“It’s This Week”: How the Democratic Party Missed MAGA — and Just Missed New York City

By the grandson of a Tammany Hall politician

This week, something historic happened in New York City. But not in the way Democratic leadership expected.

On June 24, 2025, Zohran Mamdani — a democratic socialist and unapologetic supporter of the Free Palestine movement — defeated Andrew Cuomo in the Democratic primary for NYC mayor. Mamdani captured 43.5% of first-choice votes, beating the former three-term governor and political powerhouse, who drew just 36.4%. The political class didn’t see it coming. But they should have.

Because this marks the second time in less than ten years that the Democratic establishment has failed to recognize the most significant political realignment unfolding in real time. First it was MAGA. Now, it’s the ideological insurgency rising from the left in their own stronghold.

In 2016, Democrats dismissed Donald Trump’s campaign as a circus act. They told themselves it was a populist blip — an emotional wave that would pass. Instead, it became a movement that redefined the Republican Party. The party was too focused on outdated playbooks, polling averages, and consultant speak to notice they had already lost control of the narrative.

Fast forward to 2025, and the same blind spot just played out in New York City. But this time, the ideology is reversed — and the establishment still can’t see the difference between symbolic protest and real political power. Mamdani’s victory is not the story of working-class rebellion. It’s the story of ideological ascension backed by a highly educated, highly digital, and highly performative class of voters.

Despite Mamdani’s rhetoric about housing justice and transit reform, his victory was not carried by the working class. It was delivered by 30- and 40-year-old professionals — the Slack-and-Substack generation that posts about colonialism from their MacBook Pros. They are not union steelworkers or single parents relying on the MTA to get to night shifts. They are corporate consultants, nonprofit fellows, and remote tech workers who believe in Palestine because their curated news feeds told them to. They show up at rallies because they want to feel like they’re part of a global moral crusade. For them, politics is less about governance and more about self-affirmation. Voting for Mamdani wasn’t about rent control. It was about identity.

And this is where the Democratic Party’s core misunderstanding lies. They still believe politics is a question of policy. But Mamdani’s campaign — and its success — proves that it is now primarily a question of signal. Mamdani didn’t just embrace the Free Palestine message. He built his campaign around it. He spoke at rallies, denounced the state of Israel, rejected the Democratic Party’s decades-long centrism on the issue, and became a symbol for a movement that has increasingly blurred the lines between foreign policy and moral performance. The DNC dismissed this as fringe politics. The voters didn’t.

The myth that New York’s electorate is dominated by borough bosses and block captains is officially dead. The real power lies with those who can trend — not those who can organize a precinct. Mamdani’s base lives in gentrified condos, not rent-controlled tenements. They post on Instagram about revolution while paying for grocery delivery apps and occasional Marxist merch drops. Their activism is digital, their politics cultural, and their demands ideological. The working class they claim to champion is simply the scenery.

And behind it all is a national donor network that knew exactly what it was doing. Mamdani didn’t pull this off on passion alone. He had help — from progressive billionaires, from George Soros–linked institutions, from digital strategists who know how to optimize outrage, and from a political infrastructure that saw in him the perfect avatar for a generational moment. The old political machines used to run on loyalty and labor. The new ones run on algorithms and ideology.

The markets noticed before the Democratic Party did. The day after Mamdani’s victory, New York City real estate stocks dropped significantly. Investors understand what many party insiders do not: this wasn’t a protest vote. It was a preview of policy. Mamdani isn’t just a symbolic figure. He’s a potential mayor. And his base expects transformation, not moderation.

The Democratic Party has now missed two seismic shifts in less than a decade. First, they failed to understand the anger that fueled Trump. Now, they’ve failed to grasp the zealotry fueling their own progressive flank. What connects both movements is not their ideology, but their defiance — and the fact that they were both underestimated by elites who still think politics happens in press releases.

This isn’t a warning about what might happen. It’s a declaration of what already has. It’s not next cycle. It’s not next year.

It’s this week.

This week, the Democratic Party lost control of its own future in New York. This week, a candidate backed by ideology, not infrastructure, defeated a symbol of the old guard. This week, the Free Palestine movement — once dismissed as peripheral — became a governing force in the most important city in America. And this week, the party my grandfather once helped shape would not recognize what it has become.

The revolution didn’t come from the streets. It came from the influencers, the Slack groups, the ideology class. And it’s governing now.

If the New York City powerbrokers don’t wake up, they will have been asleep while the antithesis of everything they claim to cherish takes up residence in Gracie Mansion.