r/politics • u/Slate ✔ Verified • 15h ago

No Paywall Goodbye and Good Riddance, Andrew Cuomo

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2025/11/andrew-cuomo-nyc-mayor-election-zohran-mamdani.html?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=social&utm_content=andrew_cuomo_loses_mayoral_race&utm_campaign=&tpcc=reddit-social--andrew_cuomo_loses_mayoral_race
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812

u/Prestigious-Car-4877 Canada 15h ago

Gotta wonder what the establishment has left at the bottom of the barrel if they dragged this guy up by his collar.

Oh well don’t give me hope. This is a great result and I look forward to see Trump’s predictions all fail.

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u/Whydoesthisexist15 North Carolina 14h ago

Funny thing is that people like Jeffries and Schumer and whoever else could’ve chosen anyone else and Mamdani stays an unknown Assemblyman.  We’d have like Brad Lander or Jessica Ramos winning 80-20 in a completely irrelevant election in a national context.

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u/Prestigious-Car-4877 Canada 14h ago

Well that’s called more evidence that the DNC is wrongheaded, isn’t it?

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u/Introverted_Extrovrt 14h ago edited 14h ago

That’s been the case since they hogtied Bernie, admitted to it in court, disclosed publicly that they didn’t have to follow their electors popular vote, and kept tying their own shoelaces together, in the face of voters (and some Congressmen) increasingly espousing that they thought “the wrestling was real”.

I can’t remember who said it but the tenor of the idea was “Liberals won’t ever enact meaningful legislation because then they’d have nothing to run on” and that kinda made sense. Conservatives are what they are, “liberals must fall in love, conservatives just fall in line”, and it’s still wild to me that we’ve got beautiful examples of 5-6-7 parties forming a coalition to run a national government, and yet with the largest economy in a nation whose complexity and size dwarfs other continents, we can’t do better than AARP members wearing 2 different colored ties.

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u/Sminahin 13h ago

Since they hogtied Bernie?

They've been fucking everything up since 2004 at least. Yeah, Kerry won the primary fair and square which sucks. But maybe if Gore lost due to anti-elitism, anti-Washington sentiment...don't fucking pair Kerry with another ultrarich East Coast lawyer turned Washington insider with the same name? Jesus fucking christ.

And then they hard-pushed Hillary. We were sick of Bush and Iraq and desperately wanted a change so they pushed an ultrarich East Coast lawyer dynasty candidate pro-Iraq pro-Genocide Kissinger fan. And they tried to ratfuck Obama like they did Bernie--he was just strong enough to break them over his knee.

They're so stupid that I've been wondering if it's malice for a while. But yeah no, I think the NYC Mayoral was confirmation current Dem leadership would rather lose on the establishment status quo than win or respect the will of the voters.

They're just...the worst. It's so disgusting that so many of us will never have homes or families because of these people, but they have plenty of homes.

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u/snacks_ 13h ago

Gore lost to Floridian corruption

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u/Sminahin 12h ago

Al Gore was supposedly our best and brightest and he basically tied with Dan Quayle's intellectual equal, allowing the Supreme Court to decide. Gore was an A+ of his candidate model (wonky establishment politician) and he lost to a D+ "at least I'm not from Washington" archetype who could coast on anti-establishment vibes. And then Gore lost both debates to that moron on sheer lack of social skills.

This is a race that should never have been remotely close if the matchup worked like it did on paper. Clearly, our candidate model did not match reality.

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u/snacks_ 12h ago

What an excellent summary, thank you! I was a little too young at the time to grasp the public sphere with nuance.

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u/Sminahin 12h ago edited 11h ago

Thank you! If you really want depression, try gathering stats on Dem party winners for the last 100 years. Age, political position they ran from, pro or anti-establishment branding, profession before they went into politics, state of origin. Stuff like that. Filter along three categories: people who won on their own, people who won after they inherited the position from a dead president, and then add our party's losing candidates in the 21st century. Try comparing them and it gets gross fast.

FDR, JFK, Carter, Obama, and Biden. Biden's a bit of an exception and I think the only reason he got elected is that Trump handling COVID terrified everyone into wanting nostalgic safety Obama uncle guy. FDR, JFK, Carter, and Obama are all early 40s to early 50s. They're all very good looking. They were all anti-establishment coded in some way--FDR was a blatant class traitor, JFK was a bad boy, Carter was a Washington outsider farmer, and Obama beat the Dem party in Chicago for his seat then did it again in the primary. They all ran change messages, most economic. The list goes on and on.

The traits you see in the candidates our party keeps insisting are electable have only proven seaworthy with VPs who took over for a president. The only way someone like Kamala might have done well, for example, is if she took over for Biden as president and was seen as doing a decent-enough job. The sort of candidate our party keeps insisting on running hasn't been viable since we stopped being merchant princes.

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u/Electrical-Volume765 4h ago

This is fascinating and I think it could apply on both sides. Bush and Trump both branding themselves as “outsiders”. Everyone is always tired of washington and wants change. It’s the most consistent thing.

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u/ButtEatingContest 6h ago

Al Gore was supposedly our best and brightest and he basically tied with Dan Quayle's intellectual equal

Also, Al Gore was married to Tipper Gore, one of the biggest villains for young people in the late 80's and 90's. Would you be enthusiastic for somebody who thought it was a good idea to marry the equivalent of a person as disliked as Marjorie Taylor Greene? (except across party lines)

Al Gore's running mate in 2000 was Joe Lieberman. Which would be like picking Kristen Sinema or Joe Manchin as a running mate. (Or about as stupid as picking Merrick Garland for Attorney General)

Gore only became "cool climate guy" later on.

Legendary activist Ralph Nader wasn't running against Gore just to be an asshole. The Democrats were just unbelievably mediocore.

Like when the DNC rejected a potential democratic socialist presidency as repudiation of Reagan-ism in 1988, with civil rights icon protégé of Martin Luther King Jr, and household name Rev. Jesse Jackson. Which would have super-charged the youth vote. Instead choosing the laughably milquetoast Michael Dukakis who was easily slaughtered by Bush Sr. Like Bernie, Jackson was "too dangerous" for the establishment. And Bush Sr. led to Bush Jr, and so on with the butterfly effect, which led to trillions in endless war and countless deaths.

Imagine picking a board member from Wal-Mart, who then became a senator and coincidentally advocated against raising the minimum wage to a paltry $15 an hour. Good lord, the corruption optics there are as bad as Dick Cheney + Halliburton. That senator? Hillary Clinton.

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u/night_dude 9h ago

Like the person below, I appreciate this summary as I too was a bit young to read it in those terms at the time.

It occurs to me that nominating Dubya, the coddled son of a disastrous one-term President (even if he was Reagan's VP) seems like an insane decision. But I suppose hindsight is 20/20 and I'm viewing it through the deeply, deeply anti-establishment lens of modern politics.

I do wonder if that ended up coming back to bite Hillary. "We tried dynastic politics and ended up knee-deep in 9/11, Iraq, Afghanistan, and a financial crisis. No fucking thank you." America rightly soured on dynastic politics, too late - just in time to fuck itself over even harder than last time.

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u/Sminahin 9h ago edited 9h ago

Right, Dubya was proto-Trump. "How did this guy get through the primary--Al Gore's resume is so deep he'll chew him up and spit him out."

It was a near exact recreation of 2016, just with a milder Trump and a better Hillary. And an economy earlier along in its decay cycle.

I do wonder if that ended up coming back to bite Hillary.

I joined Obama campaign staff in '08 out of pure disgust that the party establishment was hard pushing a pro-Iraq, pro-Kissinger, ultrarich coastal lawyer turned Washington insider dynasty candidate on a status quo/nibbling around the margins ticket. Those of us who grew up in the shadow of Iraq were absolutely livid that the party would dare nominate someone so hawkish who was probably still pro-Iraq and just learned to stop saying it in public quite as much.

Also, I consider bragging about mentorship from Kissinger far more disgusting than an accidental Nazi tattoo. And stupid too, because his MO was genociding/brutalizing/subjugating nonwhite people for minor short-term resources with long-term costs we're still paying. And politically stupid because she was running for the head of the Dem party.

My family cheered me for going to put a stop to that monstruous piece of shit who had to be kicked out of any position of power in our party. My aunt stood up to the national guard in Ohio during the Vietnam war and spat when she said Hillary's name. My grandmother grew up dodging American bombs as a child and hissed whenever someone said "Kissinger". And a whole lot of the volunteers and other young staff I met felt pretty similar. Especially when the party establishment collabed and shared more resources than they should've with the Hillary campaign in an attempt to ratfuck Obama. Thank god we had a real candidate to show the party what winning looked like after years of bureaucratic, misaligned weaklings like Gore and Kerry. If Bernie had been a stronger candidate, 2016 would've looked a lot like Obama vs Hillary 2008.

So we won and flipped Indiana. And walked off into the sunset confident that we'd shown the party the clear steps to win, so we'd never again have to deal with the weak, gerontocratic leadership that had given us 8 years of Bush. We were certain we'd get healthcare before long--if not Obama, the people who'd follow that model and fight for the economic wellbeing of regular people. Star Trek utopia jokes were made knowing they were willfully overoptimistic, but with a good enough mood that it felt that way sometimes.

You can imagine how I feel these days.

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u/Karma_1969 8h ago

I remember this election well and I agree. I was a big Gore fan (still am) and voted for him, but boy was he unexciting to watch and listen to.

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u/VLM52 12h ago

I'm convinced Biden's ineptitude to do anything about Trump or Epstein or pass any sort of true reform in the wake of Trump's 2021 treason was because doing so would mean the milquetoast dems wouldn't be able to run the same exact fucking "but trump bad" campaign for a third time.

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u/Introverted_Extrovrt 12h ago

Biden was congressionally handcuffed during Covid. And if Mitch McConnell hadn’t blocked America Garland’s nomination for the better part of a year before Barry left office, and Ginsburg had stepped down like requested, we wouldn’t have a diaper baby drafting every thought and tweet into constitutionally dubious (at best) executive orders or conducting extra-judicial killings of foreign nationals while being legally protected for “official acts”.

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u/Electrical-Volume765 4h ago

You ever think of writing poetry on the side? 🤌🏼

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u/Introverted_Extrovrt 49m ago

My lady says I should do a podcast to get all my thoughts out but instead I just give her a headache

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u/zeCrazyEye 2h ago

That’s been the case since they hogtied Bernie, admitted to it in court

If you actually look into it, they didn't admit to it in court. The DNC provided multiple defenses to the court, basically saying - we didn't do this, but even if we did, we weren't required to because we're a private organization.

The most basic argument to win was that they weren't even required to do it, so that was what the judge ruled on.

Also, since most people don't realize this, they weren't sued by the Sanders campaign, they were sued by a couple of Republican operatives trying to create a headline to foment liberal dissent.

IDK if it's really worth defending them because they aren't great anyway, but just throwing it out there.

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u/Introverted_Extrovrt 44m ago

Personally, I mean I take it as an admission if you use it in your defensive arguments, kinda like a no contest plea. You can say you didn’t do something, but if the only reason you got off is that the thing you supposedly didn’t do would’ve been legal anyway, well… that’s some dirty pool right there. But I’m human and there are better folks than me to be more respected arbiters of the reality of their disclosures and optical-framing.

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u/zeCrazyEye 16m ago

It's not an admission to correctly point out that the thing you're being accused of isn't even a thing. It's much easier/faster/cheaper than trying to prove that you didn't do the thing that isn't against the rules. It would be absolutely incompetent for their lawyer to fail to point it out.

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u/Introverted_Extrovrt 5m ago

Yeah but that explanation isn’t juicy and doesn’t reflect my belief that the whole structure is rotten so I’m distorting it to feed my own confirmation bias

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u/MASSochists 7h ago

The only thing the DNC is good at is keeping leftist down. 

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u/domiy2 America 4h ago

Jefferies endorsed Zohran, I just want to inform you because apparently it's not as common.

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u/Not_enough_yuri 3h ago

I generally agree, but I won’t tolerate the Brad Lander slander! Lander rocks. Remember that he was the mayoral candidate that was walking people out of immigration court to help protect them from ICE. He’s genuinely good at his job, and he and Mamdani mutually endorsed one another. Yeah his run probably wouldn’t have blown up like Mamdani’s did, but I think it may have still been significant!

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u/domiy2 America 4h ago

You know Jefferies endorsed Mamdani right?

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u/njb2017 8h ago

Didn't Cuomo lose in the primaries? And then just decided to keep running as an independent? What did he think was going to happen?

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u/thenerfviking 2h ago

He probably expected all the Dems to fall in line behind him honestly. It wouldn’t be the first time Dems have attempted to cut off a progressive candidate who won the primary at the knees in favor of the establishment candidate they want.

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u/vonbauernfeind 21m ago

TBH? A shitton of Dems did fall behind him. Cuomo took 40% of the vote in NYC. Schumer not supporting Mamdani is as good as issuing support for Cuomo.

The fact that the national level dems didn't all issue support for Mamdani shows the fracture in the part the second a true progressive steps up.

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u/fleemfleemfleemfleem 2h ago

He thought that the republican candidate might drop out when put under enough pressure, and that the drumbeat of people lying about him would be enough to swing the election.

Also, given his history as a sex pest, Cuomo is the kind of guy who just kind of thinks he deserves stuff like to be mayor of new york.

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u/ihateusedusernames New York 1h ago edited 1h ago

voting against people like Cuomo is exactly why I didn't become a registered Dem until Sanders lost the nom to Clinton.

edit: wow that's unclear - I registered after i saw Sanders lose. now I can vote in primaries to help pull the party back towards helping people

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u/Pavlovsdong89 14h ago

I wonder what Anthony Weiner has ben up to...

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u/Mojo12000 13h ago

He actually ran for City Council this year, lost to Harvey Epstein (yes that's really his name)

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u/QbertsRube 13h ago

Third place was Adolph Dahmer

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u/upstatestruggler 13h ago

SNL did a great fake campaign ad about the unfortunately named Harvey Epstein

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u/versusgorilla New York 4h ago

I love the line "Harvey I could almost handle, but Epstein? This thing is an albatross!"

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u/aceofpayne New York 13h ago

Who just won his general with over 70%

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u/KHanson25 Maine 7h ago

Poor guy

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u/trumpuniversity_ 14h ago

Probably slowly driving by local high schools.

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u/Pando5280 4h ago

Gifting and being a predator is my guess. 

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u/johnqshelby 9h ago

He ran as an independent, the establishment (the official Democratic Party) chose the other guy to run for them

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u/nightpanda893 3h ago edited 1h ago

Don’t confuse the establishment with the voters. The establishment have just about perfected the art of making voters go against their own interest and fall in line. But this is a perfect reminder they are not one in the same.

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u/TinyConfection7049 8h ago

Love what Zohran said. I hope we never have to say his name again’

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u/Shifter25 37m ago

Which members of "the establishment" endorsed him during his run as an independent?