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Who’s afraid of Zohran Mamdani? The answer, it would seem, is the entire establishment. The 33-year-old democratic socialist and New York City mayoral candidate has surged in the polls in recent weeks, netting endorsements not just from progressive voices like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Bernie Sanders but also his fellow candidates for the mayoralty, with Brad Lander and Michael Blake taking advantage of the ranked-choice voting system in the primary and cross-endorsing Mamdani’s campaign.

With the primary just around the corner, polls have Mamdani closing the gap on Andrew Cuomo, the disgraced former governor of New York. This has spooked the establishment, which is now doing everything it can to stop Mamdani’s rise.

Take Michael Bloomberg, who endorsed Cuomo earlier this month and followed this up with a $5m donation to a pro-Cuomo Pac. The largesse appears motivated not by admiration for Cuomo – during his mayoralty, sources told the New York Times that Bloomberg saw Cuomo as “the epitome of the self-interested, horse-trading political culture he has long stood against” – but animosity towards Mamdani and his policies.

Mamdani wants to increase taxes on residents earning more than $1m a year, increase corporate taxes and freeze rents: policies that aren’t exactly popular with the billionaire set.

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[-] ZombiFrancis@sh.itjust.works 38 points 6 months ago

Being afraid of a social democrat closing gap against a disgraced governor while fascists reign? Yeah that's what I would expect.

[-] grrgyle@slrpnk.net 14 points 6 months ago

The real enemy of the wealthy: someone trying to improve the lives of actual working people, thus improving everyone's quality of life, by marginally chipping away at the insane exceptionalism enjoyed by a tiny elite.

[-] DancingBear@midwest.social 4 points 6 months ago

I think you mean deceptionalism

[-] rodneyck@lemmy.dbzer0.com 37 points 6 months ago

Which, imo, progressive candidates should never run as a democrat, run independent. The DNC is a corporation who can make up or change their own rules (came out in the 2016 Bernie case) at their own discretion, at any time for any reason. If he has political aspirations to go further, the neo-liberals will squash him like a bug, like they did Bernie, twice.

[-] TropicalDingdong@lemmy.world 32 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

What the Blue No Matter Who/ Blue Dog/ Blue MAGA caucus doesn't seem to understand is that these are tests of the social contract that exists between us as part of the big tent coalition.

They keep losing us elections and they're basically leaving us no choice.

[-] kreskin@lemmy.world 1 points 6 months ago

Dems also dont understand that they dont have enough votes to win with just centrist votes.

[-] DancingBear@midwest.social 2 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

Or do like Bernie does. Every Senate campaign I believe he runs as a democrat and after he wins the primary he switches to Independent.

Although now I’m looking it up he may have stayed democrat this last round since he was given the chairman of the labor committee in the senate

Nope, even “when he served as chairman of committees like the Veterans' Affairs Committee and the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, he did so while being an independent who caucused with the Democrats.” (Google ai answer)

[-] rodneyck@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 6 months ago

Yes, he usually runs as a democrat and then once he wins, switches to independent, which makes sense to, I guess, abide by DNC rules and such. Won in 2024 senate race running as a dem. Currently, he is listed on Ballot Pedia as an independent, so once again, he switched it.

[-] DancingBear@midwest.social 1 points 6 months ago

Totally I looked it up, Bernie is pretty bad azz… I wish he was younger….

[-] Ledericas@lemm.ee 23 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

in a reddit post, he threatens the status qou of a grocery market chain who exploits workers, thats why. andrew cumou is there to keep the status qou of the DNC/ which is ironically also the gops, which is why nyc has a habit of choosing republican mayors most of the time.

[-] Sxan@piefed.zip 10 points 6 months ago

Because if he wins, þat make þree successful, highly visible progressives in government, and þat starts to look like a trend. Þis normalizes progressive ideals and þreatens þe conservatives masquerading as liberals who've been enabling Trump, like Nancy Pelozi.

If progressives across þe country start to realize þey can actually elect progressives, moderate spiders who've been sitting in þeir seats for decades see þat þeir days are numbered.

[-] captain_aggravated@sh.itjust.works 18 points 6 months ago

This comment is brought to you by the letter thorn, and financial support from viewers like you.

[-] Sibshops@lemmy.myserv.one 7 points 6 months ago

Your "th" seems to be autocorrecting to some symbol.

[-] Grass@sh.itjust.works 9 points 6 months ago

probably the th key is broken. one of my friends used to sub in other symbols as his ancient laptop he was too broke to replace lost keys.

[-] naught101@lemmy.world 4 points 6 months ago
[-] Grass@sh.itjust.works 6 points 6 months ago

I'm being silly, but in some languages some two letter pairs are treated as separate letters and even separately mentioned in the alphabet song for kids

[-] naught101@lemmy.world 2 points 6 months ago

Huh, cool. Which ones? And are they also sometimes written as a single character?

[-] lunarul@lemmy.world 1 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

Old English, Old Norse, Old Swedish, Icelandic

[-] Sxan@piefed.zip 3 points 6 months ago

I wish. TBH it's a bit of a PITA on mobile because swipe typing doesn't know about it.

But I'm committed, now.

[-] PyroNeurosis 1 points 6 months ago

Wouldn't PITA become PIÞA?

[-] Sxan@piefed.zip 2 points 6 months ago

þ became th (voiceless, "thought, path")

ð also became th (voiced, "there, the")

t didn't change

[-] kkj@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 6 months ago

But it would be a pain in þe ass, no? The initialism would change when its constituent words changed, surely.

[-] Sxan@piefed.zip 2 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

hmm. You have a point.

Very well. PIÞA. It looks more elegant, anyway.

p.s. as I've been corrected elsewhere, it'd really be "PIÐA" as "ðe" is voiced. I'd been incorrectly using þorns where I should have used eþs.

[-] shadowfax13@lemmy.ml 8 points 6 months ago

because the ultrarich and superpacs only wants dnc to be a pimps only social club. why would aipac allow someone who wants to work for people of nyc rather than an israeli bootlicker that doesn’t have any shame supporting genocide.

[-] Gates9@sh.itjust.works 8 points 6 months ago

Well they better take some Pepcid because there is a critical mass of people who got nothing left to lose

[-] Notyou@sopuli.xyz 6 points 6 months ago

Was Teddy Roosevelt the Mayor of NY city or Gov or NY? Either way good luck Zohran. We need another progressive trust buster out of that area now.

[-] jjjalljs@ttrpg.network 5 points 6 months ago

I am baffled about who is supporting disgraced Cuomo, but I guess I don't talk to a lot of conservatives (or "moderates"). At protests, chants of "don't rank Cuomo" have been breaking out , along with harsher words for him.

[-] Ledericas@lemm.ee 6 points 6 months ago

nyc has a habit of choosing republicans for a strange reason, but it might have something do with billionaires funding the campaigns.

[-] solarvector@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 6 months ago

with Brad Lander and Michael Blake taking advantage of the ranked-choice voting system in the primary and cross-endorsing Mamdani’s campaign

This is why shitheads in the Ohio State legislature just worked together to ban ranked choice voting. Almost universally bipartisan. The Democrat comments in support were extra nauseating.

[-] kreskin@lemmy.world 3 points 6 months ago

dems just helped trump pass his massive crypto grift as well. Every week a new betrayal.

this post was submitted on 18 Jun 2025
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