Josh

He will absolutely love having Mamdani as the face of the party for the next two years. He’s a big winner here.

DeBlasio but much less experienced, socialist and stridently anti-Israel would be an interesting experiment in governance.

Or they’re Democrats more than socialists.

Couldn’t agree more. This is why I think in current environment, a Rahm Emanuel or a Ritchie Torres, who are *despised* by many Dems, may have a better shot than a traditional standard issue Dem who is terrified of upsetting any wing of the party and never has an independent thought.

The assumption though is that absent the fear of being called a socialist, these politicians would take more socialist positions. But maybe they are genuinely moderate, like most Dem primary voters are in many elections.

When moderate Democrats take clear, strong, moderate positions that upset the left, they’re still often tarred as “bought off,” phony or weak. Many, especially on social media, conflate “authentic” and far left. How do you advise moderate Dems on how to handle this phenomenon?

No he’s just never held an executive job of any sort, or negotiated major policy, so I don’t think he’s prepared to hold one of the most complex jobs on the planet. Why is this complaint always painted as treacherous, planted by others or dishonest? It comes off as super condescending.

I think lots of people just think Mamdani is way too left and way too inexperienced? Very simple and fair reason for him to lose if he loses.

True. But for the past few decades these kind of strikes have happened under presidents from both parties and no one other than the far left and libertarian right has cared much. The normalization happened a long time ago.

Netanyahu would not have taken that deal.

It shows you how deeply loathsome Mamdani is to a large chunk of the Democratic base. If the far left rallied around Lander they wouldn’t have had this issue.

If that happens it’s a whole different game. I just would think they’d have done that after Suleimani assassination if they had that capability.

Looks like MAGA has already put aside any qualms about it, so I would guess that like almost everything Trump does, the fact that he did it makes 50% of country like him more (they love to see him in action), and 50% of country like him less (the less he does on any issue, the better).

But also, it seems too early to say that a true war is starting. Iran may not even have the ability to strike back against US. They did nothing when we killed Suleimani, for instance, and that was before the attacks from Israel that wiped out a lot of their military capability.

It’s not about how “the left” treated moderates. No normal voter knows how one faction treated another. It’s just that Dem voters have pretty moderate views and like their politicians to reflect those views.

The far left always thinks it’s some conspiracy when moderates win. Dem primary voters are moderates. In fact, they’re so moderate that they RUSHED to a barely coherent Biden when he was the lone moderate standing in 2020. Biden/the media didn’t rig anything. Dems just like moderate candidates.

My guess is someone like @mattyglesias.bsky.social would say any Democrat would be crazy to run on going to war with Iran.

I know what REBNY is. Question is whether average New Yorker does, or is even walking around thinking about the power of real estate interests. My guess is they’re thinking about crime on the subway more.

You think your average New Yorker has any idea what REBNY is or “who is in the bag for REBNY”?

They’re right that many questions are distractions but they’re wrong that the distraction goes away if you ignore it. It goes away if you quickly and honestly just say your position and then move to topics you want to talk about.

The unacceptable “other side” to most ppl on Bluesky is anyone to the right of them. For those ppl, Bluesky’s a great place to hear ppl agree with you—a natural human need. @mcuban.bsky.social is saying that it needs to be more than that to take off and be interesting for him and others like him.

The piece was spot-on. But I genuinely wonder whether all of this focus on “deliverism” and “kitchen-table issues” still doesn’t help Democrats to get to clear, popular answers to the kinds of culture questions that are way bigger drivers of how voters today make their political choices.

With that particular poll, seems obvious that Dems are reading it to say “do you think government should check corporations?” And GOPs read it to say “do you like all this stuff Trump (the current leader of the government) is doing?” That’s how you get that huge spike up.

Most prominent Democrats right now sound like angry callers to sports talk radio picking apart the team’s play calling in last week’s game, while most voters—especially most persuadable voters—don’t know there was a game, don’t have a favorite team and don’t like the sport.

I think any nominee from that side of party would have really struggled. Dem primary voters generally go for more moderate candidates. Given that reality, moderate side of party needs to be more strategic about putting forward younger, more charismatic candidates.

Curious what it means that the very few forces or voices pushing against Biden’s candidacy were more on the moderate end of the party (Carville, Dean Preston, No Labels, Ezra Klein etc.)

I guess we’ll see what works!

I agree these cultural issues shouldn’t matter much, but I think ppl like Rahm are right that they do matter to ppl and stating that you find the warriors of these issues annoying (vs. ignoring the issue altogether) can send a powerful signal so they’ll listen to you on stuff that matters.

Agreed - if you can somehow clearly signal where you stand without antagonizing any group, that’s a great position.

The latter. They don’t have juice but by hitting at them he sends a signal about who he is and what he believes and the type of people he finds annoying. And lots of our bonds with other humans are over a shared sense of who annoys us.