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“We will prove that there is no problem too large for the government to solve, and no concern too small for it to care about,” New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani said during his victory speech on Tuesday night. “Together, New York, we’re going to freeze the rent together, New York, we’re going to make buses fast and free together, New York, we’re going to deliver universal childcare,” Mamdani also said at his victory speech Tuesday night.
CNN to Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT): “Do you think Zohran Mamdani is the leader of the Democratic Party?”
Sanders: “Well, of course he is.”
FOR CONSERVATIVES, IT’S A TIME FOR CHOOSING
The Mamdani coalition that led him to be the leader of the Democratic Party, according to its most senior elected senator, is one that doesn’t remotely align with those of the past. In an election where the 34-year-old member of the Democratic Socialists of America beat the establishment Democrat (and hopelessly listless and entitled) Andrew Cuomo, along with Republican Curtis Sliwa, in a city with few actual Republicans even left living in it, Mamdani excelled with two groups:
A) Under 30 voters: According to several exit polls, on average, almost 80% of those under 30 voted for Mamdani.
B) Transplants: According to an NBC News exit poll, Mamdani won 83% of voters who have only lived in New York City for less than five years. Of those who were born and raised in New York City, that number of support drops to just 34%.
Young, college-educated voters went strong for Mamdani because his policies may have little impact on them, and because, like the future mayor, they see themselves as victims of a system that is so bad in their eyes that they suffer from mental illnesses as a result. This recent Presidential Election survey, released in October, will absolutely blow your mind: Among males in the baby boomer generation, 73% say that “no matter what psychological challenges I face, I will not let them define me.”
But when asking Generation Z (18-to-29 year old females) the same question about mental illness, a whopping 72% say that “mental illness is an important part of my identity.” Overall, according to Pew Research, 56% of young white liberal women have been diagnosed with a mental health condition.
Now let’s connect the dots back to Mamdani’s victory: 81% of young women under 30 voted for him. His campaign of victimhood, of a system working against the people (despite Democrats being in complete control of New York City for the past 12 years), resonated with those who largely feel their problems are someone else’s fault, so they turned to a child and adult of privilege, a man who has never held a real job in his entire life, to fix their problems.
“Here, we believe in standing up for those we love, whether you are an immigrant, a member of the trans community, one of the many black women that Donald Trump has fired from a federal job, a single mom still waiting for the cost of groceries to go down, or anyone else with their back against the wall. Your struggle is ours, too,” Mamdani declared Tuesday night.
Ah, the struggle. Mamdani lives in a rent-controlled apartment despite having no right to do so. He got married to a million-dollar compound in otherwise-poor Uganda earlier this year. His mother is a successful producer. His father is a tenured professor at Columbia. Yes, if anyone understands the struggle, it’s Zohran.
As for Gen Z also seeing themselves as struggling against a corrupt society despite many having a college education, this comes down to family formation.
Per the U.S. Census, the average age to get married in the United States was 25 among men in 1980 and 22 among women. Today, that age has risen to over 30 for men and nearly 29 for women. As a result, according to Bloomberg, 45% of people 18-29 still live at home with their parents, marking the highest figure since the 1940s.
As for priorities, among young women who voted for Kamala Harris one year ago, they rank getting married 11th on their list of priorities as a personal definition of success. As for having children, that clocks in at 12th.
But when asking young males who voted for Trump, it’s a much different result: Having children ranks first, while getting married is close behind at fourth.
So if Mamdani comes into New York and raises taxes the way he wants to, will these young adults simply not care if the city bankrupts itself with all the tax revenue (individuals, businesses) escaping for Florida, Tennessee and Texas, because A) Mom and Dad will feel the pain, and B) there isn’t a spouse or kids to think of, only themselves as they suffer from a (fill in the blank) mental condition.
What do these Democratic victories on Tuesday mean in blue states in 2026 and 2028? For starters, it depends on economic conditions. If Trump’s tariffs survive and pay off, Republicans are in a decent position in the swing districts that matter outside of major cities. If the economy goes south, Democrats get the same blue wave we saw in Trump’s first term in 2018.
But in the end, we’re quickly heading towards a country of two landscapes: From New York to Chicago to Minneapolis to Seattle to Los Angeles, these impossibly-blue cities will double down on socialism or the closest thing to it while attempting to protect illegals in the hopes of converting them into voters one day. In the rest of the country outside of most major cities, which if looking at the 2024 election map is almost entirely red, those places will remain right and right-of-center.
The political split between American cities and everywhere else is only getting wider.
Democrats will continue to bear-hug socialism, thinking they’ve tapped into some kind of secret potion that’s been under their noses all along.
Let’s end this with this disturbing nugget: Per Gallup, 66% of Democrats now view socialism more favorably than capitalism (42%), while nearly 80% of Republicans view capitalism favorably.
DON’T LET TUCKER CARLSON’S DEFENDERS GASLIGHT YOU ABOUT FREE SPEECH
This is the new battleground. And it isn’t going away. Just ask entrepreneur and conservative activist Peter Thiel. “When 70% of Millennials say they are pro-socialist, we need to do better than simply dismiss them by saying that they are stupid or entitled or brainwashed; we should try and understand why,” Thiel wrote in January 2020.
He’s right. And the right needs a counterargument to this, because the socialist bug isn’t going to drift away, but become a political hurricane.
