America’s Dumbest Billionaires Fail to Stop Zohran Mamdani - The American Prospect
prospect.org
It’s encouraging on many levels: New York City didn’t submit to a campaign of flagrant bigotry from disgraced two-time loser Andrew Cuomo, and Americans, particularly young ones, can still be politically inspired by a good candidate with a good message.

Andrew Cuomo, an elderly has-been, the lesser son of a greater sire, who as governor literally conspired with Republicans to hand them control of the New York state Senate for half a decade; who resigned from office in disgrace after he was credibly accused of 13 instances of sexual harassment; and whose campaign quite obviously had no purpose other than satisfying his own lust for accumulating personal power, along with that of his billionaire donors.

As the campaign progressed and Mamdani’s victory became ever more likely, Cuomo descended into vindictive gutter racism. He did not disagree with a right-wing radio host who said that Mamdani would be “cheering” another 9/11, suggested that Mamdani would have Muslim women “completely covered up,” and that he “doesn’t understand New York culture” because he’s a “citizen of Uganda.”

Cuomo happily took Donald Trump’s endorsement and went on Fox News to tout it. His closing campaign message, as The Nation’s Jeet Heer pointed out on Bluesky, smacked of Vidkun Quisling—implicitly threatening New Yorkers with a Trumpian occupation if they voted for anyone but Cuomo.

It was disgusting stuff. But it also was palpably desperate, and coming from one of the worst candidates imaginable…

…

What we see, I think, are a bunch of rich guys who have been comically out of touch with normal people for many decades, and more recently have blowtorched their brains into a smoking pile of ash on Elon Musk’s Twitter/X and in various group chats. It’s why they got so worked up about Mamdani in the first place—the New York City mayoralty is not some omnipotent office, and there are a dozen ways to hem it in at the state and local level if they so wished. What these oligarchs spent to stop Mamdani feels like less on an annual basis than he wants them to pay for a better future for all New Yorkers, a joke Mamdani himself has made.

In any case, his slight tax increase on rich people, free buses, and city-run grocery stores are pretty far from a communist revolution. But that’s not how it appears to rich people, surrounded on all sides by yes-men and toadies, who spend several hours a day marinating in an online Nazi sewer.

  • F/15/Cali@threads.net@sh.itjust.works
    1138·
    1 天前

    I’m suggesting that you avoid becoming parasocial with a professional politician before he even has a chance to demonstrate his values and capacity, and you took that as an attack on you, personally?

    • givesomefucks@lemmy.worldEnglish
      353·
      1 天前

      I’m suggesting that you avoid becoming parasocial

      No, mainly because no one was doing that and you made a top level comment…

      Like, maybe that’s what you meant to do, and thought you were doing, but you didn’t.

      before he even has a chance to demonstrate his values and capacity

      He didn’t spring into existence fully formed the first time you heard his name…

      and you took that as an attack on you, personally?

      What? Why would you think I took your comment as a personal attack against myself?

        • givesomefucks@lemmy.worldEnglish
          203·
          24 小时前

          But why would your first thought be that the other person felt personally attacked and is just lashing out?

          Do you not understand how many issues in life people have when they follow Kanye West logic?

          Maybe if people are dismissive of your opinions, they have valid reasons?

          You can open dialog and ask why people are dissimive of your opinions, and that would be productive for you and the people who take the time to help.

          Because the less people in society use Kanye West logic, the better society is for everyone.

          And I know this may feel like a tangent, but I’m just trying to help in a much broader way that will be more useful for you

          • F/15/Cali@threads.net@sh.itjust.works
            417·
            23 小时前

            Because you’ve either taken what I’ve said to be so intensely stupid that it’s worthy of ridicule or so offensive to your being that you refuse to accept that hero worship and politics aren’t a solid mix. Given the state of politics, I assumed the latter. If it’s the former, there’s a baseline level of misunderstanding that I can’t as easily overcome.

            • givesomefucks@lemmy.worldEnglish
              12·
              23 小时前

              that hero worship

              Again, no one was doing that…

              And while my blocklist is healthy, I havent seen anything I would categorize as “hero worship” about Mamdani. Can you provide even a single example of this “hero worship”?

              It really seems like you’re just misinterpreting things or not understanding them and just leaping to wild accusations instead of simply asking for clarification.

              I’m trying to help you understand why that’s bad, because people that think like that make society very unpleasant for the rest of us.

              • F/15/Cali@threads.net@sh.itjust.works
                310·
                23 小时前

                Alright, then let me rewind, what did you understand my comment to mean, if not a soft handed denouncement of parasocial relationships with politicians?

                • givesomefucks@lemmy.worldEnglish
                  121·
                  23 小时前

                  You said:

                  Let’s see how much he manages to complete his promises before we get too excited. He’s a politician

                  1. This is not his first office, you’re acting like we have nothing to go off of like he’s brand new. When he’s been in office since 2021 and this is the fourth general election he’s won. No one expects you to know his history immediately, but you can easily find it.

                  2. Literally everyone in office is a politician, that applies to everyone holding an office. So it makes no sense to say it.

                  All together it makes your comment come off as a lazy attempt to start a slapfight…

                  And honestly, you haven’t done much to change that initial impression, even if it’s not intentional.

                  Speaking of:

                  Can you provide even a single example of this “hero worship”?

                  Could you not find one?

                  • F/15/Cali@threads.net@sh.itjust.works
                    38·
                    22 小时前

                    All together it makes your comment come off as a lazy attempt to start a slapfight…

                    If you care to learn about the corruption and indefinitely passed bucks of a big city mayorship, I can point you to some books. But there is altogether too much information for me to offer convincingly in a lemmy comment.

                    It seems like it’s a baseline level of political misunderstanding that I’m entirely unwilling and incapable of correcting. Yes, he’s held seats, and yes, he’s had successes there. The gap is wider than you understand it to be.

                    Can you provide even a single example of this “hero worship”?

                    Dude, I’m trying to understand your comment. Just look through any political comment section to find undue veneration.

    • galaxy_nova@lemmy.world
      8·
      23 小时前

      It’s somewhat ironic you would claim that they took this personally when your argument is about being objective towards other people. Your argument has no legs since it is in fact a soggy piece of bread.