I'm not running for office. But if I were, these are some of the lessons I'd take away from what happened in NY yesterday.
1. Authenticity is measurable. Voters can smell a focus group from a mile away.
2. Endorsements from the current Democratic leadership now read like warnings. The establishment wing of the party is no longer a sword. It's a question mark.
3. Conviction beats caution. The candidates who said hard things about rent, about who pays for what, about Gaza, they won. The triangulators lost.
4. Cost of living is everything. Everything else is wallpaper.
5. The middle is not a strategy. It's an empty room. Voters reached past the establishment to grab someone who actually believes something.
6. Don't fear the base. Court it. The Democrats who ran from their own voters lost. The ones who ran toward them won.
7. If you want to lead a party you have to be willing to fight inside it. Mamdani didn't ask permission. He took the field.
The lesson under the lessons: the country is tired of being managed. People want to be led.
Can't raise minimum wage because it will kill jobs.
Can't raise taxes on the bourgeoisie class because it will kill jobs.
Can't ditch oil because it will kill jobs.
But when these companies replace 50% of their workforce with AI, it's "sorry, that's just the way it goes."
Ah, yes, the great GOP benefits of...
- lack of healthcare
- $7.25 min wage
- high utility bills
- defunded public schools
- zero paid parental leave
- abortion bans
- high childcare costs
- lack of environmental quality
- lack of workers' protections
- lack of housing
Charley Crocket says "country music should be taking notes" from Bad Bunny.
"They keep saying I'm a cosplay cowboy but they love a cosplay president. Some folks have been on here calling Muhammad Ali a draft dodger when yall got one in the White House.
"When I was at the Grammys the other night I saw a guy get up and talk about Jesus, and then I saw Bad Bunny get up there and talk like Jesus. The country music establishment should be taking notes on a Puerto Rican American who hasn't forgotten his heritage and brought his culture's traditional music back to the front, showing the world something new with it.
"The President is a grifter who bankrupted 6 casinos. That's pretty extraordinary considering it's a rigged business in favor of the house. The only thing he's good at is filing lawsuits and portraying a successful business man as a reality TV actor.
"Last time I checked Elon Musk was an immigrant from South Africa but there he is standing in the White House buying our elections. Let's deport his ass and send Peter Thiel back with him since they both openly believe in a post democratic society where men of their class are above the law.
"Forgive me if I have a problem with a 34 time convicted felon running this country when I lost the right to vote or own a weapon for years over marijuana. As long as you're hating the oppressed and loving your oppressor you'll never know why our generation is poorer than our parents and grandparents. As a great man once said it's welfare for the rich and rugged individualism for the poor.
"If you can sleep at night licking their boots that's between you and yours, but that type of thinking isn't freedom. It's mental slavery. Every single right we have as a people wasnโt handed to us. We had to fight and take it.
"Judge a man by how he treats the poor and those who he views as being able to do nothing for him. Don't forget why Muhammad Ali said 'I am America.' Remember the coal miners of Harlan County, Kentucky. I believe in what we can be. Ride on."
๐ธ: Ryan Vestil
"Terrible things are happening outside. Poor helpless people are being dragged out of their homes. Families are torn apart.
Men, women, and children are separated. Children come home from school to find that their parents have disappeared."
Diary of Anne Frank
January 13, 1943
BREAKING: @AOC just completely went off on Trump after ICE murdered Alex Pretti.
"Donald Trump [is] accusing a Veteran Affairs ICU nurse (Alex Pretti) as being a terrorist against the United States. A man who was treating services members to our country, who was dedicating his life to serving Americans. Who in his final act on this earth was helping a woman pushed to the ground. And they are calling him a Domestic Terrorist, in order to defend their gross abuse of power, their absolute breaching of the law and in order to precipitate greater conflict."