The new power broker: How Zohran Mamdani muscled NYC’s Democratic establishment | CNN Politics
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New York politics and the Democratic Party have a new power broker after Zohran Mamdani’s picks swept three US House primaries. Hakeem Jeffries, the Brooklyn-based House Democratic leader, is losing two incumbent members and facing an ascendant band of agitators. And the people long in charge in Democratic politics, including the ones who for decades thought of themselves as the insurgents, aren’t happy about it.

Outside Rep. Adriano Espaillat’s primary night party, four men on the sidewalk were dressed in full neon sequins, trying to get the party started. Inside, the bar had barely opened.

Espaillat spent 20 years trying to get to Washington and another 10 years in Congress. He arrived to give his concession speech and left in under 10 minutes.

Meanwhile, the real party was going on about three miles away. That’s where Zohran Mamdani was completing his victory lap of three celebrations with candidates who likely would not have gotten near Congress without his endorsements, just a year after he stunned the political world by beating Andrew Cuomo in the Democratic mayoral primary.

  • DagwoodIII@piefed.socialEnglish
    31·
    7 天前

    “You’re going to get a lot more votes with a handsome couple than you will with a million well researched position papers.” That’s the end of my first comment.

    “A lot of people vote for pretty faces. Many, many more than vote for policy.” That’s the end of my second comment.

    What confused you?

    • SoupBrick@pawb.social
      4·
      7 天前

      Ah my bad. I though you said, “Many, many more vote for policy.” I missed the ‘than’.

      I disagree. We will see who is right as history moves forward. We haven’t had politicians who actually deliver positive life altering changes for a very long time.

      Mamdani has proven already that he is using his positional power to change NY for the better. If you want to see the ways he has taken action, drop by his YT page. He has a great PR team that highlights the things he is working on or has done.

      • hcf@sh.itjust.works
        2·
        6 天前

        We haven’t had politicians who actually deliver positive life altering changes for a very long time.

        I think this is only partially true. Say what you will about Obama, but he did meaningfully improve a huge number of people’s lives just by raising the age restriction for kids on their parents’ insurance plans and a few other programs for the expansion of medical care coverage.

        He’s still a shithead who authorized the bombing of hospitals abroad and failed to deliver universal healthcare, but it was nice—even for me—to get just a crumb of progress for the first time at a point in my life where it made the biggest impact.

        Same thing with Trump-- I think the stimulus checks were both objectively and subjectively a good thing.

        The problem is, we can do so much better than crumbs.

      • DagwoodIII@piefed.socialEnglish
        1·
        7 天前

        Personally I like Mamdani. I voted for him.

        That said, he was incredibly lucky to get elected. Incumbent Mayor Adams got caught in a massive scandal, and Andrew Cuomo was tainted by another scandal.

        Even with that, he barely won, with 51% of the vote. Kamala Harris got 65%.