Deliver Us From Evil

Sunday Scaries #46: Human Frailty and the Politics of Heroism

It may seem odd, at a time of enormous geopolitical upheaval and mass suffering, to be captivated on a single good news story out of one city on the other side of the world. And yet, for many leftists, Zohran Kwame Mamdani’s victory in the New York Democratic Primary for November’s upcoming mayoral election is a wonder they cannot look away from. So much so that, rather than focus on the heinous evil that is the Iran-Israel War, I’m saving my take to see if there are any further developments and will instead focus on this far more interesting and uplifting story for sanity’s sake.

Through sheer force of charisma and the Left’s media ecosystem (podcasts, YouTube, Twitch), Mamdani went from No-Name to Dark Horse to Frontrunner for the mayoralty. His message is sharp, his social media is polished, his debate performances were fire, and he has a kind of wholesome sincerity to him that undercuts his anger. He’s got a fight on his hands against Adams and Cuomo, not to mention a potential dark alliance of Moderate Democrats and Republicans who will pour billions into the General now that he’s actually on the ballot.

A lot has been made of Mamdani’s inability to connect with Jewish and Black voters. Quite frankly, this is horseshit. Regarding Jewish voters, Mamdani is frequently cited as having the second-highest Jewish support, though I’m dubious about that in an election with comically bad polls. Moreover, he won the endorsement of the highest profile Jewish municipal politician in NY, Brad Lander, whose name will go down in the annals of history as The Greatest Left-Liberal Of All Time for tacking left over right. But while younger Jewish-Americans are more likely to be critical of Israel compared to their parents, this is starting to converge: willingness to use the word “genocide” to describe Gaza is at 38% among young Jews compared to 30% of Jews generally. 30% is a surprisingly high number, especially when you consider that plenty of people will oppose Israel on the issue of Gaza without considering it quite at the level of Genocide. It helped that Israel advocacy groups (which can usually mobilise quite effectively in New York City politics, see the 2024 primaries) decided to sit this one out and conserve their strength. That won’t be the case in the general. There will be a general mass fear mobilisation against Mamdani in the coming months.

Though it’s difficult to tell the actual breakdown because the results can’t be analysed directly (secret ballot), a precinct map shows his coalition is colourblind but hyper-conscious on questions of age. If you look at precincts by their share of millennial voters in New York, and further divide them by racial demographic, precincts with concentrations of African-American millennials voted Mamdani with an 80-20 split in some cases. Mamdani did best with Latino millennial precincts, then Black precincts, then Asian precincts (bearing in mind Mamdani is Indian Muslim), and then White ones. OF COURSE IT’S ABOUT AGE. Affordability is felt across the board, but only young people are willing to escape the straight-jacket of conventional wisdom and a century-long campaign against the word socialism. Elderly people of colour are at the absolute brunt of the cost of living and affordability crises, particularly in a city like New York where one is less likely to have bought their residence way back when… but they’re also probably are the least willing to take a desperate punt on some 33 year old telling them socialism is the answer. Meanwhile, Zoomers of every race can unite behind Socialist Heroism, presented by SubwayTakes.

Now this new age polarisation tells us something fundamental about politics in the modern era. We used to ask ourselves “are we more divided by race, or by class?” to which you could usually tell a socialist from a left-liberal by who said class and who avoided the r word and said culture. That’s still true today, but in an increasingly unequal world with a confused industrial system, class is harder to confine to profession or geography, but is more clearly connected to affordability and wealth inequality. I say affordability because even people earning well above average in white collar work may still struggle with housing costs. When you look at class like that, it’s easy to see why age is becoming more determinative of political affiliation thanks to widening intergenerational inequality. But even then, a working class boomer who bought an outer suburban home and paid down the mortgage when it was still possible is not really your class enemy, even if their housing costs are comparatively better than yours. Essentially, the existence of billionaires is kind of compressing the existing social structures of class, race, and even age, leading to them fusing under high pressure in all kinds of weird and wonderful ways.

Now, many will continue to argue about why Mamdani one. Some will cite charisma and message discipline, some will cite base mobilisation (which may not reflect the General Election), some will cite Andrew Cuomo being an unpopular sex pest, and some will cite the popularity and relevance of Mamdani’s core positions. All of those are probably true to varying extents, mainly and especially the first and final ones. I’m iffy about the ongoing argument between the Abundance Agenda and the Democratic Socialists of America about whether Mamdani won because he allegedly incorporated some Abundance stuff in his affordability campaigning. That’s because I find the people who have become Abundance Heads to have always been fucking annoying despite basically agreeing that a synthesis of Supply-Side Progressivism and muscular government intervention is the way to go.

How does all of the above apply to the highly urbanised, and still relatively unequal Australia? Well, possibly not at all. Our political apathy makes a groundswell for anything hard to achieve, let alone a charismatic Muslim Socialist. Though I expect affordability to get worse, particularly in housing policy, I also expect that the average Australian voter is far more wary of radicalism and far more pearl-clutchingly polite than the Mamdani model would allow for. I will say, Mamdani’s softer approach may be a lesson for our left: it does not detract from his fervour but does undercut the innately off-putting aspects of angry politics that I’ve written about post-election. A synthesis between socialism and supply-side progressivism would also be an interesting route for the Greens, especially seeing as how Labor are obsessed with going all-in on Abundance.

(Side note: this is why I hate it when people say America is so right-wing that Bernie would be in Labor. Labor are the Moderate Democrats. Don Farrell is Chuck Schumer. AOC would be a Green, not a Labor Leftie, and rather than explain that opinion with facts or logic I will simply point to her double-barrel surname and you’re done.)

But what I find worth observing about Mamdani other than the age coalition is the fact that he really does have an air of Socialist Heroism. The reception of Mam-mentum (still workshopping it but I think that has clear legs) has been nothing short of Messianic. I am using the term “Messianic” very precisely: I have literally seen people compare Mamdani to Jesus. Now, as someone who theologically disagrees with Christianity, I don’t think this comparison is necessarily idolatrous, but I appreciate that if you believe Jesus was the Messiah, that’s a very offensive thing to lower him to the level of Mayoral Candidate. I think it is hyperbolic and borderline hysterical, but also very curious… how can leftists (especially those who aren’t New Yorkers) who are usually so skeptical, so pessimistic, and so obsessed with criticising the political system have so much love and adulation for a politician?

Christianity, weirdly, may provide the answer. We must start by admitting, much as I did last week, that there is a kind of innate tension between the innate dignity and majesty of humanity and our frequent shortcomings. By shortcomings, I’m being deliberately vague to cover as many different examples as possible, but I mean specifically the kinds of human behaviour that is common but unsavoury to hear about: cheating, substance abuse, and addiction might be some of the more hardcore examples. To resolve this tension between dignity and failing, the Right seeks to deny or even purge anything they find uncomfortable about the human condition, while the Left exists basically to forgive or move past the failings to the extent necessary to defend human dignity. This is a solid chunk of the reason why Jesus feels like he would be a socialist today, not just because of the anti-money lender thing but also because he is fundamentally about forgiveness. Like much of Christianity, they kind of developed this idea from Jewish thought and tradition, so I don’t feel too religiously uncomfortable admitting it is one of their more compelling observations.

However, what unites both sides of the spectrum is the fact that, as ordinary people, we struggle to live up to our own expectations. A great many will sincerely believe that lying, even in the form of a white lie, is morally intolerable… and yet, they lie anyway. Even something more serious, like cheating (which also has widespread opprobrium directed against it) is relatively common despite the condemnation. But when we cast our mind to social questions, to the extent we place any faith in our ballots at all, we hold politics and politicians to an even higher standard. That’s not just because of some systemic necessity, but because deep down we want to be saved from ourselves. We doubt our own capacity and reliability when it comes to building the world we want, so we palm the task off to someone else… but not just any someone else, someone we can trust. When that trust is violated, it usually breaks our hearts.

You might think “for a column that was trying to keep it kosher a few paragraphs ago, this is some shocking baloney: people hate politicians! They’re all universally and automatically regarded as scum bags and liars”. That would be a fair observation, but it would miss the crucial detail that what we hate about modern politics and the people who inhabit it is precisely reflective of a growing sentiment that we are led by people who are not much smarter or even much more righteous than we are. As Trump shows, that can sometimes be a double edged sword. Trump is the messiah to a great chunk of the American public, not because he is easy to idolise. Rather, because he is so utterly imperfect, people can relate to him on a profoundly human level through their bigotry, their greed, and their fear, while also being inspired by how he condenses them with pride and bombast. He (and other populists like him) are the exception that proves the rule, the voice of temptation for all our worst impulses.

Zohran satisfied a frequent request from the American left (and a desperate plea from the Australian left) for a champion. His charisma comes in no small part from the fact that he is not perfectly manicured like Newsom or Minns, and so has that human aspect that people can relate to. Here, Zohran’s sensitivity and optimism is important to showcase the two best emotions of the left: revealing his emotional hand expresses the deep empathetic passion for social justice, while his mainly chipper social media belies the joyful breadth of progressive vision. Sometimes our leaders down under express these emotions in the ways their supporters experience them: anger, exasperation, and condescension. If we are going to learn anything from Mamdani other than just “message discipline is a hell of a drug”, we should learn that optimism, tempered with careful use of gentle emotionality can be far more powerful than intensity, guilt, and aggression.

While I hope that Australia gets a better caliber of politicians and the kind of leftist leaders it needs (leaders who can hold the banner aloft with sensitivity and hopefulness rather than the anger this author often lets slip from his grasp), I also hope that we get better at accepting our own failings and the failings of others. I don’t believe that people are holding back from politics because they believe they have scandals waiting, to be clear. I believe that we have an unconscious desire to be led because it makes it all so much easier, and takes the burden off us to actually take charge of movements in the right direction. I hope we are one day better at taking charge. After all, as Masorti Judaism teaches, “every human being must live as if he or she, individually, has the responsibility to bring about the Messianic Age”.