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Abbreviated Pundit Roundup: Gov Hochul (finally) endorses Zohran Mamdani [1]
['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']
Date: 2025-09-15
Kathy Hochul/New York Times:
Why I Am Endorsing Zohran Mamdani Zohran and I don’t see eye to eye on everything, and I don’t expect us to. I will always reserve the right to disagree honestly and to argue passionately. But I also believe that New York State and New York City are at their best when we stand together against those who attempt to tear us apart. For all these reasons, I am endorsing Zohran Mamdani in the upcoming election for mayor. And I look forward to working with him to ensure that New York City’s best days lie ahead.
x New York City deserves a mayor who will stand up to Donald Trump and make life more affordable for New Yorkers.
That’s @ZohranKMamdani.
https://t.co/i9I0OzDdXJ — Kathy Hochul (@KathyHochul) September 14, 2025
Associated Press:
What past election results can tell us about the New York City mayoral race To understand the coalitions these candidates have built, The Associated Press examined precinct-level results from the last two Democratic mayoral primaries. Adams skipped the Democratic primary this year, while Cuomo finished almost 13 percentage points behind Mamdani once ranked-choice tabulations were run. Sliwa ran unopposed in 2025. Should Cuomo and Adams remain in the race, the AP analysis suggests Mamdami could have a clearer path to victory, assuming recent voting patterns repeat themselves. Sliwa, who remains a long shot in the heavily Democratic city, could also draw votes away from Cuomo and Adams - the more moderate candidates - further helping Mamdani… Mamdani's base stretched into multiracial, lower- and middle-income, and gentrifying areas. He also turned out voters at comparatively high rates to his rivals while also casting a wide enough net to siphon off support among demographics that, four years ago, were not voting for progressive candidates.
That’s “more moderate” compared to Curtis Sliwa (R).
x One reason you get deranged takes like this from people who used to oppose Trump, is that the mental and moral gymnastics it took to become a Trump supporter/apologist requires a simple mantra, “The Left is worse.”
So you work to constantly convince yourself that’s true.
https://t.co/uPO1HbTbaR — Sarah Longwell (@SarahLongwell25) September 13, 2025
Max Burns/Twitter via Threadreader:
A Gen Z colleague described the "blackpill mindset" to me in a way I'd never heard before:
For younger kids today, especially men, there's a pressure to either "get rich at any cost" or "get famous at any cost." They use irony and crude memes to mask the deep anxiety they feel. What stood out to this person was the "lol nothing matters" attitude Kirk's assassin tried so hard to project in his ironic bullet inscriptions, political-but-mostly-stupid meme Halloween costumes, and the gamer culture he was steeped in. His politics almost feel secondary. We're seeing an uptick in "ironic" phrases written on bullet casings and manifestos that are peppered with Very Online references meant to be read and understood not by the media, but by these shooters' online peers. They want to be remembered as the people who "went for it." It speaks to an alienation that younger Amercians (disproportionately men) try to heal not through therapy but through online game communities, Discord, and validating themselves online. Their goal isn't news coverage - it's to be cheered on their niche forums of choice.
New York Times:
Nick Fuentes: A White Nationalist Problem for the Right For years, conservatives hoped that the notorious white nationalist would go away. Instead, Mr. Fuentes has gained more traction, even while opposing the president. There is now growing alarm among leading conservatives about Mr. Fuentes, who routinely tests the cultlike devotion of his young male fans by savaging their patriarchal figure, President Trump, for not being right-wing enough. In the process, he has emerged as one of the loudest voices on the right to turn on the president. “When I was a teenager, I thought he was a Caesar-like figure who was going to save Western civilization,” Mr. Fuentes, 27, said in an interview. “Now I view him as incompetent, corrupt and compromised.”
New York Times:
In an Era of Deep Polarization, Unity Is Not Trump’s Mission President Trump does not subscribe to the traditional notion of being president for all Americans. The first few minutes of President Trump’s Oval Office address after the assassination of Charlie Kirk last week followed the conventional presidential playbook. He praised the victim, asked God to watch over his family and talked mournfully of “a dark moment for America.” Then he tossed the playbook aside, angrily blaming the murder on the American left and vowing revenge. That was stark even for some viewers who might normally be sympathetic. When Mr. Trump appeared later on Fox News, a host noted that there were “radicals on the right,” just as there were “radicals on the left,” and asked, “How do we come back together?” The president rejected the premise. Radicals on the right were justified by anger over crime, he said. “The radicals on the left are the problem,” he added. “And they’re vicious. And they’re horrible.” Mr. Trump has long made clear that coming together is not the mission of his presidency. In an era of deep polarization in American society, he rarely talks about healing. While other presidents have typically tried to lower the temperature in moments of national crisis, Mr. Trump turns up the flames. He does not subscribe to the traditional notion of being president for all the people. He acts as president of red America and the people who agree with him, while those who do not are portrayed as enemies and traitors deserving payback.
Jordan Weissmann/The Argument:
Charlie Kirk’s killing, and Trump’s response, are a danger to liberalism The president is seizing a national tragedy to threaten a crackdown on his opposition. I want to be plain here: Kirk’s shooting was an unjustifiable crime against both a human being and free political disagreement. We cannot have sincere debate if people are at risk of getting shot over it. The shooting was a dangerous strike against liberal values, and so too was Trump’s response. In reaction to a national tragedy, a sitting president implied he would use the power of the state to break the infrastructure of a rival party. That he would even float such a thing is cause for deep alarm. Earlier today, my colleague wrote a column imploring you to tune out all of the “abstractions” and arguments over Kirk’s legacy. But there’s nothing abstract about Trump’s words. He’s talking about action. The president was only slightly more ambiguous about his intentions than the right-wing influencers who, hours earlier, had called for open institutional warfare on liberals and progressives in response to Kirk’s shooting.
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