this post was submitted on 18 Jun 2025
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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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[–] [email protected] 8 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

Because it makes their rich doners uncomfortable that they might have to lose a little money to fix the wealth inequality destroying global society.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 hours ago

They don't see it as destroying global society, they see it as making a stateless system where the only metric of power is wealth

They're getting everything they want time after time

Why should they 'fix' the thing that gave them their wealth?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 hours ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 hours ago

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

[–] [email protected] 24 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day 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.

[–] [email protected] 76 points 2 days ago (2 children)

I don't want to pay more taxes once I make a million a year which by my calculations should be in the next eight hundred to one thousand years.

[–] Reverendender 52 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)
[–] [email protected] 14 points 2 days ago (4 children)

I bet you one year's salary it's gonna take longer than that. You're gonna be soooooo embarrassed when you owe me hundreds of thousands of dollars in a thousand years!

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[–] ZombiFrancis 39 points 2 days ago (1 children)

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

[–] [email protected] 15 points 15 hours ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 13 hours ago

I think you mean deceptionalism

[–] [email protected] 33 points 2 days ago (2 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 hours ago* (last edited 10 hours ago) (1 children)

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)

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 hours ago

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

[–] [email protected] 28 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (18 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 hours ago

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

[–] [email protected] 12 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

"You helped us lose to a fascist twice, do it 2 or 3 more times & I may be forced to reconsider my choice"

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[–] [email protected] 22 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Are you telling me establishment democrats aren’t progressive?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

never heard of them ever being called progressive.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 day ago

They call themselves progressives all the time. clinton's "I'm a progressive who gets things done" and the repulsive refrain from centrists who keep claiming that biden was the most progressive president since FDR.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 day 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.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 day 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.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

They're scared because they're Republicans in sheep's clothing. In fact, a majority of Democrats are. They just got done voting for more of the same genocide. Look how many of them have been calling for a war with Iran.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 day ago

DINOS, democrats that couldnt get elected as a republican, because they arnt crazy enough or palatable to right wingers. Manchin is a fine example of that, WV will have a red senator next election.

[–] Gates9 9 points 2 days ago

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

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 day ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 day ago

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

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