Zohran Mamdani's rise should teach NYC's non-radicals to invest in the long game
Now that tossing $25 million into last-minute spending to promote Andrew Cuomo failed utterly to stop pro-Intifada, anti-cop socialist Zohran Mamdani from winning the Democratic mayoral primary, perhaps New York business leaders will finally realize that political 'investment' requires an eye on the long game, and fostering an entire infrastructure that can produce credible centrists candidates.
'Crying over Mamdani is, as they say, a bit rich when it comes from the rich,' snarked The Post's Charles Gasparino, since the 'city's business class sat idly by' as the local left grew ever more powerful.
New York magazine's Errol Louis was even more on-point: 'The same people dumping millions into last-minute attack ads should have been investing time and money to recruit, educate, and encourage young leaders.'
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Dumping a ton of cash in at the last minute can work when it comes to passing or defeating a single bill, or influencing any particular government decision — but altering the political climate requires steady attention and investment.
'The city's business community,' writes Gasparino, 'is the most politically neutered class of people I have ever met.'
Partly that's just fear of sticking your neck out; partly that so many think of themselves as 'liberal' or 'progressive' without ever noticing how drastically the meaning of those labels has shifted; partly the knowledge deep down that they just don't understand how politics works.
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And a 'go along to get along' mindset in a Democratic Party-dominated city and state has resulted in very little pushback as the hard left came to dominate that party.
The political-talent pipeline in this town is no longer about community-based clubhouses; it's about social-service nonprofits and public-sector unions that feed off the taxpayers on a scale that dwarfs Tammany Hall's wildest dreams.
Each in his own way, Rudy Giuliani and Michael Bloomberg were political unicorns — Rudy rising to prominence as a federal prosecutor; Mike popping in with a huge fortune that still wouldn't have won him office except for the crisis atmosphere in the immediate wake of 9/11.
And all through the 20 years of their mayoralties, the left has been creeping up from the bottom of city government, gaining City Council seats once held by moderates, with every successive borough president, comptroller and so on steadily more progressive than the last.
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Meanwhile, supposedly 'nonpartisan' reforms — taxpayer funding of campaigns; the 'ranked choice' voting rules — further added to insiders' advantages, making it that much harder for fresh faces and voices to break in unless, like Mamdani, they had the support of a political machine like the Working Families 'Party' or the Democratic Socialist apparat.
Building such infrastructure takes years; interests that feed off the public put in the time, talent, care and effort to do it.
Hiring an expensive consultant for a single campaign can't match those results.
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Even if the city and the business community somehow dodge the Mamdani bullet this fall, the left will keep coming back, ever stronger, unless and until the folks that get fed off of start doing 'political investing' for the long term.
That means finding and fostering young political moderates, supporting institutions (even, yes, the city's near-extinct Republican Party) that will oppose the left on a million minor battles that never make a single headline — and not thinking you can fix things by paying attention at the last minute.
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CNBC
33 minutes ago
- CNBC
To fight Trump's funding freezes, states try a new gambit: Withholding federal payments
Democratic legislators mostly in blue states are attempting to fight back against President Donald Trump's efforts to withhold funding from their states with bills that aim to give the federal government a taste of its own medicine. The novel and untested approach — so far introduced in Connecticut, Maryland, New York and Wisconsin — would essentially allow states to withhold federal payments if lawmakers determine the federal government is delinquent in funding owed to them. Democrats in Washington state said they are in the process of drafting a similar measure. These bills still have a long way to go before becoming law, and legal experts said they would face obstacles. But they mark the latest efforts by Democrats at the state level to counter what they say is a massive overreach by the Trump administration to cease providing federal funding for an array of programs that have helped states pay for health care, food assistance and environmental protections. "Trump is illegally withholding funds that have been previously approved," said David Moon, the Democratic majority leader in Maryland's House of Delegates. "Without these funds, we are going to see Maryland residents severely harmed — we needed more options on the table for how Maryland could respond and protect its residents." Moon said the two bills are in response to various Trump actions that have withheld federal funding for programs that pay to assist with children's mental health and flood wall protections. He compared the bills he's introduced to traditional "collections" actions that one would take against a "deadbeat debtor." Even if they were not to move forward, Moon said the bills would help to bring about an audit and accounting of federal money to the state. Early in his second term, Trump's Department of Government Efficiency unilaterally froze billions of dollars in funding for programs that states rely on. He's also threatened to withhold federal funding from states that implement policies he politically disagrees with, including "sanctuary" policies for undocumented immigrants, though some such freezes have been halted by courts. A Trump White House spokesperson didn't respond to questions for this story. Wisconsin state Rep. Renuka Mayadev, a Democrat, introduced two near-identical bills that she said would seek to compel the federal government to release money it has withheld that had previously been paying for Department of Agriculture programs that help farmers, and for child care centers that mostly serve low-income families. "We've seen the Trump administration is willfully breaking the law by holding back federal funds to which Wisconsinites are legally entitled. So these bills are really about providing for a legal remedy and protecting Wisconsinites," she said. In all four states, the bills direct state officials to withhold payments owed by the states to the federal government if federal agencies have acted in contravention of judicial orders or have taken unlawful actions to withhold funds previously appropriated by Congress. Payments available for withholding include the federal taxes collected from the paychecks of state employees, as well as grant payments owed back to the federal government. In Wisconsin, the bills are unlikely to move forward because Republicans control both chambers of the Legislature. But the trajectory of the bills in Maryland, New York and Connecticut — where Democrats control the legislatures and governorships — is an open question. The same is true in Washington, where Democratic lawmakers plan to introduce similar bills next session. "It's a novel concept," said Washington state Sen. Manka Dhingra. "I don't think states have ever been in this position before … where there's someone making arbitrary decisions on what to provide funding for and what not to provide funding for, contrary to current rules and laws and congressional allocation of funds." Legal experts have raised substantial questions about the hurdles such bills would face if they were enacted. For one, they said, the U.S. Constitution's supremacy clause clearly gives the federal government precedence over states, which could complicate legal arguments defending such laws — even though it remains an open legal question whether the executive branch has the power to single-handedly control funding. More immediate practical obstacles, they explained, stem from the fact that there's vastly more money flowing from the federal government to the states than the other way around. "So withholding state payments to the federal government, even if there were no other obstacles, isn't likely to change very much," said David Super, a professor at the Georgetown University Law Center who specializes in administrative and constitutional law. Super added that states withholding money could potentially further worsen the status of programs affected by federal cuts. "There's also the potential that some of the money going to the federal government has to be paid as a condition for the state receiving one or another kind of benefit for itself or for its people," he said. "The federal government could say, 'You didn't make this payment, therefore you're out of this program completely.'" But that doesn't mean states, working in the current hostile political environment, shouldn't try, said Jon Michaels, a professor at the UCLA School of Law who specializes in the separation of powers and presidential power. "Where can you try to claw back money in different ways? Not because it's going to make a huge material difference for the state treasury or for the people of the state, but just to essentially show the federal government like, 'Hey, we know what you're doing and we don't like it,'" he said. "States need to be enterprising and creative and somewhat feisty in figuring out their own scope of authority and the ways in which they can challenge the law." But another potential drawback is one foreseen by the Democratic lawmakers themselves: further retribution from Trump. "We would all be foolish to not acknowledge that the feds hold more cards than states do with respect to the budget," said Moon, the Maryland legislator. "There's certainly a risk of retaliation by the White House."
The Hill
an hour ago
- The Hill
Sliwa blames Adams for Mamdani's likely primary win, says ‘I'm not going anywhere'
Republican New York City mayoral candidate Curtis Sliwa continued his salvo against Mayor Eric Adams (D) and doubled down on his choice to stay in the race for New York City mayor in a morning radio interview that aired Sunday amidst calls for candidates to unite behind a single opposition figure to Zohran Mamdani, the presumptive Democratic nominee. 'I'm not going anywhere,' Sliwa pledged on John Catsimatidis's radio show, 'Cats Roundtable' on WABC 770 AM. 'I'm in it until November 4.' Sliwa acknowledged that challenging the young democratic socialist, who rocketed to a primary victory on an affordability-focused platform and digital-heavy strategy, could be difficult. 'But there is salvation,' he said. 'We have to go after the hipster millennials and Gen Zers. It's the same group that Donald Trump appealed to.' Above all, Sliwa blamed the rise of Mamdani on Adams's time in office, which has been rocked by scandal, federal investigations and an indictment against the mayor himself. 'There is no Zohran Mamdani if Eric Adams had done a decent job,' Sliwa said. 'He created the atmosphere so that somebody that nobody knew that was at one percent in the polls back in February could suddenly win a Democratic primary against an iconic figure like Andrew Cuomo.' Sliwa was also the Republican nominee for mayor in 2021. He lost to Adams by nearly 40 points. The Guardian Angels founder's position in this year's general election has been complicated by the campaign of Adams, who is running as an independent and has garnered the attention of both Republicans and the city's business elites. GOP megadonor Catsimatidis has bene invovled in an effort to line up wealthy donors behind Adams's bid in the hopes of blocking Mamdani's ascent, Politico reported. Sliwa told the outlet in response to the news that he would not drop out 'unless they figure out a way to put me in a pine box and bury me six feet under.' 'I look forward to working with you a few more times before you possibly become mayor,' Catsimatidis told Sliwa at the end of the show.
2 hours ago
The last Hong Kong pro-democracy party holding street protests disbands
HONG KONG -- Hong Kong pro-democracy political party League of Social Democrats announced on Sunday it had disbanded due to immense political pressure, the latest casualty in a years-long crackdown that has already quieted much of the city's once-vocal opposition. Following massive anti-government protests in 2019, many leading activists were prosecuted or jailed under a 2020 national security law imposed by Beijing. Dozens of civil society groups dissolved. Media outlets critical of the government shuttered. The League of Social Democrats was the only pro-democracy party that still staged small street protests from time to time and held street booth activities to carry on its advocacy despite the risks. Its chairperson, Chan Po-ying, said the disbandment decision was made after careful deliberation, especially taking into account the consequences to its members and comrades. Chan refused to elaborate on the pressure but said she was proud to say that the party had still contributed to the city's pro-democracy movement in these few years. 'We have stayed true to our original aspirations and haven't let down to the trust placed in us by those who went to prison," she said. 'While we are now forced to disband and feel an ache in our conscience, we have no other choice,' she said. Hong Kong, a former British colony, will mark the 28th anniversary of returning to Chinese rule on July 1. The city used to hold annual pro-democracy protests that day and other various demonstrations demanding better policies. But those were ceased after most organizing groups were disbanded and the leading activists were jailed. Critics say the drastic political changes under the security law reflect that the freedoms Beijing promised to keep intact in 1997 are shrinking. The Beijing and Hong Kong governments insist the law is necessary for the city's stability. A Chinese official overseeing Hong Kong affairs in 2023 said protests are not the only way for people to express their views, signaling Beijing's stance toward demonstrations in the city. In April, Hong Kong's biggest pro-democracy party, the Democratic Party, also voted to give its leadership the mandate to move toward a potential disbandment. Party veterans told The Associated Press that some members were warned of consequences if the party didn't shut down. A final vote is expected at a later date. Founded in 2006, the League of Social Democrats was a left-wing political party that opposed collusion between government and business, upheld the principle that people have a say and was firmly committed to the interests of underprivileged residents. It was widely known for its more aggressive tactics when fighting for change. Its members have thrown bananas, eggs and luncheon meat at officials or pro-Beijing lawmakers as a protest gesture. Its party platform said the group advocated non-violent resistance but would not avoid physical confrontations — a stance that set it apart from older, traditional pro-democracy groups. It once had three lawmakers in office. Its longest-serving lawmaker, Leung Kwok-hung — Chan's husband — was disqualified from the legislature due to his manner of taking his oath in office in 2017. On the streets, the group's activism led to the arrests and jailing of its members from time to time. Last year, Leung and prominent LGBTQ+ activist Jimmy Sham, a former party leader, were sentenced to nearly seven years and more than four years over their roles in an unofficial primary election under the sweeping security law. Sham was freed from prison last month. In recent years, the party has had limited political influence, no longer holding any seats in the legislature or local district councils. Even a bank ceased to provide bank account services to the group. But it continued to stage small protests from time to time, despite sometimes those activities leading to arrests. On June 12, Chan and other members were fined after being found guilty over their street booth activities. Undeterred by their convictions, they kept pressing on and protested against the ruling outside the court.
