Left, then Left Again
New Yorkers might find there is more to life than free buses
Democrats cleaned up in several states; some wins were expected but the margins were not. Rep. Mikie Sherrill won New Jersey’s gubernatorial race, and Abigail Spanberger will be Virginia’s next governor. Jay Jones, whose texts wishing death on his Republican opponents went viral a few weeks ago—and whose record of wild driving is just as famous—won his race for attorney general in Virginia. He doesn’t like conservatives but he doesn’t seem to like dogs either. Californians passed Governor Gavin Newsom’s redistricting ballot measure, Prop 50, which will leave even fewer Republicans with representation.
But the jewel in the Democrats’ crown was New York City, where self-declared Democratic socialist and foreign-born Muslim Zohran Mamdani won the mayoral contest. It was, to put it mildly, a horrible choice:
The win has many New Yorkers feeling they are no longer welcome or safe in their own city. Conservative Jews worry about his open support of the Palestinian cause, and wealthy residents say his “tax the rich” schemes will be bad for business. The New York Post reports that many parents are considering leaving on account of Mamdani’s hostility toward private education and his campaign promise to revoke gifted and talented programs—offering mediocrity for all, a socialist specialty! Florida Governor Ron DeSantis joked that he might have to start charging an “entry tax” for asylum-seeking New Yorkers.
While there have been a multitude of takes, some themes are pretty clear. Young people–especially young women—turned out in droves for Zohran. Of course, young people have no memory of Cold War socialism or of 9/11 Muslim terrorism to give them pause. But affordability is a real issue, and Mamdani was consistent in his message of relief. Not sure how he’ll fund free buses when he’s chased away all the billionaires. Nor how he’ll keep buses from becoming homeless shelters on wheels under his sanctuary-city mentality. Or pay for the rent freezing. How will he rein in violent crime when he’s already demoralized the police with all his scolding and threats of defunding. Most foreign-born New Yorkers voted for Mamdani, and his threats to tax “white” neighborhoods at higher rates cannot have helped suburbanites want to stay. While the promise of free stuff may be too good to be true, for cash-strapped youth, it was too good to pass up.
While he campaigned as a man of the people, Mamdani’s other significant constituency was highly educated, wealthy New Yorkers. The “true momentum for his mayorship came from in New York society, there is no question that he is the figurehead of an upper-middle-class cult of grievance that will do [nothing] for New York’s workers.” He himself hails from privilege—his mother a movie executive, his father a Columbia professor. He’s hardly worked a day in his life. But his luxury beliefs about turning New York into a taxpayer-funded haven for illegal immigrants and free transgender surgeries are catnip to every champagne socialist. They can join the hipster intifada and feel better about their distance from the fray.
While it’s not unusual for off-year elections to favor the out-party—and historically Democrats turn out for them in larger numbers than Republicans—the clear message for the Right is this: while every election of the last decade has revolved around Donald Trump, he will never be on a ballot again. Conservatives need to get it together and learn how to win without him. What is our message?
Some of the solution, whether we like it or not, will mean creating real opportunity in the land of the free—not just insisting things are better now than before. Charlie Kirk was right when he linked affordability—and especially housing—to young people’s ability to form families. Most of us don’t pull the strings at the Fed, but that’s no excuse to throw up our hands. There’s a lot at stake.
Yes, we’ve been comfortable for a long time. The ease has made it hard to even want to grow up or do hard things. Did you catch Dr. Koontz on Brief History recently? He spoke about a generation of young people who’ve never been told that marriage and family are good goals to strive for. They picture life as a buffet of options, each as valid as the next, an image pervasive in education, media and entertainment. The idea of planning to marry, of distinct gender roles, of masculinity itself—things previous generations took for granted—are now out-of-the-ordinary.
Yet, the natural orders within creation still appeal. Koontz said, “If someone has never heard of those things that we’ve taken for granted and finds out about them and is like, what? You mean your mom was home when you got home from school and she had cookies ready for you? That’s amazing. They’re going to be committed to [these] things, whether you call them conservative or not.”
The Left must now reckon with a movement whose center of gravity is drifting further and further left, while the Right will face its own demise without serious leadership or clear direction. In a critique of Mahmood Mamdani’s (Zohran’s father) new book on how his home country of Uganda failed to achieve statehood, Geoff Shullenberger wrote something that applies just as well to conservatives: “If the American left continues to be unwilling to offer a positive vision of nationhood, it will keep losing to those with no scruples about creating enemies.” There may be difficult times ahead, but Christians must stop apologizing for truth and proclaim it boldly.
