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.
Dear Chris,
I can start by telling you who my audience is not.
It is NOT you.
It is NOT the pundit class that rarely leaves the safety of its Georgetown cocktail parties.
It is NOT the chattering class who gets paid to pretend it knows the mind of the American people.
It is NOT for anyone who looks at everything through the lens of politics.
The people I am talking to are tired of the bullshit.
The people I want to speak with are the 50 million Americans still sick and suffering. The families fighting for the lives of the those they love.
Whether they are people living in the shame and fear of being canceled, or consumed by grief after the loss of someone they love, they are just looking for a slight glimmer of hope that they too can get back up again.
My audience is the people who feel unheard, unseen, and uninvited, just like me.
My audience also includes my perceived enemies, those pitted against me by you and your colleagues in the media. I want to meet them where they are and help build a bridge. A bridge built of that which connects all of us. That’s where we begin to actually heal.
And it’s not as if my intent is difficult to understand or discern. Just read and listen to what I have said on this platform, and the 18+ hours of unscripted pod casts I have done.
I think your shock as to why anyone would care says far more about you than it does about me. Take a look at the comments to your post.
And I also know this: people are tired of the bullshit. They’re tired of you and the chattering classes’ obsession with my family as Rome burns.
So instead of wondering why people care about what I have to say, Chris, maybe you should concern yourself with why no one cares anymore about what you and everyone you represent has to say.