The election
A happy update from my post about voting: Zohran Mamdani won the Democratic Primary by a wide margin. To say it's joyous would be an understatement.
A few things stand out in 'this election cycle':
- He won despite massively outspent by allied super PACs. Uber, Michael Bloomberg, and Bill Ackman spent $87 per vote for Cuomo's campaign and it all went to nothing.
- He won despite The New York Times weird semi-endorsement of Cuomo over him, saying that Mamdani didn't "deserve a spot on New Yorker's ballots." The Times broke the commitment they had made just last November because they wanted so much to endorse the sex pest and try to tank Mamdani's campaign, and they're continuing to write barely-disguised hit pieces on him every day.
- He won in part because we went out and volunteered. I did. More than half of my friends did. The level of actual civic involvement eclipses anything I've ever seen, even from the Bernie and Obama campaigns. People really put the work in: I saw his canvassers on the street every day for a week.
- The billionaires who backed Cuomo are panicking, trying to find another 'moderate' candidate to throw money at in order to spoil the race.
I'm as uninspired by the New York Times, most Democrats, the billionaire class as ever. The money in politics and the stupidity of the "centrist" regime has become more obvious and basic. We don't have to wonder who's on the attack and why: the days when we were just learning about the Koch brothers are long past. The ads say at the bottom who the funders are. The funders write on Twitter about how they're trying to buy elections.
But the inspiration far outweighs it, and is broader than just Mamdani. My local council member Lincoln Restler sailed to reelection against against a Democratic-machine-backed challenger who was put in the race to counter his safe-streets work and more. Brad Lander proved to be thoroughly skilled, cool, and likeable. Shahana Hanif successfully fended off her well-funded challenger who was running in large part on a pro-Israel line. Sure, we still have Kathy Hochul, but a lot of New Yorkers have fairly good politicians up the stack right now.