Over at the New York Times, the ever-talkative Eric Klein has a loong and generally quite informative interview with MSNBC anchor Chris Hayes under the title Mamdani, Trump and the End of the Old Politics. And so we know where Zohran is coming from: free buses, government-run grocery stores, rent control, and universal child care, $30 billion for public housing, with taxes on the “super rich” to pay for it all. On the foreign policy front, Mamdani refuses to condemn the slogan “Globalize the Intifada” and, when asked if he recognizes Israel’s “right to exist” says that any nation has a right to exist if it recognizes “equal rights”—that is to say, in Israel’s case specifically, Israel has a “right to exist” only if it allows every Palestinian who wishes to move to Israel to do so, thus turning the world’s only Jewish state into a majority Muslim state.
Both Eric and Chris seem to have a bit of a man crush on Zohran—“so young, so handsome, so exotic”—which is pretty depressing, considering how absurd—absurd when they aren’t offensive—his ideas are. The fact that, for example, he’s proposing to establish one “city grocery” store in each borough “suggests” that he knows full well that there’s no way anyone can bring down food prices, any more than “rent control”, which has been a fixture of New York City “economics” for close to a century, has done anything more than drive up rent, as any honest economist will tell you.
At the same time, it’s easy to see why he comes across so well; unlike a “mainstream” Democrat, even one without the massive (and that’s putting it mildly) baggage of an Andrew Cuomo or an Eric Adams, Mamdani doesn't have to “balance” the mutually exclusive agendas of several dozen clamorous factions and interest groups, because Mamdani’s views are all of a piece—billionaires pay for everything! Next question!
There is, indeed, a fearful1 symmetry to both left and right populism. The right blames everything on “foreigners”, who either come here and steal our jobs while mooching off of welfare at the same time (when they aren’t raping kids and/or peddling fentanyl) or else steal our jobs while staying at home (and, I guess, manufacturing fentanyl), while the left blames everything on billionaires, whose insatiable greed is bloating the price of everything, when they aren’t (somehow) turning “good” American jobs into sweat shop shit jobs for hapless Third World kids around the globe.
Neither the left nor the right are driven by “reason” (which God forbid!) or logic, not to mention “economics”. They are, instead, driven by a longing for “revenge”. It is one of the least attractive features of human nature that, when we are suffering, angry, and afraid, we want to “punish” someone—make them suffer as we are suffering, so that we can enjoy their agony. This is, unsurprisingly, the special forte of the Trump administration, which is hard at work constructing “Hellhole” prisons around the country, where, ultimately, millions of innocent people will be herded, in conditions that would be forbidden for livestock.
Very much to their credit, Democratic “socialists” like Mamdani don’t want to torture billionaires—they just want to tax them to “death”—that is to say, until they aren’t any billionaires, for Mamdani says they should not exist—though how billionaires are going to pay for everything when they don’t exist is something Mamdani apparently has failed to address. Well, one thing at a time.
Both the left and right want to go back to the America of the 1950s and 1960s, when the dominance of the American economy versus the rest of the world was overwhelming, a fantasy absurdly in contrast to the world of today, where China is already “the workshop” of the world, a process that is only being accelerated by Trump’s ridiculous “kiss my ass” tariffs. Furthermore, even the picture that both lefties and righties entertain of the “good old days” is ridiculously inaccurate. “Everyone” assumes that, back in the day, “everyone” worked for General Motors. In fact, in 1960 the United Auto Workers had 391,000 members. At the same time, millions of blacks and whites in the rural south were living in conditions scarcely removed from the 19th century. In 1960, for example 30% of houses in Alabama lacked a flush toilet, 36% in Arizona, and 39% in Mississippi—over 20% in 11 states overall. The blue-collar nirvana imagined by innocents as diverse as Paul Krugman and Steve Bannon is less real than Oz.
Mamdani is, of course, infinitely less vicious and corrupt than Trump, but he has his own version of moral smugness, the cunning of the ideologue who knows what the masses need “better” than they know themselves. He is very adept at giving sweeping, meaningless responses to “tough” questions. His “explanation” of the meaning of the phrase “Globalize the Intifada”, given in an interview with Tim Miller, is unfortunately typical: “To me, ultimately, what I hear in so many is a desperate desire for equality and equal rights in standing up for Palestinian human rights.” See, it’s not about killing people, it’s about equal rights! Furthermore, his response to Hamas’ horrible crimes against innocent Israelis on Oct. 7, 2023 is nothing less than a masterpiece in pusillanimity:
I mourn the hundreds of people killed across Israel and Palestine in the last 36 hours.
Netanyahu’s declaration of war, the Israeli government’s decision to cut electricity to Gaza, and the Knesset members calling for another Nakba will undoubtedly lead to more violence and suffering in the days and weeks to come.
And that’s it! Nothing about the unprovoked nature of Hamas’ attack, nothing about the deliberate sadism and cruelty of the murders, with the added absurdity of denouncing Netanyahu for being so outrageous as to actually declare war after the worst bloodletting in Israeli history. Thanks a lot, Zohran!
Bill DeBlasio, Eric Adams, and now Zohran Mamdani.2 Isn’t it about time New Yorkers started to ask themselves, “is our city cursed?
Mostly Haudenosaunee Afterwords
About half way through this post, when I was descanting on the very human (unfortunately) longing for revenge, I mentioned the desire of the miserable to inflict misery upon others. This longing can have a terrifyingly real impact on human affairs. The rise of Adolph Hitler would have been impossible without the deep longing of the German people to make “someone” suffer for their defeat. The severity of the 2008 Recession was greatly enhanced, in my opinion, by the desire for “revenge”, leading to the nihilistic behavior of the Tea Party in the U.S, striving to “wreck” President Obama and his administration out of a hunger for destruction for its own sake. The explicit policies of economic contraction followed in Great Britain and on the Continent reflected a similar desire to “punish”, well, someone.
This repulsive behavior is hardly confined to us “civilized” folks. Back in the 17th century, French explorers in North America—along with Jesuits seeking converts—studied the Haudenosaunee (“People of the Longhouse”), aka the Iroquois, and their devotion to what became known as “mourning wars.” These “wars”—really mere “raids”—were waged for the purpose of obtaining captives from other tribes—generally those regarded as “enemies”—who would be offered as “replacements” to families who had suffered the loss of a family member. If the replacement proved compliant and likely to accept a new identity with his new family, well, all well and good. If not, he would be tortured to death, and the experience of watching the mortal suffering of a total stranger was expected to alleviate the emotional distress suffered by the family. Daniel K. Richter, in a 2007 article for the William & Mary Quarterly, War and Culture: The Iroquois Experience, gives a full account of the phenomenon.
The “pleasure” of watching someone being tortured to death was an integral part of all “civilized” cultures until 18th century Enlightenment fancy pants like Voltaire decided it was a bad idea. Public hangings were common until late in the 19th century, while lynchings continued largely unchecked in the American South until after World War II. In Asia, hideously sadistic forms of execution continued into the 20th century. The Trump administration isn’t quite there yet, but they’re working on it.
1. “Fearful”? Well, it sure scares the shit out of me!
2. Rudy Giuliani is, of course, worse than all three put together—so far!—but most of Rudy’s decline—if you ignore his miserable treatment of his second wife—was post-mayoral.
