How Zohran Mamdani Achieved Escape Velocity from Politics as Usual
An optimistic, disciplined Left can draw centrists into the coalition—by rejecting their politics.
Dania Rajendra and Rebecca Vilkomerson
Less than two minutes into Zohran Mamdani’s Democratic primary victory speech, he welcomed a former rival to the stage. “I want to thank Brad Lander,” he said. The crowd took the cue and chanted, “Brad! Brad!”
Mamdani and Lander wrapped their arms around each other’s shoulders, and the upstart candidate for New York City mayor continued, “Together, we have shown the power of the politics of the future, one of partnership and of sincerity.” They raised their clasped hands, then embraced each other in a real, long hug.
Mamdani and Lander wrapped their arms around each other’s shoulders, and the upstart candidate for New York City mayor continued, “Together, we have shown the power of the politics of the future, one of partnership and of sincerity.” They raised their clasped hands, then embraced each other in a real, long hug.
As we move into the general election season, the joy of primary night may already feel distant. But as Zohran Mamdani moves closer into not just winning campaigns but governing, it is worth looking at how the groundbreaking coalition building of his campaign can be a model for future governance — and open space for more Left power.
It was just the week prior to Mandani’s upset that Lander, New York City’s progressive comptroller, elected in 2021, catapulted to national attention, after Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents arrested him and a Mexican immigrant leaving a court hearing. The organization Jews for Racial & Economic Justice, which was helping organize support for the immigrants in court, called for New Yorkers to come together to protest the arrests.
One of those who came was Mamdani, who joined both his and Lander’s supporters to demand the comptroller’s release. Ending fascism and making New York affordable for all residents was enough for the two candidates and their supporters — who hold significant political differences — to build a mutually constructive partnership.
Mamdani, who is Muslim and openly identifies as a socialist, supports Palestinian liberation, and he is offering bold experiments designed to make the city more affordable. Lander, who is Jewish, is known for his smaller-scale and incremental improvements, and he identifies as a progressive Zionist.
Left-organized coalitions can be a place where centrists are welcome, but their ideas about so-called realistic politics are not. These coalitions draw liberal support to left efforts, rather than moving rightward to try to capture centrists.
“It’s a question for our own party,” Mamdani told The Late Show’s Stephen Colbert in June as Lander, to his right, looked on. “Do we move forward with the same politicians [and] policies of the past that delivered us this present,” the 33-year-old state assemblyman from Queens went on, “or do we move forward with a new generation of leadership, one that is actually looking to serve the people?”
Mamdani was and extraordinarily popular, and his campaign attracted 50,000 canvassers who knocked on more than a million doors across the city. In those conversations, they found broad resonance surrounding the promise of affordability, an issue that cuts across race, gender and income brackets. The rapper RZA, of the Staten Island-founded group Wu Tang Clan, summed up the vision of affordability this way after a discussion with Mamdani: “You could make [Brooklyn neighborhood] Brownsville a place where you wanna live, versus a place where ‘I’m getting the fuck outta here.’”
New York City was electric with political conversation in June, and not just among pundits and electoral campaign veterans. Residents with little electoral experience were using terms like “turnout” at cafes and bars, marveling at the social and neighborly connections that only mass political work can make. For at least a brief period — and possibly long-lasting — Mamdani’s campaign shifted the terrain of electoral politics so profoundly that it was no longer a spectator sport.
“Mamdani ran a campaign that managed to expand the electorate in such a way that no turnout model or poll was able to capture,” reflected a top Cuomo advisor. Implicit in the statement is the idea that the Democratic Party model has collapsed even in organized-money strongholds like New York, where pro-genocide politics dominate both parties, and which saw the sound defeat of Squad member Rep. Jamaal Bowman in 2024.
That collapsed model looks something like a campaign that focuses on pandering to a small number of frequent voters (who skew richer and whiter than the electorate as a whole). It communicates with them through media and advertisements, and pays a large batch of canvassers to try to turn voters out for elections.
When Lander first announced his mayoral campaign a little more than a year ago, he appeared to somewhat be tacking right, with statements like, “Progressives, myself included, were slow to respond to the elevation of crime and disorder.” This served to walk back his earlier criticisms of excessive police funding.
Lander could have doubled down on his apparent move into the center. Instead, with Mamdani’s momentum undeniable, Lander returned to his progressive roots. The two cross-endorsed each other just days before ICE arrested Lander. These two events, in particular, turned Lander into a hero of the race.
Mamdani’s momentum suggests that only bold left visions can achieve escape velocity from politics as usual. The new model: discuss an optimistic left vision by way of concrete policy ideas with hundreds of thousands of unlikely voters. Invite them to join the canvass; thousands did. Finally, trust voters to understand consistent ethical positions, including around Palestine.
The model is the result of a multiyear investment by groups like Desis Rising Up & Moving (which is predominantly Muslim), CAAAV: Organizing Asian Communities, Jewish Voice for Peace, and Jews for Racial & Economic Justice, as well as an increasingly strong left labor movement. For years, all of these groups have been honing their door-knocking infrastructure, expanding their memberships and building solidarity through mass political education. Just like the thousands who demonstrated for racial justice in 2020, the tens of thousands of people who have been showing up in the streets as Israel’s genocide accelerated are also canvassers.
Protesters furious about racial injustice at home and abroad formed a big enough, dedicated-enough nucleus of a canvass that grew far beyond itself.
As centrist denial about the genocide against Palestinians falls apart, many on the Left are negotiating how to engage those who — until recently— were clearly opponents and, now, could be needed allies.
The lesson offered by the Mamdani campaign is that the Left can enlarge the tent by focusing on meaningful action. In this case, the canvassing, which is also something the Left needs to expand. Protesters and canvassers, who are often one and the same, each play a role in shifting public opinion and action.
Mamdani’s political choices — his continued insistence on the importance of Palestinian lives, his track record of standing with the working class — gave so many New Yorkers who have marched against the genocide and for Black Lives a reason to canvass — and they did.
The lesson from the Mamdani campaign is in the canvass: what galvanizes people to participate is a consistent rejection of the anti-democratic center, and the myths, the frames, and the discourse it produces.
People who are taking meaningful action are the sole focus: our base and our power. If we accept centrists while rejecting their myths, we can grow the power to move toward our optimistic left vision. Mamdani’s boldness around Palestine led to a pervasive optimism among many voters that is the opposite of the careful, risk-averse politics that even progressives like Lander generally practice.
Lander, acting in many ways as Mamdani’s junior partner, reflects the reality that the Left can lead without hiding itself. The benefits are huge. When the Left does act boldly in this type of coalition, it’s able to welcome centrists while rejecting the anti-democratic center and the myths, frames and discourse it produces. This is especially true in the ongoing, bad-faith accusations of antisemitism that Mamdani faces, even as he won more Jewish votes than former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who was favored to win.
Popular far beyond New York’s borders, an anti-racist class analysis doesn’t flatten difference, it celebrates it. Mamdani’s confident exuberance about his own cultural particularities invites others to be that way, too. It also makes Mamdani exceptionally effective at opposing racism of all kinds in many emotional registers.
Mamdani was unsparing in his assessment of Andrew Cuomo’s racist legacy as governor, saying, “he has nothing to say to us, because he doesn’t see us as if we are every other New Yorker.” And dignified in demanding Cuomo pronounce his name properly: “the name is Mamdani, M-A-M-D-A-N-I, you should learn how to say it.” New York City is about 70% people of color, and this insistence on respect was deeply cathartic here and across the country.
By naming Islamophobia and the the toll on him, he made room to celebrate Muslim holidays, offer solidarity with other Muslim candidates, highlight the diversity of the city’s South Asians, and showcase Muslim New Yorkers’ political acuity as every other New Yorker (such as the halalflation video). He can even joke about it. Mamdani’s deft undefensiveness highlighted the racism of the incessant questions about antisemitism and Israel, and the lack of concern for Palestinians, Muslims and those in solidarity.
A Jew and a Muslim together make a powerful rejoinder to the incessant, bad-faith charges of antisemitism. Lander’s solidarity expands the space for Mamdani to replace the racist premise behind the antisemitism accusations with a position that represents that of most Americans: Equal rights should be the norm, from New York to Palestine. Mamdani’s lack of defensiveness over this position has also served to highlight the racism inherent in the questions he and so many others face about Israel. It’s unsurprising, then, that prominent Democrats continue a politics-of-division strategy to explain why they did not endorse Mamdani following his shocking primary victory. What is remarkable is now they must disavow or apologize.
That’s the power of the win—a win powered by voters under 45, of all races. Meanwhile, the majority of the city’s most politically influential unions backed Cuomo, following the mainstream labor tradition of endorsing the candidate deemed most likely to win. (Notably, the United Federation of Teachers could not endorse, and the membership split between Cuomo and Mamdani, primarily over Palestine. After Mamdani won, handily, UFT did endorse.)
One thing to note about the Mamdani and Lander pairing is how we can become more resilient, even as our coalition partners stumble. After the primary, in response to a rhetorical attack on Lander’s choice, as comptroller, not to reinvest City funds in Israeli bonds, Lander took a swipe at the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement. Gratuitously adding to his sound fiscal reasoning for the disinvestment, he said, “As a Jew, I am proud that we have these investments in Israel.” This is a significant difference with Mamdani, who not only supports BDS but is the author of Not on Our Dime state legislation introduced in 2023, which would withdraw tax exemptions from charities raising money for U.S. military and Israeli settlements. The coalition held, welcoming the shift in policy while continuing to push for broader application of BDS principles. In fact, making the distinction that Lander did appears to be morphing into bad politics as the tide is shifting toward recognizing, though not actually ending, the genocide in Gaza.
Mamdani is showing how to lead from the Left, even when the coalition has disparate and conflicting views on critical issues, which will be important in the general election — where the significance of organized labor consolidating behind a democratic socialist candidate will be clutch. It’s another indication that these coalitions work best when the Left leads by first attracting voters and others who do not usually participate in politics.
Then, the center will follow.
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My beagle could have beaten Cuomo
Socialists can run a major city, they just need secret political police, rigged courts, and reeducation camps to deal with nonconformists, Mafia criminals, and black marketeers.
Pyongyang is an excellent example of a well run socialist city.
Yup!
I could try to explain the difference between socialism and communism, and the difference between communism and stalinism, but what would be the point?
You not only don’t care about the proper use of terms, you’ve decided to deliberately confuse them.
North Korea is not socialist, but stalinist. Firing squads, fortified and heavily armed borders with non-offending neighbors, huge staged outdoor public rallies to applaud lectures from Dear Leader.
Denmark is the archetypal socialist state: high taxes, high level of public services, pervasive regulation of industry, generous social safety net – that’s “socialism”.
Trump: certainly not a socialist, but beginning to accumulate some stalinist credentials.
Socialism is a socio-economic system wherein the means of production is owned by the State, not private capitalists. Denmark is not socialist. Europe’s most valuable private company, Novo Nordisk A/S, is headquartered in Bagsværd. It is mostly owned by a private charitable foundation, but one completely independent of the Danish government. It is far more regulated by the U.S. government than the Danish government. A.P. Møller – Mærsk A/S, an even larger corporation by employment numbers, is entirely private and headquartered in Copenhagen.
V. I. Lenin said that “The goal of socialism is communism”. He defined communism as a society devoid of social classes, private ownership, and the state itself. North Korea has no private ownership, but distinct social classes and an ever present state. It is not yet communist, but it is socialist. Denmark has widespread private ownership, many social classes – lead by King Frederik X, and a distinct state which has become profoundly anti immigration. It is neither communist nor socialist.
All socialist states require ruthless police systems to bend refractory individuals to the will of the state. North Korea has those police systems in abundance, Denmark does not.
Socialism is a transitory state under Marxist theory – it is the state that leads to eventual communism. The “dictatorship of the proletariat” is the ruling body in the socialist state – which would eventually lead to a “communist” condition when that dictatorship would no longer be needed.
No country has ever achieved true communism.
Do you remember your comment when I ridiculed the phony BLS CES employment statistics released during the 2024 campaign, which were obviously invented out of whole cloth to support the Democrats?
Well, the birds came home to roost today. BLS just issued – this morning – their ‘Current Employment Statistics Preliminary Benchmark (National) Summary’ for the period from March 2024 to March 2025. The BLS liars padded employment numbers by 919,000 in their deceitful 2024 effort to elect a Democratic President.
This is the largest CES annual benchmark revision in history and was easily predicted from the BLS JOLTS data set. BLS fraudulently increased employment numbers during Droolin’ Joe’s Administration and now they are exacting vengeance on the Trump Administration by removing those ghost numbers.
One need not be a credentialed economist to spot such obvious frauds. The only reasons BLS has gotten away with such easily discerned frauds are the American public cannot do basic arithmetic and the media covers for the Democrats.
Historically, Democrats have had talent for in-fighting unless there was a dominant father figure like John Dingell
I remember when Yale classmate of William Milliken, John Vliet Lindsay, Moderate- Republican, was an effective Mayor of New York City and even handled a garbage strike.
Republicans in Michigan started a turnaround for stability and effectiveness when Trump told Vance Patrick, Oakland County Republican Chair, to tell all Republicans that he was supporting Pete Hoekstra for chair
WE MUST GO ONWARD and FORWARD
I was a delegate in the Feb. of 2023 state convention when Kristina Karamo was elected chairwoman of MIGOP. Trump praised her victory. Many others cited her inexperience in party matters as lack of qualification for the position.
By Jan. of 2024 the party’s leadership voted to oust her. Pete Hoekstra assumed the vacancy and led the party during the decisive 2024 state and federal elections.
Hoekstra clearly was a superior MIGOP chair.
“I remember when Yale classmate of William Milliken, John Vliet Lindsay, Moderate- Republican, was an effective Mayor of New York City and even handled a garbage strike.”
I remember when NYC went bust in 1975 due to John Lindsay’s insane regulation, taxation, and spending. During his reign of error, 1,000 manufacturing firms a year left the city or went bust due to regulation and taxation. The city lost a million residents during his tenure. He didn’t seek reelection in 1973 because he knew the financial maelstrom which was coming.
Gerald Ford’s best pseudo quote ever, as President, directed at NYC, was “Drop Dead”.
Interesting article, Bill. The authors from “In These Times” seem to think the answer is an emphatic YES in their efforts to begin the secular canonization of Mr. Mamdani. Though I feel their premise is somewhat flawed in that his victory is seen as David smiting Goliath. What is left unsaid is the extremely left-wing nature of the primary election electorate of the Big Apple and quality of his opposition. Given these factors and his victory in the Democratic primary, his election is more or less a foregone conclusion. Add Mayor Adams’ performance in office – hindered by what is arguably the most dysfunctional City Council east of the Rockies – and the character of Andrew Cuomo (and his political defenestration by Letitia James) coupled with the left-wing nature of the electorate, his victory is not surprising. Though this does present us with an opportunity. I wish to refer TBR readers back to my July 27th “Bonus Comments” on his upcoming election and potential opportunity for Michigan.
Reading this story, three quotes kept ringing in my head. The first is from Margaret Thatcher quote: “THE PROBLEM WITH SOCIALISM IS THAT YOU EVENTUALLY RUN OUT OF OTHER PEOPLES’ MONEY”. The second comes from Peter Schumpeter who warned, THAT CAPITALISM’S SUCCESS WOULD LEAD TO ITS OWN DOWNFALL: WEALTH BREEDS A NEW LEISURE GENERATION OF SOCIALISTS WHO WOULD ATTACK THE VERY SYSTEM THAT MADE THEM RICH. The final comes from a favorite of Mr. Ballenger, H.L. Mencken: “DEMOCRACY IS THE THEORY THAT THE COMMON PEOPLE KNOW WHAT THEY WANT, AND DESERVE TO GET IT GOOD AND HARD.” These are lessons the voters of New York will learn soon enough.
The article spends a good deal of time on his Jewish support, or more correctly, people of Jewish descent who have made their politics their real faith and not the Judaism they, their parents, or their grandparents were raised in. This is noted in the authors dismissive attitude concerning antisemitism found in their comments: “MAMDANI’S DEFT UNDEFENSIVENESS HIGHLIGHTED THE RACISM OF THE INCESSANT QUESTIONS ABOUT ANTISEMITISM AND ISRAEL, AND THE LACK OF CONCERN FOR PALESTINIANS, MUSLIMS AND THOSE IN SOLIDARITY.” Equating the raising of antisemitism with racism gives it – and progressives’ thought on the matter – away. But I suspect that I am not the target audience for the writers of the “In These Times” piece.
The authors talk of Mr. Mamdani as a vanguard of modern progressive thought to lead us into some sort of progressive golden age. They write, “THE LEFT IN THE UNITED STATES HAS GAINED ENOUGH STRENGTH OVER THE PAST DECADE TO BEGIN TO THINK MORE SUBSTANTIALLY ABOUT COALITION WORK AND GOVERNING WITH SHARED INTERESTS. BUT THE LEFT HAS NOT YET GAINED ENOUGH POWER TO FLANK AND DEFEND OUR ELECTED OFFICIALS WHEN THEY, IN RELATIVE ISOLATION, ARE PRESSURED TO VOTE OR ACT IN CERTAIN WAYS, OR FOR THE LEFT TO HOLD THEM ACCOUNTABLE WHEN THEY CROSS THE LINE OF ACCEPTABLE COMPROMISE.
MAMDANI IS SHOWING HOW TO LEAD FROM THE LEFT, EVEN WHEN THE COALITION HAS DISPARATE AND CONFLICTING VIEWS ON CRITICAL ISSUES, WHICH WILL BE IMPORTANT IN THE GENERAL ELECTION - WHERE THE SIGNIFICANCE OF ORGANIZED LABOR CONSOLIDATING BEHIND A DEMOCRATIC SOCIALIST CANDIDATE WILL BE CLUTCH. IT’S ANOTHER INDICATION THAT THESE COALITIONS WORK BEST WHEN THE LEFT LEADS BY FIRST ATTRACTING VOTERS AND OTHERS WHO DO NOT USUALLY PARTICIPATE IN POLITICS.
THEN, THE CENTER WILL FOLLOW.
Too bad that other progressives seem to disagree. In his 2023 review of Sohrab Ahmari’s “Tyranny, Inc.: How Private Power Crushed American Liberty — and What to Do About It”, in “Jacobin”, Matthew McManus, then a lecturer at U of M and currently an assistant professor at Spelman College, wrote the following: “FEW CONTEMPORARY AMERICAN POLITICAL COMMENTATORS HAVE RIDDEN AN IDEOLOGICAL ROLLERCOASTER AS WILD AND CONVOLUTED AS SOHRAB AHMARI’S. BORN IN THEOCRATIC IRAN, AHMARI WAS A MARXIST ATHEIST IN HIS 20s BEFORE BECOMING A CONSERVATIVE CHRISTIAN IN HIS 30s. AND NOT JUST YOUR GARDEN-VARIETY CONSERVATIVE CHRISTIAN: AHMARI WENT FULL ROMAN CATHOLIC, AND FOR A TIME GAINED FAME (OR INFAMY) AS A MAXIMALIST CULTURE WARRIOR WILLING TO TAKE SHOTS AT CENTER-RIGHT PUNDITS LIKE DAVID FRENCH FOR BEING TOO SOFT ON MATTERS LIKE USING THE STATE TO ADVANCE MILITANTLY SOCIAL CONSERVATIVE CULTURAL POLICIES. I BECAME AWARE OF AHMARI AROUND THE TIME OF THAT DEBATE, AND PENNED SEVERAL ARTICLES AND REVIEWS TAKING ISSUE WITH PRETTY MUCH ALL OF HIS TALKING POINTS.
BUT MERCURIAL TO HIS CORE, AHMARI HAS PIVOTED YET AGAIN. SINCE 2020 HE HAS BECOME MORE CRITICAL OF THE CONSERVATIVE MOVEMENT FOR IGNORING THE ECONOMIC TRAVAILS OF THE AMERICAN WORKING CLASS. AHMARI HELPED FOUND COMPACT MAGAZINE, AN IDEOLOGICALLY SYNCRETIC OUTLET IN THE SPIRIT OF CHRISTOPHER LASCH. COMPACT’S AMBITION IS TO ARGUE FOR A STRONG SOCIAL DEMOCRATIC STATE THAT ALSO RESISTS LIBERTINE IDEOLOGIES AND UPHOLDS LOCAL, NATIONAL, FAMILIAL, AND RELIGIOUS COMMUNITIES, OFTEN WITH A REACTIONARY BENT.” And in case one doubts where Professor McManus – a Marxist Sociology Professor (but I repeat myself) – meant, the headline in Jacobin describing the article reads as follows: “SOCIAL DEMOCRACY AND SOCIAL CONSERVATISM AREN’T COMPATIBLE – SOHRAB AHMARI’S CRITIQUE OF CAPITALIST POWER IS SURPRISING AND COMPELLING. BUT AS LONG AS HE REMAINS COMMITTED TO UNJUST HIERARCHIES OF POWER IN GENDER AND SEXUALITY, HE CAN’T BE A COALITION PARTNER WITH THE LEFT”. Professor McManus is right. This is the attitude of folks like Mr. Mamdani, damn near all the progressive left and the authors of the piece found “In These Times”. Attitudes like that are not the way you enlarge your coalition and make the center follow. Or at least me follow them.
Thank you, Bill for giving us a glimpse of what passes for rational thought on the extreme left – raising questions of antisemitism is just a form of racism; that socialism will work and that putative Mayor Mamdani’s de facto theme songs are Alice Cooper’s “Welcome to My Nightmare” and AC/DC’s “Highway to Hell”. Glad I am not a New Yorker, and I don’t think the Big Apple will be on my touring itinerary over the next few years.
Socialist governments do not require a police state to function. In contrast, we have a police state with Trump, the antithesis of socialism.
I saw President Trump getting a standing ovation and thunderous cheers at Ashe Stadium in the very liberal City of New York. The media said Trump was booed by the crowd. Do you think the media lies and gaslights the people? Of course Mamdani will sweep the election for mayor, he can stir the free crap crowd into a frenzy of expectations that cannot possibly play out. Has anyone really pondered his ideas? Socialism has never been a viable way to run a government, unless you want a failure to thrive system. Whale oil beef hooked!
Municipal socialism is dominating this year’s New York mayoral election. A mayoral candidate suggests the city provide municipal owned grocery stores as an alternative to having an urban food store desert in many neighborhoods.
How many municipal utilities are there in Michigan? Ann Arbor may have a November referendum on a municipal utility as an alternative to Detroit Edison’s monopoly.
How many municipalities use tax dollars to collect their residents garbage instead of privatizing it to companies like Waste Management?
Having once lived in Milwaukee which had a series of socialist mayors from 1910-1960. This era was called “sewer socialism, “ with its emphasis on infrastructure development. Milwaukee was viewed by many local government scholars in that era as a national model.
New York City electing a socialist mayor won’t necessarily be Armageddon or paradise. I’m reminded of Mark Grebner’s iconic bumper strip “no worse than the rest.”
When I lived in Ann Arbor, it was a bastion of socialist thought.
Actual left-wing extremists held board and commission seats in city government and a local supermarket was run as a cooperative with local residents as shareholders.
The People’s Republic of Washtenaw’s county seat!
Do we prefer Mamdani over some mayor that doesn’t care about immigrants or the poor.
Many want a mayor who cares.
Lansing 54-A District Court Judge Kristen Simmons dismissed the case against 15 individuals accused of being “fake electors” for President Donald Trump in the 2020 election today. Judge Simmons found insufficient evidence to prove the defendants acted with criminal intent.
Attorney General Dana Nessel, charged 16 Republicans with forgery and conspiracy to commit election forgery. Nessel dropped charges against one elector who turned state’s evidence. No statement on the dismissals yet from Nessel.
It’s another disaster for Dana Nessel.
I know several of the electors who are planning a malicious prosecution case against the State of Michigan. The judge’s ruling specifically found lack of probable cause to believe any crime occurred.
Several of the electors have suffered financial devastation over two years of defending the case.
Michigan Republican insiders are now trying to gather all proof of Jocelyn Benson and her office’s role in the failed prosecution so they can exploit it as ammo against her run for governor.
Lawsuits were filed against the state by several defendants in the failed Flint water prosecutions – which was an earlier legal debacle prosecuted by Nessel’s underlings.
Nessel will likely appeal this dismissal – and good luck to her.
Michigan Advance just published a statement from Nessel re-affirming her belief in the prosecutions.
John James. Tom Leonard an Mike Cox have issued statements lauding the judicial ruling – which was issued by a Whitmer appointee to the bench.
Mamdani is one of the best things to happen to the GOP in New York.
He is dividing Democrats in that jurisdiction and causing mainstream moderate Democrats to gravitate toward the New York Republican Party.
Just like Rashida Tlaib in Michigan. Her non endorsement of Kamala Harris in 2024 was a key factor in Trump taking Michigan. It signalled to Arab-American and other minority and progressive voters it was cool to abandon Democratic Party nominees.
Republican 2020 elector John Haggard of Charlevoix died yesterday just after Judge Simmons dismissed eight felony charges against him and 14 of his fellow electors. Mr. Haggard was reportedly hospitalized with heart issues.
Rest in peace. Most of defendants were over 70 years of age and Dana Nessel’s actions took their toll.
Mr. Haggard’s widow was interviewed by Bridge Michigan following her husband’s death due to a stroke.
She said his entire life changed after the criminal charges were filed against him. He lost his gun permit and $100,000 in legal fees were incurred in his criminal defense.
Haggard had an unblemished history as a respected civic leader before being charged by Dana Nessel.
Mr. Haggard was not the only one who suffered.
Presidential elector Mayra Rodiriguez faced an ethics charge by the Michigan Attorney Grievance Commission due to Nessel’s meritless criminal case.
All those charged have gone though a major ordeal – and Nessel has publicly stated she is going to consider appealing the dismissals.
We have had mayors and other elected officials across the U.S. who were socialist or progressive in nature and the result has not always been successful.
Left-wing extremists were initially enamored with Chesa Boudin being elected as the San Francisco D.A. He was eventually recalled from office after his policies were not effective in combatting serious criminal activity affecting that jurisdiction.
Expect violent crime to skyrocket in New York should Mamdani’s policies be implemented. Also expect his city to be a haven for illegal aliens. Mamdani is pro-criminal, pro-illegal alien and pro-Islam – and his is proud of it.
Mamdani was actually a better candidate than Cuomo.
The recent candidates for New York City mayor were horrible.
Mamdani represents hope to young disaffected Americans who are guided by progressive moralistic goals rather than Old Guard Democrats, whom they view as corrupt and bought off by moneyed interests. In 2018, AOC electrified the progressive Democratic Socialist base in America when she upset a longtime incumbent Democrat who vastly outspent her.
I saw AOC at an event at Wayne State University several weeks after she won her Democratic primary in 2018. She campaigned for Abdul El-Sayed. The large crowd cheered for AOC. Frankly, a young waitress who actually cared about immigrants, the poor and the Palestinian cause struck a chord in many who witnessed a Democratic Party that had become the servant of banks and AIPAC who lavished oodles of campaign contributions to perpetuate their control over a failed U.S. Congress.
Fast forward to six years later, the Michigan Democratic Party has been torn apart over the Gaza War, multiple failed criminal prosecutions by Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel and a 2024 election that saw Donald Trump win Michigan by the highest margin by any GOP presidential candidate since G.H.W. Bush in 1988.
Mayra Rodriguez, a leader in the Hispanic community, was one of the 2020 GOP presidential electors charged by Dana Nessel. Earlier this week all charges were dismissed as meritless.
Not only was Ms. Rodriguez charged criminally but the Michigan Attorney Grievance Commission later filed an ethics complaint against her based upon the same facts alleged in the case filed by Nessel. Nessel later blasted the AGC when a hearing panel had placed a stay of disciplinary proceedings until the criminal charge against Rodriguez in Lansing were decided.
Rodriguez, like Mr. Haggard, as put through a legal ordeal by Dana Nessel when a Lansing judge found no grounds to believe any crime occurred by anyone.
Nessel had tapped into a progressive liberal base in 2018 to obtain the nomination for A.G. She also relied upon minority group endorsements to win a close race. Her tenure as Attorney General has been an embarrassment to the citizens of Michigan.
The Michigan Democratic Party is divided and rank-and-file Democrats are leaving in droves. Some are going over to the Green Party USA or Working Class Party. Next governor election many will go over to independent candidate Michael Duggan. Of course, many will be turning to the GOP as crossover voters or leave the Democratic Party entirely. MDP chairman Curtis Hertel’s plan to “punish” Dem leaders who have endorsed Duggan is already backfiring.
The progressive base constitutes the moral conscience of the Democratic Party. The rest of the party is crumbling as perceived as being bought out by special interests whose interests can be described as “anti-citizen”.