Zohran Mamdani, mayor of New York. Source: Wikimedia Commons
The lead story in the New York Times and elsewhere this morning is about how candidates backed by Zohran Mamdani, the New York mayor, won their primaries for New York City congressional seats. This, the Times writes, “sent shock waves through the Democratic Party.”
Horse wash.
There are 535 members of the U.S. Congress, and we are talking only about voters in New York City, who are some of the most liberal voters in the country. I don’t see what is so shocking about the idea that members of Congress should represent their districts.
But the New York Times’ spin is much worse than that. The Times’ story reveals how hard the mainstream media work to marginalize common-sense liberal values as though they are radical. The Times felt obliged to include a quote like this one:
“Republicans will very quickly seek to elevate, as they always do, the most radical voices in the Democratic Party,” said Howard Wolfson, a former head of the House Democrats’ campaign arm and a top adviser to Michael R. Bloomberg. “And after tonight, they will have more radical Democrats to choose from.”
Radical, my foot. There is nothing radical about the political values of these supposedly far-left candidates. The media always write about political conflict and rarely about what “far left” Democrats actually want. If they did, they wouldn’t be able to pass it off as radical and far left. Even worse, if the media told people what these “far left” candidates actually want, then more people might vote for them. Here’s a list:
• Higher taxes on high incomes
• Higher taxes on corporations
• Expansion of federal funding for housing, health care, and child care
• Higher minimum wage
• Large-scale investment in renewable energy
• Opposition to fossil fuel expansion
• Stonger emphasis on human rights in foreign policy
• Restrictions on federal surveillance
• Stronger ethics rules in Congress
• Diplomatic rather than military-first foreign policy
Why is it so shocking that people in New York would vote for these things? Our political and media ecosystems regard these ideas as radical. These are the same political and media ecosystems that laundered, sane-washed, and normalized right-wing political values right up to the edge of overt fascism. Why is it radical to start undoing what right-wing government for and by the oligarchy has done to this country?
If we really have a national government, including Democrats, that regards values like those in the list above as dangerously radical, then Mamdani is right. Only the Guardian was brave enough to quote Mamdani:
“The old politics that got us into this crisis is not the politics that’s going to get us out of this crisis.”
Its sometimes been noted most Americans – indeed most westerners – are clearly social democrats on so many issues, except the don’t realise it. Although the oligarchs of course do realise this.
I was reading this morning David about the awful case in Texas of the Prairie defendants, anti-ICE protestors many of whom have received 50 years in jail on utterly spurious charges. Do you think they might be released soon, given the apparently multiple absurdities in the prosecution ?
Hi Chenda: I believe one of the Texas defendants actually got a 100-year sentence. The stories about this have been terrible, and most of the stories don’t even say whether it was state or federal court. I believe it was federal court, and I assume they will appeal the sentences. It probably will be a long time before we know the outcome, but the odds of their ever being released, I think, are pretty much nil.
Indeed. One person got 30 years who was not even at the protest. His ‘crime’ was moving some political literature in this car, worthy of a Stalinist show trial. There is a campaign to free them which I will support if I can. I am hoping HCR will write more about this case in due course.