Voting for someone.

What if you weren't voting against someone?

Zohran Mamdani, the candidate from my political party running for mayor in New York City, is a threat to the people in power in this country. He is a threat to those who use fear and hatred in politics. He is a threat to the corrupt few who favor the wealthy few as the powerful few.

They’ve noticed. Instead of reflecting on their approach, the political machine of the hate-inspired oligarchy is turning up the fear and hatred to eleven. Prepare to hear a lot about that crazy socialist Mamdani raising taxes and de-funding the police. Hedge fund bros are desperately starting political action committees with former political operatives, spokespeople cut adrift by the lack of other viable candidates are angling for jobs with opposition research, journalists are plugging into their sources. The whole “socialism is political criminality” message is being crafted.

This matters not. If the election were held today, Mamdani would have a convincing win because of the numbers; there are simply more people in this City who want a mayor who is a nice guy who keeps his hands to himself. They want someone neither intimidated by, nor covetous of, wealth and fame. They want an open-minded and kind public servant who went to high school at Bronx Science.

This consensus is agnostic of traditional political alliances. I know people in the City across all boundaries from red to blue who rarely reach a consensus on anything: Wall Street tech workers, software engineers, visual artists, social workers, Catholic and Buddhist clergy, union organizers, healthcare executives, writers, nurses, doctors, raging conspiratorial anarchists, and head-down staff in busy congressional offices in The Bronx. They ALL want Mamdani to be mayor, now, the sooner the better. He has the votes. The oligarchy doesn’t.

Cool! Let’s think. Whom do we have in national politics who reminds me of Mamdani? Almost everyone except those whom almost everyone knows.

Those who seek fame disqualify themselves.

Think about the difference between how you feel about Bernie Sanders vs. Gavin Newsom. Granted, their respective political positions are discernibly different, but as elected officials they have aligned on most decisions of consequence, so why is the former everyone’s favorite crazy uncle and the latter everyone’s weird creepy cousin?

Bernie seeks fame for his ideas. Mr. Newsom seeks fame with his ideas.

Zohran Mamdani reminds me, for example, of Pete Buttigieg, Wes Moore, Josh Shapiro, Tammy Duckworth, J D Pritzker, Ruben Gallego, and Corey Booker. There are others. These are all public servants who have sought fame for their ideas. These come to mind when I consider who has has now and again promoted democratic wisdom.

The Democratic party is so hopelessly feckless that they only seem to seek guidance from George Clooney, Nancy Pelosi, President Obama, Bill/Hillary Clinton, and now Kamala Harris because these voices don’t, or only minimally, offend the donors. They all held office, so the media gives them a pass. They’re safely beyond holding future office.

The real talent, the people like Zohran Mamdani, Pete Buttigieg, Wes Moore, Josh Shapiro, Tammy Duckworth, J D Pritzker, Ruben Gallego, and Corey Booker, are regarded as not-quite-ready somehow. They are the hopeful future, but they just aren’t cooked right now.

To digress a bit, the publishing of Vice President Harris’s 2024 campaign memoir right now, at this moment, is tone deaf. Madame Vice President, you lost, and your loss was a disaster for humanity. Your reflections on your failed candidacy are best delivered quietly, to the next generation, and without pursuit of commercial reward. Your political post-mortem should have been a talk to a political conference or perhaps a long-form article in some think-tank’s journal. You have a earned a generous government pension by now. Kindly enjoy it in obscurity.

This myopic disregard for the where the gorilla is going to sit is what plagues both the Democratic party and the press. Mr Mamdani is having none of this. He returns to his central message every time anyone slings the mud—the cost of living in New York City is too high. It is too high because the top 1% is taking community resources from the bottom 90% in the form of a byzantine system of tax breaks, income exceptions, and sheltered wealth.

He never mentions Trump. He doesn’t take ad hominem swings at his opponents (despite a target-rich environment). He simply says kids should eat at school if they want to, rents have got to come down, groceries should be available for purchase from the government, and we should stop charging each other to get to work. We have enough money to make the busses free if everyone pays taxes like everyone else. What a flaming radical hothead.

Mr Mamdani simply proposes, as all Democratic Socialists do, that the top 1% be required to pay taxes in the same proportion as the bottom 90%. Further, much of the fifty trillion dollars of wealth transferred to the top 1% since 1980 needs to come back down to the bottom 50%. The bottom 50% (roughly people making less than $150k/year) would pay taxes on that wealth which would fund the government generously. We all just need for the famous, wealthy, and powerful oligarchy to pay their fair share of our collectively shared expenses and stop new and recurrent theft of wealth of the bottom 50% with enterprises like DOGE and Project 2025.

Zohran isn’t proposing anyone de-fund the police. He isn’t giving free Botox to transgendered immigrants in jail. He wants rich people to pay the same taxes, play by the same rules, and meet the same social obligations as you. He must be stopped, right? That’s crazy talk, right?

The Democratic party can’t touch his message and still hear the ka-ching of donations from friends of George Clooney and Nancy Pelosi who party with Bill Maher, Hillary Clinton, and the Obamas. These political string-pullers will sit on their early money, and it is early money that counts in politics since Citizen’s United.

I don’t know what to do about the Democratic Party. I left. I hope it gets fixed.

Honestly the best news for all of us is that the GOP is imploding far worse and far faster.

That leaves people to vote for. The people we’ve been voting against seem to be taking care of their own destruction. That’s a start.