Why Moderates Should Stop Backing Candidates Like Andrew Cuomo
The establishment and its political hacks are very unpopular with Millennials and Gen-Z
Unless you're living under a rock, you would definitely have heard of Zohran Mamdani, the leftist who won the Democratic primary for the New York City mayoral race. One of the reasons for this is simply because his supporters have gone on and on about his victory over former Governor Andrew Cuomo. In an otherwise peak doomer period for the left, Mamdani's victory has ignited a brief moment of enthusiasm, reminiscent of the pre-March 2020 days.
Yet, given that the mayor of NYC isn't really that important of a political office, and also that Mamdani is still not certainly going to win it either (Cuomo could still run as an independent, or alternatively centrist voters can back Eric Adams), why is the left suddenly so excited? It's simply because he beat Cuomo. Objectively speaking, this is no big feat, because Cuomo is a candidate with a tainted record, and I think the moderates, with their sense of reality warped by establishment narratives, simply chose the wrong standard bearer. In other words, Cuomo is easy to beat. This really feels like 2016 all over again, when Bernie Sanders came close to winning the Democratic primary simply because Hillary was a weak candidate. By defeating Cuomo, who in the eyes of many leftists represents everything they hate about moderates, centrists and 'libs' (yes, they use the word in much the same way the MAGA right does), they feel like they have defeated what they hate most.
I think we also need to pay attention to one particularly interesting observation: the people who elected Mamdani are clearly more excited about Mamdani's victory than even the defeat of Donald Trump back in November 2020. I think this shows that, for all their words about how much they hate the MAGA right's 'fascism', they actually despise moderates even more. I think it's time to face the reality here: the far-left's real enemy is moderates, centrists and mainstream liberals. This is unsurprising, given their ideology and goals. However, the problem right now is not that the far-left hates the 'libs' (they always did), but that more and more people, especially in Gen-Z, are agreeing with them. It's an objective fact that many young people voted for Mamdani in NYC, and even more supported him spiritually across America and the West, even though they couldn't vote for him. When asked why they hate the 'libs', the far-left and their fellow travelers often resort to arguing something along the lines of the 'libs' being generally out-of-touch establishment elites, who also support the forever wars. This is actually something that I also have concerns about, actually. I wish we had more moderates who were less pro-establishment and more anti-war. Like at least have the guts to call out Trump's hawkish foreign policy, please, rather than hide behind procedure and make it all about congressional authorization. In real life, I mostly find establishment liberals to be the lesser evil compared to both the destructiveness of the far-left and the oppressiveness of the reactionary right, but this doesn't mean I'm actually happy with them, much less aligned with them. I think we need to make it clear that we are not aligned with the very problematic establishment, period. This begins by taking a principled stance on policy issues, and by not supporting objectively bad candidates who are widely seen as the manifestation of the rotten establishment.
What we have to recognize is that the far-left has successfully equated being moderate and being pro-establishment, in their messaging towards young people. Of course, this is neither necessarily true, nor honest of them. I know that the far-left still often argues in bad faith with establishment-critical moderates, being one myself. For example, it doesn't matter that I've made it clear about how much I dislike Donald Trump, some leftists keep painting me as being MAGA-adjacent. It's clear that the problem is that I oppose their theory, which they simply can't accept. I don't think we are going to change the minds of those already committed to the far-left anytime soon. However, we can still win back the support of many other young people, who are not die-hard far-leftists. And we can only do so if we successfully break the mental association between moderate politics and establishment political hacks.
TaraElla is a singer-songwriter and author, who is the author of the Progressive Conservative Manifesto, the Moral Libertarian Manifesto and the Moral Libertarian book series. She is also the author of her autobiography The TaraElla Story.