Tamas in Commie Corridor

According to Forbes, no fewer than 28 billionaires donated at least $100,000 to stop Mamdani, including Daniel Loeb, Barry Diller, Steve Wynn, Reed Hastings, and Alice Walton. Terminally online hedge fund manager Bill Ackman donated $1.75 million, while failed presidential candidate Michael Bloomberg donated $8.3 million, all to no avail.

That in turn indicates the astounding incompetence of Cuomo’s billionaire backers. For one thing, again, Cuomo was a terrible candidate—the fact that he managed to lose to a nobody state assemblyman from a 32-point head start is proof enough of that. For another, the campaign was shockingly tin-eared. He and his allies attempted to make the entire contest about Israel, constantly grilling Mamdani about why he doesn’t respect Israel enough, why he wouldn’t visit there, and all but calling him a terrorist.

It is easy to imagine the Journal, the Times, and the Post as three nervous suburbanites on a day trip to New York City: purses clutched tight to their sides, their hands grasping pepper spray as they descend into the threatening depths of the Times Square subway station, vigilant to the possibility of an attack from a homeless person. These types of visitors, their view of the city shaped by too many urban crime dramas, are common. We welcome them. We do our best to soothe their fears. We even try to gently persuade them to go to Jackson Heights and try some Indian food. But we do not let them tell us how to run our city. That would be ridiculous.

Hamilton Nolan az egyik legalaposabb, legjobb riporter, a substackje is szuper. És ha már az ostoba New York times, David Leonhardt teljesen véletlenül, sőt valószínűleg a legjobb szándékai ellenére csinált egy elég jó interjút Bernie Sanders-el. Ez a kedvenc részem:

Leonhardt: You mentioned Zohran Mamdani.

Sanders: Yes.

Leonhardt: New York is obviously different from the rest of the United States in a whole bunch of ways. What lessons do you want Democrats who are from swing states or red states to take from Zohran Mamdani?

Sanders: Oh, stop! My God, you keep sounding like a New York Times reporter!

Leonhardt: Well, I am.

Sanders: Oh, I didn’t know that. All right. Get over something.

Leonhardt: OK.

Sanders: I grew up in Brooklyn. It’s very different than West Virginia —

Leonhardt: Yes.

Sanders: Different than Maine, different than other states. But at the end of the day — and I say this not to be sweepingly rhetorical — the overwhelming majority of Americans are working-class people.