Buckle Up, America. The Zohran Era is Here

Mainstream Republicans died nine years ago. The Democratic Party's funeral started last night

NEXT, THE WORLD: Zohran!

Zohran Mamdani became New York City’s Mayor last night. At the victory party, his once-pal, podcaster Hasan Piker – who was also seen last night embracing Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez – said this in an interview:

“We are in the heart of the imperial whore. This is the country that defeated the U.S.S.R., unfortunately.”

Piker has said so many ostentatiously crazy things that even Mamdani had to denounce him, so he can be left aside. Look however at the beaming face of the young woman interviewing him. She has no clue what he just said. That’s why last night was a prime historical horror story.

Like Donald Trump’s first election, Mamdani’s win spoke to the deep failures of 21^st-century American politics. By 2016, Republican voters had tired of throwing votes away on McCains and Romneys and Bushes who promised to reduce federal spending and protect “family values,” but were unmasked finally as mannequins for donors who mostly brought war and exported jobs. Mamdani’s win similarly signals the beginning of the end for the old Clintonian Democratic Party, whose original formula courted Wall Street and relentlessly sought a “business-friendly” neoliberal middle, while retaining a patina of progressivism through social issues like choice.

Both parties took their voters for granted to obscene degrees. If they and their donors had been just a little less greedy, shown a little more foresight in anticipating how difficult the transition to a global economy would be for working-class people, they’d still be in business. As it is, “never Trump” Republicans are dead as doornails and the party Hakeem Jeffries thinks he still captains has officially struck its historical iceberg. “Democratic Socialism,” the actual left, is the only political movement on that side with any energy, and looks set to take over. What does that mean? Nothing good: