Feckless Democratic Leader Finally Endorses Popular Democratic Candidate for Mayor of America’s Largest City

This isn’t a betrayal of Mamdani’s principles, unless he’s betraying his principles. Trading small potatoes for big potatoes is always a win–it’s when you trade big potatoes like trans people’s rights for small potatoes that you turn into Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries’ feckless Democratic Party driven by two men who have proven they are willing to give away real world leverage for symbolic votes. This practice even has a name in the Beltway: Schumer 101.

And Mamdani has clearly been making a lot of headway gaining the trust of New York City’s powerful elite, which is a sentence that should make lefties nervous, but not distrustful yet. He is not a King. He cannot come in and immediately enact gay space communism for everyone, and there are some aspects of a mayor’s power that need other parts of our democracy to put it into being, like the governor’s office or the state legislature or police commissioners helping American mayors avoid the awkward reality that they don’t totally control their own police force. We shall see if Mamdani’s triangulation adds up to advancing the ball forward for democratic socialism in a big way and improving the lives of New Yorkers, but you can see a general outline of what he’s willing to trade and what he isn’t, and this plan looks a hell of a lot more competent than whatever Jeffries is doing. Prior to today, Mamdani had already received the endorsement of basically every major Democratic power player in New York City. Jeffries may have had a good hand to play back in July, but Mamdani found other people who matter more to NYC politics and can give him more in return, and now he doesn’t need the most useless Democratic leader ever’s endorsement–if he ever did.

“Who are you voting for for mayor?” asked Chris Hayes to Hakeem Jeffries in July, and August, and September, and exasperatingly on Wednesday night too. “Well I’m looking forward to catching part of the debate later on this evening, as well as weighing in—I am gonna weigh in on this situation before early voting,” said Hakeem Jeffries who was totally trying to give Chris Hayes a straight answer this week. “I will say that I thought that Zohran’s decision today reportedly to offer the police commissioner position to Jessica Tisch—who’s doing a great job by almost every measure, including in the communities that I represent—was a very positive step forward.”

If Jeffries had done diddly squat this year, maybe he could sell his exclusive he clearly sold to Politico as proof that withholding his endorsement got a big extraction out of Mamdani. Tisch is a big get, but knowing what I know about politics and how deals are made, people who have already endorsed Mamdani before he announced he was keeping Tisch on were very likely the ones to have influenced that decision. Why? Because they actually gave something up to get something and showed respect for the small-d democratic power the Democratic nominee commands, and the Tisch announcement was Mamdani making good on their deal. Unlike this schmuck in the House who is basically doing a Bill Romanowski routine and jumping on to the pile at the end of the play and demanding he be awarded half a tackle from the statistician.

I never want to hear vote blue no matter who again. Mamdani won more votes than any Democratic candidate in New York City history and New York Democratic leadership fought the people’s will tooth and nail so they can keep a police commissioner in place whose primary constituency is people with seven-figure and above net worths. He’s a Democrat whether these people like it or not, and if the answer is or not, there is another party they are free to join full of non-Democrats. This whole shambolic saga where Jeffries has done this stupid dance every couple of weeks to Chris Hayes’ mounting frustration won him nothing other than the class clown award. Far more competent New York political operatives were already doing the hard work of dragging Mamdani towards more palatable establishment Democratic positions, and Jeffries flaunting his non-endorsement while laughing about it in every clip just proved that one of these elected officials from New York is not like the others. Kamala Harris—who demonstrated that she clearly feels for Chris Hayes in her own exasperated endorsement of Mamdani—and Senator Chris Van Hollen along with other Democrats in Congress helped add to the absurdity of this situation by decrying this “kind of spineless politics” Jeffries was practically advertising on MSNBC every month.

The others in New York, like Governor Kathy Hochul (her rise to competence and true leadership is another marker of the ghastly low standards of this era) and powerful local Democrats like speaker of the State Assembly, Carl E. Heastie, all did the work Jeffries is clearly trying to take some credit for. They are clearly the ones who kept Jessica Tisch on as police commissioner, not this discount Romanowski cosplayer signing on to the deal after it was already signed off on by all the players actually involved in the play. This is how small-d democratic politics is supposed to work, and everyone knows they’re not going to get everything they wanted going into negotiations. The hope for us on the left is that Mamdani made some good trades, while powerful New York Democrats no doubt believe that they can use concessions like Tisch to rein Mamdani in, while I have no fucking idea what the hell Hakeem Jeffries thinks he got out of all of this, other than proving what a complete and utter buffoon he is.