RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.spiked-online.com/2025/07/10/the-democrats-phoney-populism-is-fooling-no-one/

It’s no secret that the Democrats have long been losing the support of the working class to Donald Trump and the Republicans. To counter Trump’s populist appeal, voices within the Democrats say they need to offer their own version – namely, an ‘economic populism’ aimed at working people.

Those Democrats are all pointing to Zohran Mamdani’s victory earlier this month in the New York City mayoral primary – a win that puts him in prime position to become the next mayor in November’s election. Mamdani’s campaign brought economics to the forefront, prioritising issues around affordability. He offered radical-sounding answers to cost-of-living concerns, including free bus rides, rent controls, childcare and government-run grocery stores. At the same time, he sought to downplay his woke cultural views on race, gender and Israel.

Will Mamdani’s brand of economic populism succeed in bringing back the working class to the Democrats? In a word, no. For one thing, Mamdani, who claimed to speak for poor and working-class New Yorkers, failed to win much support from those very voters in his primary. Mamdani’s opponent, former governor of New York state Andrew Cuomo, beat him by 19 points with those earning under $50,000 annually. Cuomo also won over NYC’s predominantly black neighbourhoods. In contrast, Mamdani’s support was strongest among higher earners and those with a university degree, especially the white millennials of Brooklyn and Queens. Far from reversing Trump’s gains among workers, Mamdani reinforced the Democrats’ position as the party of the university-educated elite.

There are two main reasons why the Democrats’ push on economic populism won’t work. One, because their version of economic ‘populism’ isn’t actually popular with workers. Two, because a focus on economics won’t overcome the Democrats’ association with the woke cultural views that most Americans reject.

Mamdani’s ‘socialist’ economic policies essentially amount to welfarism and redistribution: offering more generous state-provided resources, to be paid for by higher taxes on the wealthy. Apparently, he believes the wealthy are incapable of moving out of New York, and so will provide an endless source of tax revenue.

https://www.spiked-online.com/2025/07/08/elon-musks-party-for-oligarchs/

Just what America doesn’t need – another party dominated, and this time even started, by oligarchs. SpaceX owner Elon Musk may be able to design rocket ships, but his understanding of politics and public opinion is below elementary-school level. His plan to launch a new party, the America Party, seems largely delusional.

Musk had been teasing the idea of a new, third party for several weeks, following his spectacular falling out with US president Donald Trump. Musk, who had previously led the White House’s efforts to cut public spending at the Department for Government Efficiency (DOGE), was dismayed to learn of Trump’s plans to massively boost spending in his flagship One Big Beautiful Bill Act. Last weekend, Musk announced the creation of the America Party, which he claims will be able to defeat the Republican-Democrat duopoly and represent the ‘80 per cent’ of Americans ‘in the middle’. Billionaire Mark Cuban and financier Anthony Scaramucci have offered to help get the party going.

Musk may be the most successful entrepreneur of his generation, but he is not remotely popular, with 55 per cent of Americans disapproving of him. Nor is the idea of oligarchs funding political parties well received. According to Pew Research, 80 per cent of Americans believe wealthy donors have too much power – and they are right. In 2024, election spending in real dollars is estimated to have been two to three times higher than two decades ago. Some 40 per cent of all political contributions, according to Jacobin, come from the wealthiest one per cent.

The US Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United ruling, which essentially prevented any real restraints from being placed on campaign spending, accelerated this pattern. This is hardly just a Republican gambit. Until recently at least, the main beneficiaries of so-called dark money have been Democrats, getting big paydays from backers like Microsoft’s Bill Gates, LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman and Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff. These donors helped Kamala Harris raise well over $1.5 billion – the highest figure in history – for her losing presidential campaign.

Americans once admired the tech oligarchs but increasingly find them objectionable and scary. Between 2018 and 2021, Facebook, Amazon and Google all suffered a large-scale loss of confidence. They are now even more unpopular than the hated mainstream media.

Let’s face it. These guys are not upstarts anymore, but increasingly monopolists. Google and Apple account for nearly 90 per cent of all mobile-browser use worldwide, while Microsoft, Android (Google) and iOS (Apple) hold roughly the same share of all operating-system software. Like Wall Street bankers, their power epitomises the relentless concentration of the economy that many Americans instinctively fear.

https://lizpeek.com/news/mamdanis-shocking-claim-blames-america-for-al-qaeda-terrorists-rise/?utm_source=newsletter.lizpeek.com&utm_medium

Zohran Mamdani, the self-described socialist who is the Democratic nominee for New York City mayor, has faced renewed scrutiny over past comments regarding Anwar al-Awlaki, the former head of Al Qaeda in Yemen. The New York Post reports, in previous social media posts, Mamdani appeared to suggest that U.S. law enforcement actions contributed to al-Awlaki’s radicalization and eventual embrace of jihadist ideology. These remarks were made in the context of a New York Times article that criticized the FBI’s surveillance of al-Awlaki, noting his ties to the 9/11 hijackers.

According to The Post, “Mamdani, in a series of tweets in 2015, bizarrely criticized the terrorism — after reading a New York Times account of the snooping, which revealed the cleric’s hooker fetish. ‘Why no proper interrogation of what it means for FBI to have conducted extensive surv. into Awlaki’s private life?’ the socialist candidate wrote.

In another post, Mamdani wrote, “How could #Awlaki have ever trusted@FBI to not release surveillance esp. if he continued to critique [the] state? Why no further discussion of how #Awlaki’s knowledge of surv. eventually led him to #alqaeda? Or what FBI’s surveillance of al-Awlaki — and claimed the G-Men actually pushed him into that says about [the] efficacy of surv?”

Anwar al-Awlaki, born in New Mexico to Yemeni parents, was an American Islamic who became one of the most influential figures in Al Qaeda. He was linked to several terrorist plots. According to The Post, al-Awlaki directed the failed attempt to blow up an airplane on Christmas Day in 2009. He directed the failed attempt to blow up US cargo planes in 2010,’ Obama said at the time. ‘And he repeatedly called on individuals in the United States and around the globe to kill innocent men, women and children to advance a murderous agenda.’”

https://www.frontpagemag.com/twenty-one-things-to-know-about-zohran-mamdani/

1. Mamdani is a salon Bolshevik. His mother is Mira Nair, a millionaire movie director. It was Mira Nair who tried to have the actress Gal Gadot banned from the Oscars because she is Israeli.

2. In 2013, Mamdani retweeted an article by Glenn Greenwald which defended the Muslim killers of Drummer Lee Rigby, who used a machete to murder him on a London street, arguing that Rigby was a legitimate target because he was a soldier.

3. Mamdani has repeatedly refused to say that Israel, as the state of the Jewish people, has a right to exist. During an event hosted by the UJA-Federation of New York last month, Mamdani declined to recognize Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state.

He said instead that “I believe that Israel has a right to exist with equal rights for all,” in a “carefully worded response when asked, sidestepping the issue of Israel’s existence specifically as a ‘Jewish state’ and seemingly suggesting Israeli citizens do not enjoy equal rights. Then during a New York City Democratic mayoral debate, he once again refused to acknowledge Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state, sparking immediate backlash among the other candidates.”

4. “In 2023, while speaking at a Democratic Socialists of America convention in New York, Mamdani encouraged the audience to applaud for Palestinian American community activist Khader El-Yateem, saying, “If you don’t clap for El-Yateem, you’re a Zionist.” Apparently, in Mamdani’s view, being a Zionist — supporting the right of Jews to a state of their own — is a terrible thing.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/third-parties-dont-work/

Most people hate the political duopoly of the Democrats and Republicans (some people insist on calling it a Uniparty and while there’s a whole lot of corrupt and faithless pols, if you really can’t see the difference between the people calling for the abolition of ICE and those funding it, well…) but it’s hard to look at true multi-party systems elsewhere (or in American history) and think they’re better.

Most multi-party systems depend on parliamentary coalitions which we fortunately don’t have. To see why they’re so terrible, take a look at the trouble that Geert Wilders had in the Netherlands or Netanyahu in Israel. Parliamentary coalitions maintain a kind of political center that is forever sliding leftward. In other words, it’s everything you hate about our political system, but made much worse.

There’s the Latin American model, which we are moving toward, but that’s even worse for anyone who doesn’t like civil wars every other decade. (Jefferson did argue in favor of them.)

How would an actual effective third party work in America today? The two parties used redistricting to minimize the number of swing districts. Much of the public hates both parties, but running a candidate in any district would require competing against that district’s existing formulation. That means trying to beat either party in a district created just for its candidates. And running third party candidates in swing districts would most likely chip away at whichever two party candidate is likely to pick up independent voters. And that would likely end up favoring Democrats over Republicans.

https://www.city-journal.org/article/new-york-city-mayoral-race-candidates-voters

Just after midnight on June 25, with the temperature finally down from a 100-degree high to the upper 80s, a hoarse and exhausted-looking Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani addressed a cheering crowd in Queens. Clad in a crisp white shirt under his dark suit and tie, the 33-year-old exulted: “My friends, we have done it. I will be your Democratic nominee for the mayor of New York City.” Indeed, Mamdani had done it—an upstart Democratic Socialists of America member with four years’ experience in office had pulled off a stunning victory in the city’s mayoral primary. From just 7 percent support in January polls, he surged to defeat former governor Andrew M. Cuomo by eight points. Cuomo, backed by tens of millions of dollars from business and real-estate interests and long leading in polls, had expected an easy path to the nomination. The result was the biggest political upset in New York in nearly 25 years—since Michael Bloomberg, running as a Republican after 9/11, edged out Democratic favorite Mark Green as voters chose a businessman over a party stalwart.

It’s understandable that New Yorkers, and observers nationwide, see Mamdani’s victory as a sharp break in city politics. Going back more than three decades, voters have elected pragmatic leaders focused on public safety and economic growth. The exception, Bill de Blasio, benefited from the safety and prosperity created by his immediate predecessors. But the reality is less dramatic: Mamdani won not because voters embraced his self-described socialist agenda of government-run grocery stores and free buses, but because the alternatives were so weak. New Yorkers didn’t reject a centrist—they simply weren’t offered a credible one.

To understand the failure of Mamdani’s rival candidates to inspire, it’s worth looking back at the primary campaign, which began in January and played out across countless forums.

On a Tuesday evening in late May, veteran New York politico Scott Stringer sat in his Manhattan living room, peering into his laptop camera. He spoke confidently and capably about an issue affecting New Yorkers rich and poor: illegal noise. Whether from unpermitted construction or raucous park parties, Stringer argued, noise isn’t just a nuisance, it’s a health hazard—and he proposed enforcement solutions.

One problem: this Zoom forum, hosted by the NYC United Against Noise citizens group, drew fewer than a dozen attendees. The dismal turnout underscored the challenge that New York’s career state and local politicians faced this spring in a long, strange city election: voters barely noticed them. Stringer’s résumé was solid: lifelong Manhattanite, teenage community-board member, two decades in the state assembly, eight years as Manhattan borough president. Most notably, in 2013, he won a citywide election for comptroller against a formidable, well-funded opponent—former governor Eliot Spitzer.

https://issuesinsights.com/2025/07/01/the-democrats-phony-freakout-about-mamdani/

Democrats are worried about Mamdani not because of what he stands for, but because they know that saying these things out loud will turn off too many independent voters that they need to win elections.

It has been amusing to watch Democrats struggle to cope with the success of 33-year-old socialist Zohran Mamdani’s decisive win in the New York mayoral primaries. Why all the handwringing? Mamdani is now the mainstream of the once great Democratic Party.

The only difference is that Mamdani isn’t afraid to say what other Democratic politicians try to hide.

Think about what Mamdani has proposed or supported:

A yearlong freeze on rent
A $30 minimum wage
Free bus service
City-owned grocery stores
Defunding the police
Calling Israel’s war in Gaza a genocide.

Every one of these positions is now supported in one way or another by “mainstream” Democrats.

Consider, first, the label “socialist.” While Democratic politicians try to pretend that they aren’t that, 57% of self-identified Democrats have a positive view of socialism, according to a 2022 survey by the Pew Research Center. Just 46% had a positive view of capitalism.