united states

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Elections: The house always wins

“No to the political parties’ electoral process.”

Those to the left of the varied strains of normative fascism that pass for mainstream political discourse in the United States nowadays have likely been inundated with celebratory messages and reports of Zohran Mamdani’s victory in the New York City mayoral elections yesterday. By all accounts, today the air is a little fresher as we are all lifted up by the winds of change because around one million people in a corner of what is called the U.S. voted for a “democratic socialist,” whatever that means anymore. Faith in democracy and electoral politics abound as the “right” or “good” candidate won this time. Mamdani is the exception that proves the rule that the system works. Nagging doubts about the validity of representative democracy as a means to order our social and political lives have been put to rest. Hope has been restored. But there is a thin line between hope and naivety. I propose the following be considered alongside any rejoicing.

Nobody won. There are almost 4.7 million “active registered voters” in NYC out of a population of 8.48 million. Only two million or so people voted. Meaning the vast majority of New Yorkers, including registered voters, did not vote. As in every election, most people couldn’t be bothered to engage in the charade of casting a vote. Mamdani didn’t win. Nobody won. Nobody represents us. Nobody should be in office.

Mamdani’s victory isn’t news. He was the Democratic candidate in a Democratic city running an iteration of “The Rent is Too Damn High” campaign in a place where rent costs an average of $4,000 per month. It would be nonsensical for him not to win when almost two-thirds of registered NYC voters are Democrats. (Yes, yes, I get it, the party  and media machines were against him.) The heavens haven’t opened; politics have just played out as politics play out. Despite the overwhelming odds in his favor, Mamdani only won 50% of the vote. Andrew Cuomo, whose own shadow wouldn’t even vote for him, still managed to get more than 850,000 votes. This wasn’t a runaway victory or a landslide endorsement of democratic socialism or, even less, a statement on U.S. foreign policy. It was a Democrat winning where the Democrat always wins.

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Accountable to history

Photo by Al Benoit on Unsplash

When I was very young, I used to believe that my parents were omniscient and infallible. They knew everything and were never wrong. As I aged, I of course realized the faults of my assumptions. Being a parent now myself, I especially realize how absurd that notion was. We make it up as we go along, doing the best we can with the information we have at hand. Mistakes are part of the practice.

Part of my younger beliefs was that my parents were responsible for or had control over worldly developments. They were adults, they had agency that I did not. I am sure there is some psychological term for this, but, likely for the sake of simplicity, I subordinated systems of authority and power into the hands of those I was most familiar with who also had such seemingly tremendous power and authority – my parents.

Again, this belief waned as I grew, but it became replaced by a perhaps more right-sized view of accountability and action in the world. Rather than holding the expectation that my parents could control everything, I was interested in what they contributed to change and making the world a better place, broadly speaking. As my worldview became explicitly infused with politics during my adolescence and its accompanying arrogance, I more specifically wanted to know what they did that was in accord with my view of what they should have done.

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