New York City held its party primary elections for citywide offices yesterday, preliminary to the November election. (Actually, of course, "early voting" had begun ten days earlier, and many - like me - had by then already voted by mail.) Thanks to the Ranked-Choice voting system, the official final result will not be known for a week However, the high turnout produced an unambiguous outcome in terms of what New Yorkers seem to want. What they want is a new style of Democratic politics focused on affordability. Whom they want seems to be Zohran Mamdani.
I grew up in New York City in the latter years of what was the city's golden age. By the time the city's fortunes had completely cratered in the 1970s, I was living elsewhere. I was back for the latter years of Ed Koch and the disaster years of Rudy Giuliani, then back again for the Bloomberg plutocracy era. New York has been through a lot, and its residents are rightly skeptical of any existing political solution - at least any politics-as-usual political solution. New York is a wonderfully vibrant city, but not without serious problems for most people who can barely afford to live here.
Affordability became the key issue that carried the young, Muslim, immigrant, Democratic-Socialist State Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani, who started out as an almost unknown wild card in the race.
Perhaps, in a "normal" year, Mandami's lack of accumulated experience to run a city like New York might have effectively disqualified him. As might his morally dubious foreign policy views. (In a sensible society, foreign conflicts would not also be local conflicts and issues in local elections.) Alternatively, what seems to have happened is that Mamdani's radicalism and his charisma as a campaigner - the kind of young charismatic campaigner the Democrats really need right now - may have propelled him forward as worth the risk against the dead-end of politics-as-usual. This is obviously not a "normal" year. Nationally, the Democrats are in disarray, and New York Democrats are reflecting the widespread disdain for politics-as-usual.
Former Governor Andrew Cuomo had a plausible, if somewhat problematic and controversial record as Governor, and he appeared at first to be a somewhat flawed, but still very plausible candidate for mayor. (If politics-as-usual is problematic, however, how much more problematic are dynasties-as-usual, whether Cuomos, or Kennedys, or whoever?) Two factors - name recognition and an initial default assumption, even among those not enamored of him, that Cuomo would be the strongest advocate for the city vis-a-vis the Trump Administration in Washington - made him the initial front-runner. He had the requisite endorsements, which, of course, further reinforced his image as the poitics-as-usual candididate. Unlike Mamdani, however, his campaign lacked the energetic outreach to dissatisfied younger voters. Also, whereas Mamdani emphasized the widespread preoccupation with affordability, Cuomo's campaign seemed stuck in the kinds of safety and security issues that dominated the previous mayoral election in 2021 - the election that produced our problematic incumbent, Eric Adams, who is still on the November ballot as an independent, and who still retains elements of his base, but whose apparent ties to Trump will likely work against him.
Had Cuomo not been on the race, however, perhaps other thoroughly conventional candidates, like Scott Stringer, Brad Lander, and Adrienne Adams might have emerged as major contenders, with the result that the campaign might have seemed less fraught - less a two-person race - than it has turned out to be. On the other hand, it seems unlikely that any of those conventional candidates could have eliminated Cuomo, given his support among wealthy donors and labor unions. Something/someone new was needed to do that.
New York City wakes up today to a newly realigned politics. And the national Democratic Party awakes to a new challenge to its gerontocratic politics-as-usual.
No comments:
Post a Comment