Mamdani’s message can resonate beyond New York

President Donald Trump is a prototype for an American plutocratic form of authoritarianism but the new MAGA order is much bigger than one man or leader It has allowed an estimated million Americans to delay their Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Scheme SNAP benefits and a painful regime shutdown to drag into its fifth week becoming the longest in American history But as the referendum results in New York City s mayoral race became decisively clear on Tuesday night the country was given a template for casting off Trumpism and what the Washington Post lately referred to as aristopopulism America s democracy is functionally a plutocracy and in the Age of Trump a naked kleptocracy where elected leaders and other elites are increasingly distant from average Americans and living almost quite literally in walled-off cities and archipelagos of influence and affluence As a class social scientists and other experts have shown that the richest Americans and corporations which have been given the rights of people by the Supreme Court often behave like sociopaths They view life as a zero-sum competition manipulating and showing little empathy or care toward others This behavior is especially directed against those whom they view as less than not of their social class These people are dehumanized and objectified as takers and not makers or as non-player characters in a video tournament Related Republicans implode after stunning Democratic victories For these Ozymandias figures in our new Trumpian Gilded Age winning and dominating matters more than people As the Post communicated this week a group of elites led by Chris Buskirk a JD Vance-like figure aim to build a bridge between wealthy capitalists and the working-class people they intend to represent by profitably reindustrializing the country and tying their interests to that of their base The project which is funded by machinery leaders aims to equip MAGA to outlive Trump In this era of global democracy situation such a prospect is terrifying and has serious implications for our politics and society In reporting for his book Jackpot How the Super-Rich Really Live and How Their Wealth Harms Us All journalist Michael Mechanic spent years gaining access to the richest Americans a notoriously private group Via email he explained that s uper-rich families tend to self-segregate and live in their own realities and echo chambers Their kids go to fancy private schools and the adults typically move in circles where they don t interact much with people who are struggling to get by which means reality and empathy take a backseat he explained And because these are the people lawmakers listen to whose desires get turned into policies you can see why we re getting massive cuts to things like constituents guidance and food and soundness care for the poorest families This has a profoundly negative impact on the collective personality values and overall behavior of the rich It s what led Trump to host a Great Gatsby -themed party at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach Florida on Halloween evening mere hours before SNAP benefits were scheduled to expire Like the first Gilded Age and Robber Baron era of over a century ago in contemporary times s billionaire class is celebrating Gatsby era excess building glitzy ballrooms and wielding unprecedented wealth and power in hijacking our democratic system for tax cuts and subsidies revealed Chuck Collins a senior scholar at the Institute for Initiative Studies in Washington D C and author of the new book Burned by Billionaires How Concentrated Wealth and Power are Ruining Our Lives and Planet Such policies and behavior he explained is much worse than mere tone deafness It is a mockery of the people who are struggling to make ends meet and live paycheck to paycheck The rich and powerful benefit from the fact that poor and working-class Americans are less likely to vote or otherwise participate in the political system in large numbers The realpolitik calculation is simple policymakers are largely unresponsive to the political requirements and demands of these average Americans and are instead hyper-responsive to the the bulk wealthy America s working class and poor represent a huge sleeping giant of tens of millions of probable voters who could radically reshape the country in avenues that would strengthen and expand access to the American Dream America s working class and poor represent a huge sleeping giant of tens of millions of possible voters who could radically reshape the country in means that would strengthen and expand access to the American Dream Here is a thought experiment about real democracy in America What if more working-class and middle-class Americans were elected to constituents office What would the country look like if there were more politicians who authentically shared the everyday struggles and experiences of the average American Trump and MAGA Republicans of program don t want us to know This is one reason they are embracing increasingly extreme anti-majoritarian policies such as voter nullification voter suppression radical gerrymandering and even rewriting the Constitution to end birthright citizenship In the direst scenarios they have even floated invoking the Insurrection Act and imposing martial law in Democratic-led cities and other blue parts of the country leading a multitude of to suspect their ultimate goal is to end free and fair elections in the midterms and beyond Enter Zohran Mamdani On Tuesday the self-identified democratic socialist won New York City s mayoral ballot by over a million votes taking more than half the total vote in a three-way contest Mamdani will be the first Muslim and the first South Asian to serve as mayor of the nation s largest city His platform includes stabilizing out-of-control rents providing free citizens buses improving citizens schools creating city-owned supermarkets lowering childcare costs and making the city more livable for everyday New Yorkers by raising the corporate tax rate and imposing a millionaire s tax Mamdani has been consistent with his message of economic populism and fairness he does not believe that billionaires should exist Want more sharp takes on politics Sign up for our free newsletter Standing Room Only written by Amanda Marcotte now also a weekly show on YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts During his success speech on Tuesday evening Mamdani thanked the working people of New York and described them in powerful moving language Fingers bruised from lifting boxes on the warehouse floor palms calloused from delivery bike handlebars knuckles scarred with kitchen burns These are not hands that have been allowed to hold power he reported And yet over the last months you have dared to reach for something greater The prospective of those words to reach working class and poor voters beyond New York s five boroughs should strike fear in the hearts of MAGA functionaries Mamdani had a personal message for Trump If anyone can show a nation betrayed by Donald Trump how to defeat him it is the city that gave rise to him Predictably billionaires spent huge sums of money to defeat Mamdani Their efforts did not work Trump and the right-wing are enraged over his supremacy with the president threatening to punish the entire city by cutting off federal money We need your help to stay independent Subscribe the present day to patronage Chauncey DeVega s commentary Throughout his campaign Mamdani was met with racist rhetoric and tropes Now that he has won it will only escalate Trump and his MAGA messaging machine are going to dig deep into their bottomless bucket of racism nativism and Islamophobia to make the mayor-elect who is Muslim and the child of immigrants the face of the Democratic Party In that way Mamdani is a gift to Trump and America s neofascist right But the people of New York spoke loudly on Tuesday Economic fairness challenging a rigged system that serves the rich and erodes the American Dream is a winning message This is especially true in a time when inflation is out of control the job sphere is stagnant and economic misery is spreading because of Trump s policies The question now is whether Democrats will embrace this winning message of real economic populism or fall back into their circular firing squad of post- autopsies listening to a consistently wrong consultant class and how they need to be more centrist triangulating with MAGA Republicans to better understand their angry white working class voters As the Guardian s Aditya Chakrabortty observed Mamdani s preeminence has shown that the left can take on the malign forces of Trumpism and win That he wrote is the defining task of our era Read more about this topic Trump s triumphal arch is a monument fit for an emperor Mamdani wins How a democratic socialist toppled the Empire State machine Trump s America is governed by necropolitics The post Mamdani s message can resonate beyond New York appeared first 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