Driving the news: On Wednesday, many Democratic lawmakers and officials either denounced Mamdani or notably declined to rally around him. Republicans — including President Trump — crowed about Democrats embracing a democratic socialist who has called for reduced police funding and sided with Palestinians in the Gaza war.
The top two Democratic leaders in Congress, Sen. Chuck Schumer and Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, both New Yorkers, declined to endorse Mamdani even as they applauded his victory.
New York Rep. Laura Gillen, from Nassau County, called Mamdani the “absolute wrong choice for New York.”
Rep. Tom Suozzi, also from Nassau County, said he had “serious concerns.”
Major Democratic donors — who poured tens of millions into a Super PAC for Cuomo — were having private discussions Wednesday about whether to back an independent run by Cuomo in November’s general election, or rally behind unpopular incumbent Mayor Eric Adams, who’s also running as an independent.
Instead of thinking about that unrelated grudge you have, how about we focus on how this happened?
Mamdani won because WE SHOWED UP and VOTED IN THE PRIMARY.
This is how we replace the establishment centrists in the Democratic Party.
VOTE. IN. PRIMARIES.
You guys showed up and voted into the primary because you got a good candidate to vote for. You also got a candidate that decided listening to why immigrants voted for Donald Trump and trying to address their concerns are far more productive than blaming them for the loss in 2024. I see plenty of democrat supporters in Lemmy that are doing the exact opposite and gloated over the fact that these people are getting fucked over by Trump. That’s not how you win back voters, as proven by Mamdani here.
My point is we get them ALL THE TIME. People just don’t learn about them and show up for them. Congressional primaries see less than 15% turnout, yet people wonder why nothing changes. It’s simple. Retirees always vote in primaries and pick the centrist. That’s why everything stays the same. The DNC is not ‘handing us bad candidates’ in the general. We’re not picking the good candidates in the primary.
I get what you’re saying. My point is that people don’t pay attention because they don’t see someone that actually listens to them. If a candidate was listening to them, their existence would be known to most of the people who don’t show up for the primary and they would’ve shown up.
Right. That’s the problem. The candidates aren’t trying to date us. We are supposed to be selecting OUR representation. This is the message we should be sharing with one another proving how political engagement actually changes things, instead of the same old misinformation about ‘the DNC controlling everything’ and ‘two wings of the same bird’ nonsense. We just proved that turnout = change. We need more people to take this seriously.
No, the political candidates are trying to gain their votes, which is more serious than “dating”. If they can’t even put in the effort to show themselves as a listener, why would anyone trust that they will fight for them to change the system to fix their problems?
Your logic completely relies on an ideal form that most Americans cannot hope to achieve due to them living paycheck to paycheck and having more direct problems they need to care about.
What Mamdani has proven is that if you show that you’re willing to listen to them, they will show up for you for the primary despite them not being engaged in politics. Did you think the reason all these people are showing up to vote because they’re suddenly well-informed on the political landscape and looked into each candidate’s history to make the right choice? I doubt that. I also doubt they will show up to the next primary if the candidates are just as unexciting as previous primaries.
You misunderstand. I’m saying people don’t want big money candidates, right? We want new, progressive, people like us. Those candidates run often, but they don’t have the money to reach you. If we did our job of researching and voting for all of the candidates in every primary we are eligible to vote in, we wouldn’t have a government full of career incumbents.
Mamdani had grown a network of 50k people canvassing NYC for him. That’s hardly possible in Texas districts without a big fuel budget. We need to do our job of actively looking for our representation in every primary, rather than rewarding the wealthy ones that can afford to show up in our living rooms.