It’s early November 2025 and Zohran Mamdani just won the NYC’s mayor’s race completely shifting American politics at a tectonic level. This does not encapsulate my politics, but it’s my prediction of what we’re about to see and, if I’m going to have bragging rights, I have to predict it in advance.
All the pressure of the right-wing of the Democratic party is now going to come on governor Kathy Hochul and State Assembly speaker Carl Heastie and it can be boiled down to one of two choices:
- They decide to go along with Mamdani’s grand bargain, slightly higher taxes on the ultra-wealthy in exchange for an affordable city, but an end to the endless excuses and mediocrity of generations of democratic elected officials who campaign on empathetic rhetoric and governed on politics of austerity and genocide, or
- They fuck him. They give in to the Schumers, Jeffries, Clyburns, Buttigiegs, Harris, Newsom, and Obamas who just keep doing rug pulls, dump-and-dashes feigning pump-and-dumps, and take their usual stance of “pragmatic” “realism.”
If they opt for 1, the credit agencies are going to go after the city, the right-wing dems are going to sabotage, and the moronic beltway pundits are going to bray, but there are obvious upsides for the Heasties and Hochuls: first, there will be capitalists who will go along if just to get past the erratic chaos of the current morass (not every capitalist is incapable of thinking long term. Even arch villain Bradley Tusk was saying “If we’re not careful, we’ll end up with 25 trillionaires and unemployment at 19%” and warning his fellow capitalists about a French Revolution 2.0). Second, Heastie and Mamdani will be heralded for a generation. A lot of politicians know they’re fucking dorks and the level of popularity they will earn will be significant: big public works buildings named after them level plaudits. They will be appreciated by regular people in a way that should not be entirely discounted. Third, it’s the only thing that can probably save the Democratic party at this point. The party is bankrupt of ideology, devoid of legitimacy, and completely underwater in terms of popularity. At what point do you realize that the Schumers and Jeffries (And their hacks) are completely talking out of their asses?
If they opt for 2, Mamdani and the DSA is forced to engage in a two-line struggle, simultaneously fighting Trump’s fascism and the democrats back-biting, while bleeding enthusiasm as New Yorkers begin to feel misled. DSA and Mamdani might triumph, they might suffer, but Tusk’s prediction will probably bear the most fruit: a giant population, unemployed and underemployed/paid, policed by masked goons, watching an increasingly smaller number of ultra-wealthy shut down entire sectors of employment with A.I. while hiding on space yachts with suspiciously young nubile stewardesses, until it’s had enough and no Bernie Sanders, AOC, or Mamdani will be compelling enough to convince us to stop assembling the guillotines and meekly return to the ballot box.
There’s a choice that has to be made. That is the choice.