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Mamdani Mania and the Only Lesson That Matters [1]

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Date: 2025-06-30

Hey, did you hear that Zohran Mamdani won the Democratic primary in this year’s mayor’s race in New York City.

Of course you did. Mamdani’s win is big news, and it’s generated what seems like an endless series of stories and opinion pieces in the media. Too many if you ask me, but nobody’s asking me.

Mamdani is a hell of a story. He’s a 33-year-old Muslim Socialist Democrat. The odds are he’ll be running the biggest city in the country in a few months. When I was 33, I was … oh hell it’s so insignificant I don’t even remember.

I’ve read just about nothing on Mamdani and the New York mayor’s race. For one, I don’t care. For another, its predictably produced a crushing amount of analysis about what this result means and what it says about the Democratic Party. If Democrats have cornered the market on one skill it’s overthinking things.

Here’s the thing about smart people, they talk among themselves and then try to tell you what people like me and a lot of others -- who’re not as smart as them and have lives and backgrounds that are nothing like theirs -- will think and do.

That’s why as we sit here, several days removed from Mamdani’s stunning victory, I can they this to the media and pundit class:

Shut up already.

What happened in New York City isn’t some complicated thing. Mamdani won in a fairly progressive city against a field that included “establishment” candidate Andrew Cuomo who was damaged goods. Cuomo quit the governorship in disgrace after multiple accusations of sexual harassment.

Cuomo is yesterday’s news, and a lot of it is bad news. Plus, some saw him as a bully, and everyone likes to kick a bully when he’s down and a lot less scary than when he’s standing and in power.

Mamdani also brought to the table a populist message at a time when a lot of people aren’t doing so well while the federal government is ignoring their problems and sending out masked thugs to arrest their immigrant friends and neighbors so they can throw them out of the country.

We’ve already seen that at least some New Yorkers will pick a Progressive fresh face over an establishment figure when Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez won a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives a few years back.

So don’t be so surprised that a Progressive won with the type of electorate he was facing, the quality of his most dangerous opponent, and the current frustration we’re seeing in our country.

The biggest question to me is if he wins the general election in November, what will happen during the next four years as he works to install his programs and governing philosophy?

I’m anxious to see how Mamdani does. New York will be like a laboratory to see if his ideas work. If they do, it’ll help Democrats in the long run. If they fail, it’ll give Republicans a lot of fodder for future attacks. (I know, they’re going to attack no matter what)

So, there’s a lot riding on this.

Progressives always think the answer is to move more to the left. It’s been written here before that we have overall a center-right country. Extreme Progressive policies won’t help you win the voters whose minds you need to change in order to take back the White House.

Still, looking ahead to the 2028 presidential race, the belief here is that the state of the country will determine how far to the left voters will be willing to go. After the economic disaster of the Great Depression under Herbert Hoover, they elected maybe the most progressive president in history in Franklin Roosevelt.

If things are really bad more people may be willing to try the more “socialist” programs of a Progressive Democrat than if the economy is going well.

Some Democrats are angry and dismayed that Mamdani won. They need to get over it.

Democrats must look at this with only one thought in mind: What lessons can they take from Mamdani’s win? What can they use to help their candidates win in other races – local, statewide, and national?

That’s because nothing else matters but winning. Mamdani is a winner. Don’t waste time degrading him. Instead, study him, who he is, what he did, and how he did it. It’d be political malpractice not to do so.

I’m not saying they need clones of Mamdani. There are a lot of places in the country he’d have no chance of winning. That’s beside the point. Winning is the only thing Democrats should be thinking about. Everything they do must be with that goal in mind; personal agendas be damned.

Something I saw in a New Republic article on Substack seems really important. The writer described Mamdani as someone who was “charismatic, indefatigable, and could talk to anybody.”

Maybe that’s his real secret. Maybe it wasn’t his policies or religion or place in the party. Maybe it was him. Maybe he’s just the type of person that more people wanted to vote for.

I’m too young to remember when a vigorous John F. Kennedy beat the more staid, less charismatic Richard Nixon in 1960. I do know my mother had a framed picture of Kennedy in our house, and I doubt it was because of his position on health care.

Coaches, if they’re honest, will tell you that above all else you win with talent. If Democrats are smart – I know, a big if – they’ll understand that, too. Of course, policy is very important, but the candidate himself or herself will be the biggest plus or minus of the whole effort.

I guess we’ll see how it all plays out. In the meantime, I’d advise Democrats to talk among themselves less and pay attention and observe more. Our country will tell us what it needs and what it wants. The city of New York did just that on Tuesday.

It’d be in the Democrats’ best interest to listen.

***

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