It Could Happen Here - Zohran Mamdani Wins NYC Dem. Primary 

Episode Date: June 26, 2025

Gare and Mia discuss the New York City mayoral primary and what it means for the Big Apple and the future of the Democratic Party. Sources/Links: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yxyXXVoi514
 https://www.nytimes.com/live/2025/06/24/nyregion/nyc-democratic-primary-election-mayor https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/06/24/us/elections/nyc-mayor-primary-results-precinct-map.html https://www.instagram.com/reel/DKvdChiOFLv/ https://gothamist.com/news/nearly-a-quarter-of-nycs-early-voters-hadnt-voted-in-a-democratic-primary-since-2012See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart podcast. Call Zo Media. This is It Could Happen Here. I'm Garrison Davis. Today I'm joined by Mia Wong. I am reporting from the beautiful and sunny People's Republic of New York City. And we are Zo-back. It is Clover.

Dime Square is on suicide watch. Zo-mentum is sweeping the nation. Zoran Mamdani has won the Democratic primary for the mayor of New York City, beating veteran sexual harasser Andrew Cuomo. It was quite a night in New York last night. We are recording this Wednesday morning The final ranked vote will be done in about a week But Cuomo has conceded the race to Zoran who has declared a pretty decisive victory It's been very funny Seeing the dashing weeping of the Cuomo camp has been very funny

New York has officially been upgraded from a tier 2 to a tier 1.5 Chinese city. Give it another decade, it will have entered Chinese civilization. The vibes are good. The vibes are good. Well, the only difference is that now we will have an actually communist government in a city instead of the fake state capitalist governments of the Chinese megacities. Objectively more communist than a 1.5 Cheney city government. An American bogey lie.

It was a pretty exciting night in New York last night. I and many people were not expecting a clear result so soon. I think Cuomo conceded around 1030 as the vote was still coming in, but it was pretty clear that Zircon did a very, very impressive sweep. Really solid turnout across the boroughs. Just to get a sense of where we were at, I got to announce to a pretty large room full of trans people at the Metropolitan Bar that Cuomo conceded to Zoran, and Zoran has won.

And I had not felt better in months. It was really invigorating. This was the first ray of hope in a political sense that I've that the that's been like so deeply felt. Nothing ever happens camp is is finally finally taking his. So jover for nothing ever happens. The sheer the sheer like joy and excitement being in like a room of like 100 100 queer people as as as Cuomo gets defeated and Zoran securing the primary. It was, it was just invigorating. In many ways, this feels a lot bigger than even like AOC's win a few years ago.

And it feels so much more real than like the Sanders campaign really ever did. Because New York is such a, it's such a condensed, concentrated area. Now it has not quite like an inevitability, but a pretty strong certainty of what's going to happen come November in the general election. Yeah, and I think the thing that's maybe in some ways the biggest deal about this is that New York was like the capital of the giant sort of right-wing backlash inside the Democratic Party to 2020. Yeah. Right. Like this is the city that elected Eric Adams in 2021, right? Like it just straight up a cop is ruled for like four years by just like this unhinged corrupt alliance of like

fucking real estate developers and like unhinged right-wing billionaires and the cops who ran this really really effective sort of politics of like the demonization of unhoused people and like anti-immigrant politics and The shift right in this in the New York Democratic Party like single-handedly shifted the entire country to the right You could literally see where the New York media market was in the 2022 elections You could see on the map who was getting the news because it was so right wing. And that's just broken. That whole thing, like this place, which was like the capital of the kind of revolution, broke. And that whole tide, like you can, it's, you know, in the same way that like, Hunter S. Thompson talked about how you could see, like, you could see the, of the 60s broke standing in Vegas like sitting here right now you can see the place where

the tide of that right wing surge in New York broke it was last night we saw their high point yeah they couldn't elect the fucking sexual predator that was as far as they could go a Cuomo to like like yeah I know some people are slightly annoyed about like the outsized influence of the New York mayoral election affecting everybody who's online and cares about politics in the United States and even abroad. But this is not only is New York the biggest city in the country, this is more so a representative battle for the future of the party and like what the future of

Democratic politics and I'm just a Democratic Party but literally like like democracies and like what the future of politics in this country is going to be is kind of emblematic over how this Race went are we going to go back to like the same old establishment? Dem party stuff Clintons Cuomo's Obama Biden Harris or are we actually going to legitimately chart a new course forward to counter this fascist element taking power across the country? And against nearly all odds and like $30 million, the underdogs actually won and pulled it off really strongly. And this really is like the battle for the future of the party.

Early turnout was massive for this primary. In the final three days of early voting, we saw like the youngest demographic of voters come out in high, high numbers. One quarter of early voters were first time Democratic primary participants, and young voters between the ages of 25 and 34 made up the largest share of early turnout. And this was all up against the entire forces of the Democratic Party establishment coming together in the past few months specifically to stop Mondani from taking the primary election. There was $25 million of Super PAC funding behind Andrew Cuomo,

which is the largest in New York City mayoral history. This PAC was backed by Michael Bloomberg, DoorDash, Bill Ackman, a Trump funder. And this PAC allowed Cuomo backers to spend three times as much money than what Cuomo's actual campaign legally can. In comparison, Mamdani's PAC had just $1.2 million plus $500,000 in anti-Cuomo spending from the Working Families Party. In an attempt to seal the deal, the Cuomo team got the coveted Bill Clinton endorsement? Really? Really forming like the Touchers Alliance with Cuomo and Clinton.

Bill Clinton, Bill Clinton, there's one more sex pest for you to endorse. It's time for you to endorse Donald Trump. One world job. That really was emblematic of the type of Democratic Party that Mamdani was up against, and the one that working people of New York and people around the country were were hoping might finally get defeated after it's won one over on Sanders for the past like eight years. And last night, it finally happened. Yeah, and I also want to see like, this is not just we're talking about the sort of political apparatus, the Democratic Party being deployed in support of Cuomo, it wasn't just like the DoorDash guys like bringing out their checkbook it was like

the actual internal political machines of a whole bunch of very very important and influential local and sort of mid-level political officials through their entire political machines behind Cuomo and they got fucking rolled in ways that are just absolutely hysterical. Entire political machines basically just got annihilated trying to stop this. It reminds me in a lot of ways of like the way that like a bunch of the old machines broke in Chicago with Brandon Johnson where like you had like Mike Madigan making one last appearance, the most powerful figure in Illinois politics for 30 years and just gets

crushed in that election so this was this was both a Money effort and a were using her political machines on the ground try to do this and they fucking lost And it rules They were photoshopping images of Zoran to make him look more brown and Muslim. They were making his beard longer, they were making his skin and his hair darker. Like, they were pulling out all the stops. And it didn't work. It was like Clinton 2008, like Barack Hussein Obama, like birther conspiracy shit. Like, that's the last time I remember this party being this racist.

Like, very specifically in these lines. And it failed! And it didn't work. It failed. Yeah. We'll talk about some of the actual results and Zoran's campaign itself after this break. Alright, we are back. It's a beautiful sunny day in New York. It's actually way too hot. There's a massive heat wave sweep going through the entire East Coast. New York has been like a hundred degrees the past few days. Thank God it was a hundred degrees on the day of

the election. It kept all those Cuomo supporters home. We're calling him Mandate of Heaven Mondani. Good stuff. So let's talk about the actual results so far. So as of this morning, Wednesday morning, we got 93% of the vote in on the first rank. Mondani has 43.5% versus Cuomo's 36.4. And Zoran ally, Brad Lander with 11.3, followed by a whole bunch of others. Now, really as soon as like numbers started coming in, like after the early vote, which we expected would lean in favor of Zoran. But after more and more results started coming in, Manhattan started looking more and more orange.

And that's the color the Times is using for Zoran. And this was the first, like, sign for me that Zoran might be having a pretty good night because people were expecting that, you know, pretty big chunks of Manhattan and certainly, like, Staten Island and the Bronx would be going towards Cuomo decisively. Or at least, if this was going to be Cuomo's night, that's what we would be seeing. And that's not what happened.

The northern tip of Staten Island leaning towards Mamdani and really most of Manhattan, except for the upper west side and the upper east side, went to Zoran. And that is like super, super, I guess, like surprising, but like positive surprise, like surprisingly, this is this is like this is great. Yeah. Like a a really really strong night Yeah, what one of the most interesting trends of this was that my Tommy just just absolutely Annihilated like every Asian district up up 15 up 15 and not huge Okay, so you would kind of expect this in South Asian districts

He he went in to a bunch of what are generally pretty conservative like like Chinese districts and like queens and shit and Just fucking rolled them Yeah Like in like South Brooklyn like a very very powerful sort of like right-wing Chinese political machine like went to war against them Just annihilated right the Asian vote in general had kind of been trending right in the last half a decade based on sort of like anti-immigrant shit anti-homeless shit and all of that just like

Instantly pivoted everything south of Astoria and Queens just just full full Zoran Yeah, and like just rolled these districts and I think this is a thing where I think we're gonna talk more about the ice stuff later But I genuinely think part of what we're starting to see here is like Brad Lander who and MVP Brad Lander honestly like like a critical part of this who knows to him like absolutely like We certainly have different opinions on some key issues But he really pulled out the stops to make sure that Cuomo does not get in yeah and help Momdani defend against some pretty pretty horrific Yeah, Islamophobic attacks. Yeah, and like and that alliance I think was actually was really really important because it meant that the kind of like, left flank of the liberals and the progressives

and sort of social democrats weren't fighting each other, which has been what's happening in like fucking every other city. Yeah. Is that these two factions go to war and then like, just the fucking sex predators win the election because of it. And sure, you get a very, very important strategic alliance that allows a bunch of people to vote for Mamdani who wouldn't have and this sort of alliance that they forged here was just like stunningly successful basically like outperformed expectations basically everywhere I think this is

also a kind of decisive anti-ice thing because both Mamdani and Lander have been actually straight up on the front lines of like anti-ice stuff Lander famously got arrested for trying to get in the way of just hideously illegal disappearance of one of his constituents and got fucking arrested for it and I think that stuff we're seeing the political impacts of Everyone being like holy shit. They're trying to deport like every non-white person in this country. Yeah. Momdani up six points with the Hispanic, up five with white, plus 15 Asian. Cuomo is up 18% with the black vote.

And Cuomo like underperformed there too. He did underperform. Yeah. One thing that's interesting is the medium income levels. Mamdani did better with middle class and high income vote. Middle class up 10, high income up 13, whereas Cuomo did better up 13 with lower income. Which I mean, this is like some classic, we see this a lot like national elections where, like, people vote against their own interests. This is weird. This is like what the Republican Party gets so much of their support from.

And this is also like education bracket difference. Yeah. And I think some of it also is like a lot of the voters who would have voted Lander and would not have supported Mamdani like were given permission to back him. And that boosted his vote share a lot. Yes, but like in terms of like why lower income is swinging towards Cuomo, specifically people making under 50k a year, swinging more towards Cuomo,

even though Zoran is running a campaign specifically for those people that is also largely up in the Bronx. I will also say, like, the other thing that's very weird about the way these are tabulated is because it's, it's tabulated by area, not by the actual people. Yes, correct. Which means you can get these things where like,

you see this Trump sometimes where like, it looks like he's doing really well in like a district with like a really, with like really low median income. But what's happening is like every single rich person in that district voted and then no one else did. Yeah. So the numbers are a bit weird when you're looking at these sort of like precinct counts.

Yeah. Votes, but yeah, it's been a, I don't know, it's a constant trend in America. Although, again, this is another thing that was actually very, very different from Chicago, where in Chicago it was like basically pure income line for Brandon Johnson, the sort of like vaguely left person. There is like New York is a very like middle class city in a lot of ways. Like there's a lot of people in the middle class bracket, a lot of people in the lower

class bracket as well. But in terms of like like medium income levels, there's like a huge, huge number of like middle class voters specifically. Like the vote map for the middle income is so much bigger. I think it is worth highlighting what made Zoran's campaign special, right? Like people are probably pretty familiar with like the slick videos, which yeah, he was really good at making videos. He is a great communicator. Probably his like biggest, like biggest strength is his ability to be like personable and is just a pretty good public speaker. He's great at communication.

His mom's a relatively well-known filmmaker. It's not super surprising that he put a lot of work into making sure his like online and TV ads were like top notch. One of the more unique things that he did is a huge focus on multi-language outreach. Which like obviously New York is a city of like dozens and dozens and dozens of languages. And the Cuomo campaign did not focus on that, but this was a huge, huge focus of Zoran's campaign. Like when you signed up for phone banking, you got to go through a massive drop-down menu of languages to phone bank in. And Zoran himself was like speaking multiple languages on the campaign trail. He had a huge, huge volunteer

ground game. There was canvassing, door knocks, phone banking. My apartment had people stop in multiple times in the past week alone. The biggest focus of his campaign itself was a focus on affordability. I want to play an ad that started running on TV and online about two weeks ago. This is one of his like less personal ads, right? Like as opposed to his ads where he's like walking around New York, talking to people, like addressing straight to camera, that kind of stuff, which is kind of in the staple of his campaign. So like this ad is not that it is more like a classic political ad, but I think it still hits really hard. And this this one, like kind of brainwormed itself into my head because of how like concise it is. And it hits so many things that even because of like the last general election, right, like the twenty twenty four presidential,

it reflects the things that a lot of voters are concerned about, which is affordability, even if that means they will vote against their interests and vote in support of these crazy tariffs. But I'm going to play this 30 second ad here. There is a myth about this city. It's the lie that life has to be hard in New York. I believe we can guarantee cheaper groceries. We can raise the minimum wage. We can freeze the rent for more than two million tenants

and build hundreds of thousands of affordable homes. It's city government's job to deliver that. We are done settling for less. Are you ready for a city we can afford? Are you ready to win this race? K4 by Zoran for NYC. So that was the main app that's been going across TV the past two weeks. This is his final push.

And it addresses this conception of New York that's definitely been in my mind ever since I was a kid. I always thought this is a city you can only live in if you're very rich, if you're well off. And upon visiting here for the first time, I just realized how much that isn't true. How much this is like actually a working class city. How many people keep this massive, like concrete machine running who do not live in like Manhattan penthouse, obviously. And yes, it can be challenging, but we've like almost abandoned this place as like a zone of combat as like a place to actually like build like an affordable unaffordable stable life and to see a candidate just directly address this is So invigorating he ran on freezing the rent free buses a pilot program for city-run grocery stores

Free to low-cost child care raising wage. And he didn't cave or waiver on controversial issues or apologize or redact for past statements. He got really good at deflecting when people were asking about like previous statements out about how, you know, the NYPD is terrible. He did really good about moving towards talking about how NYPD should not be handling people in like mental health crises, how there should be other public safety workers who can help people in distress who are not the NYPD, and just a very, very slick job handling some massive amounts of anti-woke attacks referencing the 2020 era of politics. Let's go on a break and then talk about his acceptance speech

and the reaction from the National Democrats and Republican parties. OK, we are so back. Okay, we are so back. So the past few months, Democrats have been asking this question, like, how do we how do we reach young voters? How do we reach the young white male vote? We need like a Joe Rogan of the left. All these types of crazy things. And you had this guy, Zoran, who started to get massively popular with young people, including young men. And

you saw this entire party mobilized to stop him, to suppress any movement that Zoran was able to make. And David Hogg, who is currently also being rat-fucked by the Democratic National Committee, has been campaigning with Zoran the past few weeks and he said a few days ago, quote, The same establishment that is spending millions to destroy Zoran will say in a few months that we need to spend millions on polling and testing to win back young people. Open your goddamn eyes. It's free. And yeah, he's right. This is the solution. The solution is staring them in the face and they were wanting to stop it. Yep. Young people are begging you to co-opt them and they won't do it because they don't want to. They would rather have Nazis and 1% higher taxes. They want to be co-opted. And like actually fight for something. Like actually have something to strive for.

And that's something that the Democrats have been so resistant to the past 8 years. Even Joe Biden's campaign wasn't like fighting for anything. It was to like return to normal. Kamala Harris's campaign wasn't really fighting for anything either. It was just to stop Donald Trump. And this is like this campaign wasn't just about beating Cuomo. It was also about like envisioning an actually positive future of the city. And I was legitimately surprised that Cuomo conceded so early on

in his speech he said quote, tonight was not our night, tonight is his night, he deserved it, he won. And from the moves that Cuomo is making it seems like he's probably not gonna run as an independent in the general like he maybe has been planning to if it was closer. It does not seem to be going that direction it seems like he's kind of realized that his career is finished. Yeah, he got rolled. Go back to the suburbs, motherfucker. Chuck Schumer called Zoran Wednesday morning and posted, quote, I've known Zoran Mamdani since we worked together to provide debt relief for thousands of beleaguered taxi drivers

and fought to stop a fracked gas plant in Astoria. He ran an impressive campaign that connected with New Yorkers about affordability, fairness and opportunity. I spoke with him this morning and I'm looking forward to getting together soon. Hakeem Jeffries said, congratulations to Sgt. Mamdani on a decisive primary victory. Assemblyman Mamdani ran a strong campaign that relentlessly focused on the economy and bringing down the high cost of living in New York City. We spoke this morning and plan to meet in central Brooklyn shortly. The top dogs are bowing down. All these Chuck Schumer treats are just straight up.

Please don't primary me because AOC is going to beat him by 30. He's going to get primary. The key is done. We're going to get obliterated. But I was expecting slightly more resistance. 30. He's going to get primary. Like he's done. You get obliterated. But I was expecting slightly more resistance. And it seems like parts of the Democrats have like realized that

this actually is the future of the party now. And there's no use fighting anymore. This is the way to go. Yes, it goes against what all like the consultants are saying, right? Be like, you know, the Democrats went to woke. We went too far to the left.

We have to return to the center, even though that's what we've been doing for the Democratic Party for eight years. This election shows how much of that is like a complete bullshit lie that no, it's not about going too far to left. It's about actually wanting to fight for something real. And I'm kind of surprised that the these these two top dogs are giving in to the Zomentum. I think also, and this is the thing like like, someone of my friends brought up, is that

like, Mamdomny like isn't really like AOC. No. No, no. And this is something like very, very important for like New York politics, which is like, he's not like, like obviously politically he is, but like he's not a complete outsider to New York politics. All these people know him. They know him from like legislative shit. Right. And he has like relationships with them in a way that will

be very, very different if he was like, I don't know, just like some like a complete outsider who'd been like a protest leader or whatever. Sure. He has he has proven himself. He has like tense relations. But like, yeah, but like, like, he like these people know him. And that's something that can matter a lot in terms of like, how these reactions play out in terms of like, yeah, but like, like, he like these people know him. And that's something that can matter a lot in terms of like how these reactions play out in terms of like how desperate they are to stop him. The Attorney General of New York was making like Obama 2008 references being like this. This was the energy in New York last night.

And I wasn't around for for the 2008 presidential election. I mean, I was alive. I just don't remember because I was also in Canada. But it did feel pretty exuberant last night walking around Brooklyn. And like this absolutely still is like a rejection of the Democratic Party establishment. That's what these results show. And we have to like claim a firm victory now, like hardline, with such a strong fist, that like any potential fuckery in the future,

whether it's from like other Dems or from the Republicans, like from Trump, right? Like they're obviously willing to arrest the New York City controller. So like any potential fuckery needs to look so much worse. People have to close ranks around Zoran like immediately and like strengthen him. He needs to be like the face.

Like if they're gonna take this guy down, he needs to be like the face of everything for like the next while we're sort of seeing like slightly smaller sharks, like trailing around the wake of the shark. Like you were talking about the Democratic Attorney General Letitia James, who gave a really, really compelling speech. I actually think she's like a better speaker than any of the people involved in this race. And she is like she is 100% primary in the governor, like not 100%, but like probably primary in the governor next year.

Like this is, you know, like people, people are sort of people have been flocking around this for a while. And I think I don't know if this is this is some real doesn't take a weather man to see which way the winds are blowing shit like they are They are they are living in fear. They are Bending the knee they are etc etc. Oh Very funny and now the Republican Party is going to be on the attack the batons being passed from the establishment Dems to the Republicans

cons being passed from the establishment Dems to the Republicans to try to take down Zoran, or at least paint Zoran as this new like radical face of the Democratic Party. Like racism levels are going to reach never before seen heights. It's going to be like post 9-11 all over again. The National Republican Congressional Committee is already calling Zoran the new face of the Democratic Party, which yeah, he should be. That's like, like fucking bring it. If you want just like a breath of fresh air, I would recommend watching some financial news from from Wednesday morning. Oh, it's so good. Hot, combi summer, baby. Hot, combi summer. I am. I executions in Central Park are about to begin. The Workers Republic is established! The Commonwealth of Labor rules!

We're waiting for Chairman Mamdani to make the final call. Lists are being made. Only you can form the Soviets! Seize your workplaces! The time is now! I do want to play a brief click from CNBC. If you've seen where what Batman is up against in Gotham and what is the guy running from there is up again.

That's what it reminds me of. They're taking Wall Streeters and make him walk out onto the ice in the East River as it did and hope and then they fall through. I mean, there is a class warfare that's good So what's happened here? I think it's a rich type There's a division within the demo That's right, there is a division Eat the rich there is a division of the Democratic Party walk them out onto the ice

We're sending them out onto the ice! We're sending them onto the ice! Zoran, Hand in Hand with Bane and Killian Murphy are going to be sending them onto the Hudson. The spirit of Occupy lives! Oh my god. Bill Ackman, Cuomo and Trump backer said, quote, I was a bit depressed when I woke up this morning, but now I'm optimistic. I have a great idea on New York City and I will share it as soon as I can.

We are looking into legal issues. Good luck. Good luck, Bill. Have fun out there. Oh, no, they're gonna wait. This is just going to do perthorism again. Who cares? Oh, no, bring it bring it I will say like this this coverage like I like people don't understand how on hinges coverage is going to be like in Chicago

When when when Brandon Johnson won the election Brandon Johnson is like significantly to the right? Yeah of mom Donnie, right when Brandon won the election, the Chicago press went so insane that all of them pretended to be pro-immigrants. Oh yeah. Like, do you understand how unhinged the press has to get here? Because like, one of Johnson's things, he was like fucking over like immigrants here,

and he was like, is immigrant, the shelters are putting, put in more substandard and people are getting sick. And like, we had the best coverage of immigration issues under Biden in the country, because specifically that was the thing they were using to attack him. I'm super curious what the times is going to do because like they've also pulled out all the stops the past the past few weeks to try to to try to stop Zoran. It's going to be unhinged. The wind's blowing in his direction now though like I don't know what they're going to do. I don't know like I think that

specific class of people was just going to hate him until the end. I think David Brooks is going to be writing columns about how there are pogroms going on on the streets. Brett Stevens is going to be like, I don't know, they're going to call it like super Lebanon. It's going to be like levels of unhinged no one's ever seen before. Now, speaking of the times, Obama's chief strategist was quoted in a New York Times article Wednesday morning, quote, There is no doubt that Trump and Republicans will try and seize on him as a kind of exemplar of what the Democratic Party stands for. The thing is, he seems both principled and agile and deft enough to confront those sorts of confrontational plays. I do want to read off from a Fox News screenshot this morning showcasing Zoran's horrific, terrifying communist platform, which includes housing, freezing rent, building affordable

housing, creating city-owned grocery stores, fare-free buses, raising the minimum wage to $30 by 2030, and LGBTQIA plus protections, expanding and protecting gender affirming care citywide, making NYC an LGBTQ AI plus sanctuary city, and Trump proofing NYC to end ICE cooperation. Hell yeah. Thank you. Thank you Fox News for that great list of reasons

to like Zoran Mamdani. I think it's actually genuinely really important is he's like the only Democratic candidate in fucking ages who actively campaigns on like putting more funding in the trans healthcare like 65 million dollars of funding. Yup. Fucking being pro-trans wins, being anti anti trans gets your ass kicked back to the suburbs Like fucking Cuomo eat shit eat shit. All of you Democratic strategists fuck off and die eat shit

You will be the ones in the fucking graves that you're digging for us like We have dug your electoral graves This is why when I was at this like trans open mic at Metropolitan last night, like the whole room just like lit up in cheers because yeah, like we've been we've been dealing with the past like six months this idea that like trans rights is like the thing that's killing democratic politics and fucking no it isn't. Yeah and Quomo ran as a fucking transphobe because he is and it didn't work This is the joint feminist transgender victory over the forces of the turf sex predator

Fuck him To wrap up my stuff here. I do want to play one minute from Zoran's acceptance speech, which I think speaks for itself And it's where the mayor will use their power to reject Donald Trump's fascism, to stop And to govern our city as a model for the Democratic Party. A party where we fight for working people with no apology. A life of dignity should not be reserved for a fortunate few. It should be one that city government guarantees for each and every New Yorker. If this campaign has demonstrated anything to the world, it is that our dreams can become reality.

I sure hope this is the model for the Democratic Party going forward. Mia, you wanted to close on a sad note. Yeah, I was really depressed this entire night because I remember feeling a lot like this in like 2023 in Chicago. Yeah, because this happened in Chicago. Yeah, well, it's not this but a version of this Yeah, like obviously Brandon Johnson was like significantly to the right of like everything that's been happening in New York Like not not he wasn't like a right-winger, but he was like, you know Like the local DSA had conflict with him from other stuff

But like, you know, I remember feeling like this and then one year later like SWAT teams Like deployed by the mayor that he claimed he didn't send were beating up art students outside like literally in the middle of downtown for trying to have a Palestine encampment and you know like my bitter cynical personally got rat-fucked by the mayor's office yeah like cynicism on this is like it's gonna be weird there's gonna be a lot of shit that sucks This is this guy is like advocated Defunding the police and and is attacked like the NYPD for years

Yeah, and now he's essentially gonna be in charge of it And yep, he's he's not gonna be able to abolish the NYPD like that. That's not gonna happen No, so there's gonna be a degree of like, you know Mortal like crisis like he's gonna have to work against some of the things that he stated he believes in. Yeah. And on a structural level, there's there's a really significant problem here, which is that like the moment you become the leader of a capitalist city, right, it becomes your job to keep the economy running. And the problem is that like keeping keeping a capitalist economy running means you

have to your job is now maintaining growth for the for this economy, right and maintaining growth through the economy means figuring out how to how to have corporations to need to make more and more money. And that's not compatible with being a socialist. And everyone who has ever tried to like deal with this crisis, you either like you have to pass it's like one, you become a capitalist right and we see this fucking all over the place, right? It's like, you know, it's it's it's Barcelona and Camus coming into power Just like this sort of like left-wing council kind of like book tonight Thing and then they immediately start like evicting migrants right or two

Or two you actually do the thing you do the thing you do You do the actual socialism and we fucking, we like, you know, this is the beginning of the end of fascism in a way where we see a fundamental change in the structure of our economic system. And that can be the outcome of this, but we have to build it, not him. Like, And I think the most he's gonna be able to do is provide a bit of a safer zone for us to operate in in New York. Yeah, yeah. He's going to be introducing more like social democratic

like policies like he's going to make the city financially easier to live in. Yeah, things will suck less, which is good. He is going to, to the extent of his power, fight against Trump's efforts to deport your neighbors. And like that is so much better than both what Cuomo would do and Eric Adams, who was actively collaborating with the Trump administration. So this man's not going to actually be the Lisa Alguim. He's not actually going to be the guy that ushers in the red revolution, which is not even something I necessarily want. But I think

what he can do is make this an actually better place to live right now. Yeah. And specifically make it a better place to live as the national politics in this country are controlled by a fascist and a cabinet full of fascists. Yeah, and he can make the largest city in the country the rock upon which the tide of fascism breaks. And that matters. That does. Well, that does it for us today. Greatest city in the world. Tier 1.5 Chinese city. Let's go.

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