By Daniel McCarthy
Zohran Mamdani is the latest sign establishment Democrats don鈥檛 know how to handle a populist challenge.
They haven鈥檛 learned anything from the defeats right-wing populism inflicted on them with Donald Trump.
Now they鈥檙e knocked on their backsides by a new generation of left-wing populism in their own party.
Making Mamdani mayor of New York City is like electing Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., president鈥攎aybe even worse.
But in an era when populism keeps gaining momentum, Democratic insiders habitually turn to political has-beens to rescue the party.
First it was Hillary Rodham Clinton, who staved off Sanders only to lose to Trump.
Then it was Joe Biden, who got lucky in an election dominated by COVID-19 lockdowns and George Floyd protests, even as Democrats knew he was far past his 鈥渂est-by鈥 date.
So, the setback Trump鈥檚 right-of-center populism suffered in 2020 only set the stage for a comeback of historic proportions four years later.
Democrats should have noticed their playbook wasn鈥檛 working even back in 2021, when Terry McAuliffe, the ex-governor and old Clinton crony they trotted out to run for Virginia鈥檚 top office, went crashing to defeat at the hands of Glenn Youngkin, a Republican who didn鈥檛 have a populist background, but who spoke to popular fury at lockdowns and rising crime.
Mamdani is the crudest kind of left-wing populist, offering outright socialism, including state-owned grocery stores, as his answer to New York City鈥檚 problems.
His medicine would in fact make things a lot worse, driving more high-earners out of the city, in a second exodus after the one COVID-19 triggered.
A city already spending too much will have less revenue to pay for the even higher spending Mamdani wants, but that didn鈥檛 register with Democratic primary voters last week.
What they saw and heard was a young, handsome Mamdani telling them more free stuff could be theirs. All they had to do was end Andrew Cuomo鈥檚 political career.
Cuomo didn鈥檛 take Mamdani鈥檚 challenge seriously enough, but then, top Democrats didn鈥檛 take voters seriously enough when they got behind Cuomo in the first place.
He was damaged goods, as well as yesterday鈥檚 news, a man who鈥檇 left the governor鈥檚 mansion in disgrace four years ago.
At a time when all the old idols are falling, did hauling this one out of the dumpster really seem like a bright idea?
The party establishment might as well have run former Rep. Anthony Weiner鈥攁nd in fact, he was on the ballot last week, too, running for a City Council seat.
MAGA populism, unlike Mamdani鈥檚, doesn鈥檛 spring from thinking there shouldn鈥檛 be billionaires.
On the right, populism is about getting rid of barriers to middle- and working-class prosperity, by bringing jobs back to America and eliminating taxes on tips, for example.
And the right鈥檚 populism is cultural as well as economic, emphasizing common sense, patriotism, and the rejection of woke ideology.
In a clash between rival populisms, the conservative kind prevails against what Mamdani and Sanders represent鈥攊n most places.
But New York is a blue city where Democratic loyalties run deep, and now that Mamdani is the party鈥檚 nominee, stopping him in the general election will take everything that non-socialist Democrats, independents, and Republicans together can muster.
The only way center-left Democrats will avoid this kind of debacle in the future is if they end their recycling program for Clintons, Bidens, Cuomos, and Weiners, and figure out what a mainstream Democratic populism in the 21st century might look like.
Democrats need a populism with less socialism and more patriotism, even if that looks a little more like the GOP鈥檚 formula鈥攁fter all, it鈥檚 what works.
The party of Franklin Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy used to know how to compete with Republicans for voters who were proud of being Americans, before identity politics and the Davos [World Economic Forum] mindset took over the party鈥檚 elites.
But today, the few Democrats who point their party back in the direction of Middle America are shunned for doing so: Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., for one.
The party that made excuses for Biden up to the minute he was humiliated on national TV has been lately seeding the press with claims Fetterman isn鈥檛 mentally fit for office.
His fitness wasn鈥檛 an issue when he was elected in 2022: Democrats stood by him despite the stroke he suffered that May.
But that was before he started to buck party orthodoxy.
Late last month, Susquehanna polling found Fetterman doing better with Republicans than with Democrats in his home state, with 45% approval from GOP voters versus just 40% from his own party鈥檚.
Democrats are shooting the messenger.
Without a populist message that isn鈥檛 as far left as Mamdani鈥檚, they鈥檙e doomed to defeat in the country鈥攁nd doomed to victories in blue cities that may hurt even more.
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