Despite winning an election in the most Jewish city in America, repeatedly speaking about the need to combat antisemitism during his campaign, and cross-endorsing Jewish candidate Brad Lander, pro-Israel politicians and pundits claim that Mamdani’s win makes Jewish New Yorkers feel unsafe because he has refused to condemn the phrase “Globalize the Intifada”, a slogan that encourages international support for the Palestinian cause.
Mamdani has never actually used the phrase himself.
Responding to a slew of inaccurate statements from an anti-Palestinian caller on The Brian Lehrer Show, Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) said that New York Jews were “alarmed” by Mamdani’s positions, “particularly references to global jihad.”
Lehrer pushed back on Gillibrand’s assertion, asking the Senator whether she had any proof that Mamdani supported violence. “Again Brian, I don’t have all the data and information, and I’ve never sat down with Mr. Mamdani,” she responded. “So I’ve asked to have that meeting.”
Rep. Laura Gillen (D-NY) baselessly claimed that Mamdani has called for violence against Jewish people in the past.
Current New York Mayor Eric Adams told CNN’s Jake Tapper that Mamdani was antisemitic because he praised Hamas. When Tapper questioned the claim, Adams told him that he would be able to find proof by doing a “little research.”
I mean, that is the root of the problem. That and FPTP elections. It’s just a mathematical reality that those combined guarantee third parties cause a spoiler effect.
Say you’ve got three parties. One wants to snuggle puppies, one wants to snuggle kittens, and the last wants to use both for target practice. If 66.6% divide their votes between the puppy and kitten snugglers, and 33.4% vote for target practice, the target practice party wins in our current system. That’s just the mathematical reality.
We don’t have to like it. Hell, we definitely shouldn’t, and should push for ranked choice voting and similar changes. But it’s a mistake to just ignore that that’s the system we’re currently stuck in.
And how large is the disenfranchised bloc at this point?
Mid terms will spell it out well enough. Nobody has polled those just like myself that won’t vote for either party again.
No, DNC has fully cooked it’s Goose. If the greens didn’t just float sabotage candidates they would probably run some real numbers this cycle. Screw Stein and all that garbage.
No, I’ve been saying it since Janurary - if ANYBODY actually went out there with a populist center-left campaign - they will become the new duopoly partner. With a good message you could vacate easily a third of democratic seats if not more…
Not large enough to make a difference, if by “disenfranchised” you mean “doesn’t vote for either major party.”
Here’s the thing: In order for a third-party candidate to make any difference at all beyond acting as a spoiler, that candidate needs to WIN. Not just have a good showing. Not just have a great showing where they come in just barely behind. In a FPTP system, there’s only the winner… and everyone else.
Until we have a third-party candidate who can actually win, a vote for a third party is not quite the same as voting for the candidate you’re most ideologically opposed to, but it’s not very different, either.
And don’t get me wrong, I fucking hate that that’s the situation we’re in. But it is. I wish I could argue against the mathematics of it, but they’re unavoidable.