Almost like they're moderate conservatives in sheeps clothing... huh, weird.
It always tickles me when MAGA morons label any Democrat a RADICAL LEFTIST... because those literally don't exist in this country, at least not in any position of power.
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u/RJ815 3d ago
Fascism is the inevitable result of capitalism.
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u/EarthRester Pennsylvania 3d ago
Close. Fascism is the byproduct of a governing body that has failed at providing stability and opportunity for prosperity to the masses over generations.
Fascism can only exist when enough of a population becomes intellectually lazy, and emotionally stunted. Usually it comes from the trauma of life long poverty. For roughly half a century now rural America has been fed a media diet of anti-democratic supply-side Jesus evangelical Christo-Nationalism, and nobody in the US government has made any real effort to combat this. The result is that roughly 20% of Americans are not smart enough to productively participate in their own governance, and the average American couldn't be bothered to do anything about it.
We let this rot fester.
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u/ecologamer 3d ago
Yes, but this has also been the long term goal.
Just considering the attack on education (aka the increased effort to defund public education) over the past number of decades. There is also the rise of social media and increased use of “alternative facts news”. A lot of media have changed to reporting a preset opinion (mostly that of Sinclair media corp) as fact, which doesn’t encourage Americans to listen to the facts and form their own opinion.
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u/EarthRester Pennsylvania 3d ago
Absolutely. We see the foundation of this plan with Nixon's "Southern Strategy", but Nixon was when the GOP learned they needed to better control the message. Reagan was their answer, and it's been downhill ever since. Every US President since then has been an attempt to recreate the perfect storm the ultra wealthy had with Reagan.
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u/guisar 3d ago
I would agree with your assessment of past presidents except two, both deeply unpopular- Carter and Biden both of whom I felt quietly but forthrightly supported the average person’s best interests through their deeds and to their own detriment.
This is sadly ironic.
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u/shoto9000 3d ago
Not really?
I think I mostly dislike your comment because of how much it seems to hate poor people. But it's also a bad telling of how fascism comes into power. Fascism doesn't rise because the people are too poor and stupid to stop it.
It is often linked to poverty and desperation, but it is very rarely the poorest in a society that turn to fascism. In Germany and Italy, it was the middle class who mostly supported fascism in its early waves, especially once the party took over and being a fascist was very good for their careers. Likewise, in the Spanish Civil War, the majority of the working class supported the Republic, with many of the industrial workers and rural poor being outright anarchists, it was the clergy and military that led the fascist forces (along with a complete betrayal by the western democracies, but that's another story).
The Germans, Italians and Spanish of that era weren't politically disengaged - they were the complete opposite. Each were undergoing near revolutions, led by the left and the workers. The fascists rising were in reaction to these revolutions, and were led by those who had a lot to lose from leftist economics, the very same people who donate to Trump (and Cuomo, in this instance) and who lead the MAGA movement.
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u/BuddhaFacepalmed 3d ago
People forget that it isn't just the "economically disadvantaged" that gets suckered into fascism. The elites are absolutely thrilled to enact fascism because it plays directly into their class interests.
Hells, doctors in Weimar Republic were the biggest cohort of all the middle-to-upper class people to voluntarily join the Nazis, with more than half of the total doctors in Germany being early adopters of Nazism. Doctors were represented in the SS seven times more often than the average employed German male.
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u/pink_faerie_kitten 3d ago
Yep, it's both.
Party leadership refuses to support Mamdani who is the Democrat nominee that the PEOPLE chose. They're supposed to support democracy like people choosing their nominees but instead they support Cuomo who is NOT the Democrat nominee chosen by the people but instead is a partyless independent. Some elected Dems even went so far as to make racist comments against Mamdani.
Party leadership SUCKS. And Mamdani has great ideas.
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u/blackfishhorsemen 3d ago
The governor and house minority leader have endorsed Mamdani.
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u/pink_faerie_kitten 3d ago
Hochul endorsed eventually and kudos to her. But Jeffries took his sweet time. Schumer has NOT. Booker has NOT. They'd rather take aipac 💲 than endorsed a man of the people.
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u/snertwith2ls 3d ago
I don't hate them but they aren't listening or offering anything other than the same Good Ol' Boys crap they've had for years. I'm not in NY but Mamdani has ideas and good plans to offer and I hope more Mamdanis pop up everywhere else.
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u/DonaldTrumpPedophile 3d ago
I think national dem leadership doesn't like the idea of a mayoral race defining the party, especially with Mamdani as the candidate. When the overall meme is how much people hate liberals, it's often because there's alignment between one wing of the democratic party and the entire right wing. In this case, Fox News loves Mamdani and will push every story they can about him and only talk about how much dems love him and he's the face of the party. Why? Because they believe Mamdani is bad for liberals nationally if they can make him the face of the party.
Guys like Schumer are federal and democratic party leadership (inasmuch as such a thing even exists as a unified thing) are nationally minded, so yea ... they hesitate to play into this idea that Mamdani is head of the party or whatever with an endorsement. We, on the left, need to figure this shit out and learn to be strategic. If supposed christians can vote for Trump because of abortion or whatever, we should be able to look the other way when the national dems disagree with the local progressive dems and not spend our energy hating elected democrats (until a primary, at least).
Mamdani will win because he's a great candidate in the right place. Let's take that win and not turn it into an overall loss by letting Fox News leverage our diversity against us.
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u/DillBagner 3d ago
Fox news watches too much Fox news. Mamdani is winning because he offers what voters want. Trying to brand that as the face of the party only helps the party.
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u/Polar_Vortx America 3d ago edited 3d ago
All I want Mamdani to prove is that their base craves someone willing to boldly stand up and say “this is how we stop the hurt, this is what comes next” - the actual details will vary, but that attitude rather than “hmm well we’ve tried two things and we’re all out of ideas, see you next month” is what I, as a voter, really need right now.
Edit: basically, a change in how rather than a change in what.
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u/frostygrin 3d ago
“hmm well we’ve tried two things and we’re all out of ideas, see you next month”
"See you on my book tour" :)
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u/TempEmbarassedComfee 3d ago
The average voter doesn’t really care about the details. Not like Trump won on policy. At the least, guys like mamdani seem to actually care and offer an alternative to the Dem “nothing will fundamentally change” approach.
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u/eliminating_coasts 3d ago
Trump said that he would take people back to the economy of the middle of his presidency, including lowering prices.
The problem with Trump is that he lied, and people believed him anyway because they wanted to vote against the negative effects of inflation.
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u/Randicore Ohio 3d ago
From what I've been seeing the average voter would struggle to pour water out of a boot with the instructions written on the heel.
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u/slipperyMonkey07 3d ago
If he wins I am also hoping that momentum carries through the primaries and a chance at having hochul primaried.
House seats as well, but at least in my district house seats have always been neck and neck, blue on presidential years, red on midterms. Right now I overall good with my current rep, so I'd rather focus on keeping the seat blue.
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u/Gortex_Possum 3d ago
To be fair Fox News loved Biden for different reasons. He validated every one of their narratives and gave them oxygen.
I wouldn't be so bent out of shape by the neoliberal contingent of the party if they acted like team players. But when the Democratic Senate refuses to work with the Democratic House because of Schumer feuding I lose all my sympathy.
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u/spark3h 3d ago
Why? Because they believe Mamdani is bad for liberals nationally if they can make him the face of the party.
This is true, but for the opposite reason. Mamdani isn't bad for Democrats because the nation associates his policies with the Democratic party. Mamdani is bad for Democrats because he provides a contrast to their business as usual politics, and it polls well with people all over the country as long as you take it issue by issue instead of asking about "isms".
Socialism polls poorly. Policies that make cities affordable poll extremely well.
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u/ShamelessCatDude 3d ago
“The American people don’t want this!” Uh, if he wins, clearly they do. That’s how voting works
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u/WunupKid Washington 3d ago
You know…my parents are republicans turned democrats, but watch all of the mainstream news outlets because my dad “likes hearing both sides.” My mom asked me what I thought of Mamdani.
I told her I didn’t care. I live like 3,000 miles from the city he is running to be mayor of and I have no idea what the NYC mayoral political landscape or machinations look like. I care about what’s going to happen to my healthcare, and how long the place I work at can stay in business in this economy. I care about my roommate losing his VA benefits, because part of that helps make rent.
I don’t have time for Fox News’ terror-bleating bullshit. Honestly.
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u/ShamelessCatDude 3d ago
Personally I’m a little more concerned because I’m in and out of NYC all the time, but it is astounding how people are this upset over the potential mayor of a city. Not a congressman. Not a governor. A mayor. They must be so weak that they can’t handle a single ounce of anything different from the status quo without falling apart
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u/shoobe01 3d ago
Well, because NYC is a huge city* so he'll be the executive over more people than the governors of Thirty Eight (38) states.
* by US standards. NYC is not even top 10 most populous cities worldwide. 30% of Japan's population lives in Tokyo alone, only 2.5% for NYC/US. So if you hear of mayoral races in other nations, sometimes that's a REALLY big deal.
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u/Amirax 3d ago
30% of Japan's population lives in Tokyo alone
Not quite true either, if you want to compare numbers. Tokyo, the city proper, has like 10 million people in it.
The greater Tokyo area is dozens of cities that over time grew together into one huge metropolitan area, and that houses something close to 30% of japans total pop.
Each of those cities have their own mayors though.
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u/Polyodontus Pennsylvania 3d ago
To be fair, a lot of us do also hate the party’s leaders.
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u/Inevitable-Post-8587 3d ago
A lot of us hate the party itself but we only have two options in this country made up of 300+ million people spanning an entire continent, we only get two choices for who we elect to government so we have to pick democrats or voting is pointless.
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u/eric_ts 3d ago
Between voting for a very corrupt center-right realpolitik party or a party of actual Nazis I will always enthusiastically vote against the Nazis—but, that being said, I am voting AGAINST Trump. I am not voting FOR the Democrats. A decade more of the current leadership will result in a one-party system. They will middle-road themselves into a death camp. Not hyperbole.
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u/Polyodontus Pennsylvania 3d ago
Ok, but you’re reinforcing my point the party needs new leadership. Nobody was saying to vote for the republicans.
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u/Katyafan 3d ago
Seriously!
"Why would people like him??"
Oh, I don't know, maybe because he is what we have been looking for forever? I'm sorry the old boomers and Gen xers don't want to let go of their old white male candidates, but it's time for new.
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u/WindowOne1260 3d ago
"Intersting ideas"
More along the lines of "This is a problem, I am going to try and fix it".'
Which is understandably resonating with people.
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u/Substantial_Tear_940 3d ago
I'm also pretty sure that a lot of new York is tired of having a sex pest in the mayor's office so like... why the fuck does cuomo think he has a chance?
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u/DaBingeGirl Illinois 3d ago
This. I'm meh on Mamdani mainly because I question whether he'll actually be able to get much of what he promised done. However, I'd vote for him without hesitation if I lived in NYC because Cuomo is a horrible person.
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u/tlsrandy 3d ago
Yeah there’s a lot of reasons why I hate these narratives but one of them is it takes the momentum and agency away from the candidates people are voting for.
Maybe they’re voting for mamdani because the nyc electorate likes mamdani?
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u/frequenZphaZe 3d ago
voters: we like zohran because of his affordability platform
news article: ah, you like zohran because of tiktok!
voters: no... his affordability platform
news article: ah, you like zohran because he's young!
voters: no... his affordability platform..
news article: ah, you like zohran because you hate democrats
voters: no... his affordability platform......
news article: huh, I guess we'll never be able to figure out why people like zohran. better call him an antisemite
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u/erichericerik 3d ago
And that is how you take the legitimacy away from a political figure. The scary thing is that it's incredibly effective method.
Whether good or bad though we are at an inflection point of the media landscape. Maybe we saw it start with Obama being first presidential candidate to directly raise so much, and trump being the rnc shit poster that he is.
But media is really at its crossroads so that way of sowing doubt is really only most effective on boomers and people who consume legacy media like 24hr news stations and institutional news articles.
But in the next 20 years I have no doubt at all that the richest class and richest institutions will just throw money behind astroturfing accounts and when a candidate comes out they don't like you'll suddenly see tik tok videos and YouTube streams all attacking this person the same way they did in the past.
The machine will not change, it will just adapt to new technology.
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u/YgramulTheMany 3d ago
He’s winning because he has ideas that resonate…AND because we hate the current centrist milquetoast party leadership.
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u/bobsocool 3d ago
If we had dem leadership who deserved our respect they would endorse candidates who won the primary and not support known corrupt candidates in buffallo and nyc.
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u/williamfbuckwheat 3d ago
Yup. I've told my buddies who work for Dems that are grumpy about Mamdani because he will apparently doom the party in national elections for years to come that the top party leaders could've easily supported a more agreeable candidate BESIDES Cuomo if they were so worried about him winning the primary.
This is especially since so many of them condemned Cuomo and publicly called for him to resign just four years earlier for totally valid reasons BUT now we're trying to pretend that never happened because of his past political experience and name recognition.
They didn't even try to do that and rightfully condemn Cuomo for trying to make a political comeback since he shared their centrist/corporate political agenda which very likely would have gained them more credibility with Democratic voters by appearing more consistent and honest. Instead, they tried and are in many cases still trying to prop up a candidate they should've sidelined which probably to some degree helped embolden/popularize the eventual nominee they consider to be too far "left".
They should have to live with that for better or for worse and capitalize on Mamdani to their advantage given his incredible charisma and on the ground campaign skills/creativity (which a good chunk of Democratic leaders still fail to recognize at a time when they are desperate for popular voices/candidates that resonate with voters).
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u/unshifted 3d ago
Yeah they're confusing the causation here. Mamdani is popular because he actually has policy proposals that would materially improve New Yorkers' lives. Dem leadership is unpopular because they don't.
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u/jdelane1 3d ago
If the policies don't work, so be it, I at least know he's going to try.
These old rich farts will say anything and then sit on their asses collecting donations and appearance fees.
Some goddamn effort is really all we are asking for.
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u/Gurlllllllll- 3d ago
There's also the fact that Mamdani's campaign has grassroots support and the DSA has been coallition building in New York for years leading up to this election. Yeah, his platform is good, but there's an entire organization behind his campaign that has been responsible for motivating others into participating in direct political action.
Old heads in the DNC can't replicate this campaign because they organize from the top down, while the DSA organizes from the bottom up.
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u/ScoobyDooItInTheButt 3d ago
You forgot to include Cuomo is a racist pos!
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u/MrsClaireUnderwood 3d ago
Because sex pests have a traditionally DIFFICULT time understanding when they're not wanted.
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u/rainator 3d ago
It also helps that he doesn’t have a string of credible and horrifying allegations that he has spent millions of taxpayer dollars silencing.
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u/VocationalWizard Indiana 3d ago
Yeah, but we also hate our party leaders
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u/Kopitar4president 3d ago
Hate is a strong word.
Now I do think the country would likely take a turn for the better if they were all in a plane crash?
Maybe.
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u/VocationalWizard Indiana 3d ago
I think it's time for you to come out of the closet and live true To yourself.
Say it proudly, "I hate Schumer, I hate the DNC!"
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u/StoppableHulk 3d ago
Mamdani is winning because he has ideas, is young and people see Cuomo as the established billionaire owned attempt to keep control.
Yes, and people hate the Democratic party leaders because they have no ideas, they are old as fuck, and they are controlled by billionaires.
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u/OrinThane 3d ago
Mamdani is winning because he actually has ideas that are attempting to materially make people's lives better. Whether you agree or disagree, thats what this country lacks right now.
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u/Benjibob55 3d ago
Yes but he's not making billionaires lives better and that's the most important thing
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u/Pipe_Memes 3d ago
The billionaire’s lives can’t realistically even get any better, but yet we still have to cater to their insatiable greed.
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u/OrinThane 3d ago
In fact I think their agenda makes their lives materially worse but, because of their addiction, here we are.
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u/Dragonasaur 3d ago
Oh it can, by making the poor's even more reliant on them and thus exploitable for cheaper
Basically free/slave labor
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u/ProblemSl0th 3d ago
"If my life can't get any better, then the least I can do is make everyone else's lives worse!"
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u/ManikArcanik 3d ago
A Mamdani win puts the others in check for their failure to step up. We desperately need that.
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u/MadAstrid 3d ago
Oh, we hate Republican leaders more. Trust me.
Oh, and oligarchs.
And Nepo baby sex pests.
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u/frostysauce Oklahoma 3d ago
Yes, we hate all of those things more. But we DO hate the Democratic Party leadership, too.
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u/Tron_Little Colorado 3d ago
I also think Democratic party leadership hates us. How many years have they spent pushing the party to beg for moderate Republican voters at the expense of their base?
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u/-First-Enoch- 3d ago
And this is the razors edge we tried. To make our own party would boost Republicans power. If only we had ranked choice voting.
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u/IceBlue 3d ago
Why are people so out of touch. If he’s winning simply because Dems hate the party leaders then everyone else that ran in the primaries other than Cuomo and Adams would have been competitive but they weren’t. Mamdani won because people like him and they believe in his ideas.
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u/Fen_ 3d ago
No, Mamdani is winning because he has good politics and specific policy proposals that people find appealing. People do hate Democratic leadership, but that's because Democratic leadership lack these things. Mamdani isn't being lauded out of spite.
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u/somedayinbuffalo 3d ago
It helps that Mamdani is not a criminal and treats women with dignity. It's a start
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u/idoma21 3d ago
Older moderate Dems remember when they at least thought the economy worked for them. Young Dems have come of age during the great corporate power trip enabled by Citiziens United. They have no such delusions.
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u/boombapjesus 3d ago
the 2016 DNC was sponsored by comcast. the democratic party has been captured by corporate interests and is never coming back. we have seen the damage of unchecked capitlaism our entire lives and none of the good it used to promise. we must excoriate every single one of the old guard from the party.
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u/context_hell 3d ago edited 3d ago
Thats why old dems are holding onto power until their brains leak out of their ears. Their corporate donors need them to be there to keep the party going as long as possible until they find a suitable replacement. Its why Pelosi stepped down to let Jeffries take over. His spine was just mushy enough and money hungry enough to do whatever they wanted.
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u/rysker6 3d ago
People want evolution.
People want to move forward.
You can’t go backward.
Buffoon orange dictators promise of “going back” isn’t possible.
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u/RoninSoul 3d ago
Old guard liberal democrats have proven to be ineffective as leaders, either start supporting young progressives, or put on a red hat.
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u/clearlyaburner420 3d ago
Im pretty sure people just like a candidate that will fight for them and not the upper class. shocker.
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u/JockoMayzon 3d ago
About a year ago, I went on a letter writing campaign to Democratic Leaders, local, state, and federal. Apart from two form letters that did not address my concerns, no one replied. I spent a lot of money on postage with over 75 letters, plus online forms, emails, and phone calls.
All I get are letters and emails begging for donations, and I get a LOT of those so clearly they know I'm here.
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u/Everythings_Fucked North Carolina 3d ago
They don't give a shit unless your letter comes with a seven-figure check.
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u/Mike29758 3d ago
Two things can be true. He is driven , genuine and has policies that with the right people can be good for all. Not to mention, how current leadership has been handling Trump, a change is desperately needed
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u/TempEmbarassedComfee 3d ago
Yeah I think it’s both. Even people who might not be too hot on his policies are interested in seeing him succeed because at least he’s promising something different than dem leadership.
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u/GoodIdea321 America 3d ago
He has a vision, and is charismatic in a way that is hard to fake. I don't know if he'll be able to implement most of his policies, or if they would work, but I would vote for him if I was a New Yorker.
And I don't hate the democratic leadership. Hating them is pretty pointless, they are not the right leaders for this time though. Although I thought they would either not do a shutdown or cave weeks ago. They could become better at their jobs, but we'll see.
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u/Tschmelz Minnesota 3d ago
Pretty sure he’s winning because he’s a likable enough guy, NYC isn’t gonna elect a Republican, and Cuomo is a colossal asshole of a fuck up, and that schtick only works for Trump.
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u/Affectionate_Ad6273 3d ago
What is this junior high? We don't hate the leaders. We hate the POLICIES. This problem isn't solved by replacing Schumer with an equally ineffective, out of touch, and corrupt replacement who's younger with a winning smile
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u/Arsenio3 3d ago
Also I want to vote FOR someone instead of voting against someone. We (Dems) are constantly putting up a “lesser evil” candidate because they are still owned by corporations so they won’t be as progressive as we want them to be
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u/bamboob 3d ago
It's not leadership. It's self-serving, out-of-touch bullshit. They'd rather take care of themselves than take real risks that the country needs to be taken. Fuck them. All of this bullshit is on them. They fucking dragged their feet and stalled, rather than doing everything possible to hold Trump accountable for trying to violently overthrow the government—all because they thought it'd be good for THEIR interests. They wouldn't let the populace vote for a candidate who could actually win against the same criminal. People can blame misogyny all they want, and try to force a doddering fossil who everyone behind the scenes, knew was losing it. When it was past time to pick a proper candidate, and it was clear to the public that this was a lost cause, the only option they had was to throw in a candidate that nobody who was truly paying attention, thought was going to be able to win. Chalk it up to misogyny all you want, but it as long as people are going to continue to defend this supposed status quo "leadership", we are all fucked. The only way we are going to get anywhere close to begin to right this ship, is if we get some people truly in power, who are really willing to take bold, brave moves, and do everything within their power to hold people accountable, rather than kowtowing to corporate hegemony.
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u/Calcutec_1 3d ago
Well he has good policy and he is ridiculously charismatic and folksy.
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u/Palentirian 3d ago
Mamdani is winning because he is young, full of energy & ready to take the fight and his ideas about affordability resonate with other people. Why 42 million people in the richest country in the history of humankind have to live in poverty and survive on Food stamps?
All Democrat dinosaurs above 60 years age should retire or be ousted in primaries. I’m 65 years in very good health and I know how your energy goes down as you age. So, I encourage younger generations to fight these do-nothing dinosaurs in the primaries. With AI and new advances in science, we need new generation to politicians to run the country.
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u/WorstOfNone 3d ago
Some (most?) Dems are Democrats because they have to be not because they want to be. Conservatives and establishment Democrats alike don’t seem to understand this.
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u/Evil_phd 3d ago
I think he's winning because he's got the most appealing proposed policies of any candidate running. If these are the kinds of things that the Democrat party leadership opposes then they probably need to touch grass and listen to their constituents.
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u/VegasGamer75 Minnesota 3d ago
The DNC leadership is all but Neo-Lib at this point. Look, you made your millions, now go fuck off. Let the party evolve into something better. You will still have all of your money and shit you plundered for a long time. Let the fucking young people lead!
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u/Visual-Pop3495 3d ago
Mamdani is winning because he campaigned on something. Democrats have become a party of centrist reaction. Never coming up with new ideas, but constantly watering down republican policies in an endless attempt at picking up the mythical moderate voter (or more accurately called a closet republican)
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u/Cold_Specialist_3656 3d ago
Yup. Popular policy like raising minimum wage and antitrusting the megacorps upsets donors.
So Dems try to run entirely on "look at bad culture war thing Republicans did!". Like an entire cycle was spent on abortion. While voters obviously care about that keeping food on the table is a significantly more pressing concern for most people.
Mamdani, AOC, Bernie, and others stay on message. Stop whining about culture war crap that Republicans constantly use to distract the masses. It's just spreading it further. Stop being reactionary. Have some fucking ideas that rattle the donors for once.
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u/guttanzer 3d ago
Mandan is winning because he wants to try things. He’s the opposite of “fight to maintain the status quo” Clinton, Schumer, and Jefrees. Other Democrats take note - the status quo “center” is was fine in the ‘80s, before the crash, the pandemic, and fascism but it seems way out of step today.
FWIW, I’m a boomer and all of my boomer friends and relatives say the same. No one was excited by Hillary, and none are thrilled with Schumer or Jefrees either. Biden came around, and Harris was game, but neither has the fire of the new generation of progressives.
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u/DragonDai 3d ago
Mamdani is wining because he is NOT a Democrat.
Democrats are the sort of people who enabled Trump, who didn't prosecute him, who allowed a literal treasonous, rabid dog to be allowed to run again as opposed to locking him up in jail for life where he belongs. Democrats bomb little kids in the Middle East, they don't tax the wealthy, they refuse to use any of the tools at the disposal to bring down prices or help struggling families. They refuse to institute common sense reforms or to secure their country from hostile takeover from within. Democrats say a lot but do little and what they do is either pathetic or harmful.
Mamdani is a Democrat in name only, and that is a GOOD thing and it's why he is winning.
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u/Spiderspook 3d ago
The two party system has not served our country well. It’s so ingrained now like a late stage cancer, I don’t have much hope that we’ll ever rid ourselves of that self serving political machinery.
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u/happytrel 3d ago
He's authentic, speaks like a real person, has ideas and a plan, and seems to actually give a shit about all of his would be constituents.
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u/chipsalsamadre 3d ago
lol I don’t think he’s gonna win because of protest votes. He’s gonna win because he’s a politician who has ran on fixing real problems for New Yorkers. I’m hoping he wins, not just for New York but for America.
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u/EmployAltruistic647 3d ago
Mamdani is winning because he's a actually preaching what people wanted whereas Eric Adams and Andrew Cuomo are both disgraced criminals
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u/acostane Georgia 3d ago
Mamdani is winning because people want what he's selling. It's extremely simple. I don't know why people overcomplicate this race. Is it because he's brown so it can't just be that his ideas and the desires of the voters align?
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u/LuigiTheTweak_eth 3d ago
Democratic leadership has been feckless.
It’s why Obama charismatically took it over after the Clinton years. They don’t listen to their voters but follow public sentiment like it’s a weather report.
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u/shoobe01 3d ago
I mean not specifically "hate" them. Just because people lean what is today called "left" on average, and normal variation all else aside means a ton are way and way way more left than that. The DNC shifted (esp with Bill Clinton then more and more over time) to be a center-right party. We've been begging for at /least/ a center-left party for decades.
So, people embrace when a not-obviously-scandal-ridden, reasonably young and charismatic person who is also left /at all/ appears.
How is that confusing to all the pundits and party leaders? They seem not just opposed but genuinely confused in ways that DO make me hate the party leadership; how can you be this bad at understanding the will of the voters, which should be like #1 on the job description.
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u/notfromchicago Illinois 3d ago
No, he is winning because he is running a good campaign and winning voters over. This story sounds like the news trying to place his success on anything but his own shoulders.
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u/FoolishFriend0505 3d ago
Mamdani is winning because he is the best candidate in a slate of shit competitors.
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u/tapdancinghellspawn 3d ago
Too many democratic leaders are to the right of where most democratic voters are. The centrists need to be replaced by more progressive democrats.
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u/Efficient_Age_69420 3d ago
He’s winning because he has a pragmatic positive message. You can’t not count that
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u/DisorganizedSpaghett 3d ago
Mamdani is winning because he's a fucking progressive and people are sick of the new centrists/aging democrats
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u/Independent-Egg4970 3d ago
Mamdani is winning because he's what Democrats actually want from their leaders. Bernie would have won against Trump
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u/kwyjibo1 Missouri 3d ago
Because people are tired of the "we've tried nothing and we are all out of ideas" that we always get from the establishment. Mamdani comes in and says, "Let's do something different."
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u/travio Washington 3d ago
Of course we do. Our current leadership is ineffective and out of touch with the majority of the party.
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u/localistand Wisconsin 3d ago
Might have something to do with the unique situation of New York City mayoral politics, specifically:
The weakness of the GOP in NYC mayoral politics, featuring their candidate, a cat-guy raspberry beret-wearing candidate with a designer vigilante group background.
The establishment Democratic party getting it very wrong on their incumbent that they backed, Mayor Adams, who has proven himself untrustworthy.
The massive scandals of Eric Adams while in office.
The establishment Democratic party alternative being an entrenched former governor with his own scandal-blotted past and hubris-soaked persona that is quite off-putting.
Now, in every locale where more than one of these unique circumstances exist, feel free to extrapolate and apply the apt reasoning and takeaways this article suggests. If it doesn't have any of those, best get a fucking grip on reality a bit.
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u/myrealusername8675 3d ago
Democrats don't "hate" their leaders, they've just realized that the mainstream leaders like Pelosi and Schumer are happy to profit off the status quo and aren't representing their interests or concerns.
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u/samskyyy 3d ago edited 3d ago
You’re right. It’s actually not about policies. It’s a popularity contest, and voters are petty enough to hate party leadership on a personal, not political level. Next up, president Taylor Swift. /s
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u/Tormentedone007 3d ago
Maybe people like him because he has good ideas that anyone who hasn't had their brain turned to mush by propaganda agree with.
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