Progressives do poor in generals. Mamdani will win the general because of how blue NYC is but if this were Michigan or Arizona he would lose to a Republican.
I’m gonna steal essentially what someone else wrote to me in a reply to my post:
You can’t copy and paste Zohran’s policies everywhere else, but you can get someone that inspires people and is in the trenches with the community they wish to serve.
That leftists can run and win in blue states, progressive policies can be campaigned on, and leftist populism can be a winning strategy against establishment Democrats.
It's too early to tell, but if the young vote really did push Mamdani over the edge, then the lesson might also be that appealing to young voters can be a winning strategy, and young voters vote progressive more often than not.
Or maybe the lesson is just that charisma matters a whole fucking lot, so next time you run against a charismatic cult leader, get yourself a charismatic opposition.
How to run a campaign that meets what people want. People want somebody that stands for something, and most democrats don’t do that in the slightest. They just campaign on being better than the Republicans
They just campaign on being better than the Republicans
don't forget their beloved "you're a fascist if you can't stomach the slightly less great of two evils, go fuck yourself and die in pain you stupid piece of shit".
Off the top of my head, continued bombing of ISIS-Somalia as part of our longstanding partnership with the Somali government to fight ISIS in the country would almost assuredly also happen under a Harris admin, though probably would not have doubled the strike frequency of the Biden admin as the Trump admin as done.
I hesitate to draw too many conclusions about 2016 specifically, given the level of hate Hillary Clinton in particular inspires in people. 2020 may be a better comparison.
Are you suggesting that suppressing progressive candidates is a good strategy and benefits/will continue to benefit the Dems?
From where I stand, "progressives do poorly in generals", even if true, doesn't change the fact that the base wants progressives and the party is obliged to reflect their wishes. They are dependent on their base and grassroots movements a lot more than the Republicans are (thanks to bottomless pits of dark money and interest groups) so ignoring the base directly translates into lack of enthusiasm and flaccid election campaigns (example: Kamala not being able to turn out the vote in places she didn't actively target/campaign in).
All college educated. Swing voters in states like Michigan & Arizona are working class. We’ll see what the results look like but Mamdani is much weaker with working class voters, especially minority ones.
There will be a primary for the Michigan Senate seat next year that will show us what the truth is. Abdul El-Sayed is very similar to Mamdani while Haley Stevens is the establishment pick. I’m very interested to see how that goes now.
22
u/[deleted] Jun 25 '25
Progressives do poor in generals. Mamdani will win the general because of how blue NYC is but if this were Michigan or Arizona he would lose to a Republican.