In this episode of the Politics in Question podcast, the team discusses David Shor's recent controversy-provoking advice for Democrats ahead of the 2022 midterm elections.
New York City Democratic mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani celebrates as he takes the stage at his election night watch party at the Brooklyn Paramount on Nov. 4, 2025, in the Brooklyn borough of New York City.
One of the wildest and most dramatic New York City mayoral elections in modern history finished with the flare of a presidential…and with the national attention to match.
“Hear me, President Trump, when I say this: to get to any of us, you will have to get through all of us,” said a defiant and triumphant Zohran Mamdani in a shot across the bow to his shadow opponent throughout this campaign.
Mamdani, the 34-year-old democratic socialist most people hadn’t heard of when this race began — and whose name even his fellow candidates struggled to correctly pronounce as late as last night — just became mayor of the biggest city in the country, the financial hub of the United States and the world, with a municipal employee base that’s bigger than some Fortune 500 companies.
Mamdani also becomes Gotham’s first Muslim mayor, first mayor of South Asian descent, first mayor born in Africa, and the youngest in more than a century.
He ran a marvel of a campaign. But it should also be noted that the conditions were helpful too — running against an incumbent mayor surrounded by corruption, a former governor who hardly campaigned, and a president who made him a constant target, thereby elevating him in stature.
Still, his campaign should and will be studied closely by Democrats, whose party was in desperate need of a win since 2024’s bruising defeats — and actually got three, in NYC, New Jersey and Virginia.
Here are the important takeaways:
Mamdani ran an old-school, grassroots campaign, the likes of which we’ve increasingly been abandoning for more high-tech, new media endeavors that rely less on face-to-face interactions, coalition-building and canvassing, and more on texts and social media. Mamdani did all of that, too — his social media game was unquestionably effective — but without pounding the pavement, visiting the churches and synagogues and mosques, canvassing the taxi lines at LaGuardia Airport, riding the buses, sitting with cops and developers and rabbis, and even hitting the nightclubs, the rest just look like cheap gimmicks.
It sounds counter-intuitive, but Mamdani also capitalized on his limited name ID when he began this race. He knew he’d have to introduce himself to voters in a way his most competitive opponent, former New York governor and Democratic dynasty scion Andrew Cuomo, didn’t. While Mamdani was in the streets, Cuomo was running a Rose Garden strategy that ultimately set Cuomo up to fail.
But Mamdani’s most important move was on the issues that mattered to New Yorkers. His laser-focus on affordability, housing, mass transit, child care, and quality of life met voters where they are, not where the left wants them to be — existentially worried about less tangible things like democracy, climate change, and social issues. It’s not that those things aren’t important, but they aren’t a top priority to a majority of voters when they are choosing between paying rent or paying for health insurance.
This race should also be a nail in the coffin for the left’s identity politics. While Mamdani’s win represents a number of important firsts, he didn’t run on them — he ran on solving problems, not filling quotas.
Dems should also know that Mamdani’s win doesn’t mean democratic socialism should be the national model. A candidate who’s talked about defunding the police, globalizing the intifada, and “seizing the means of production” probably isn’t going to win in Georgia, or Michigan, or other important swing states where Dems need to pick up seats.
If Mikie Sherrill and Abigail Spanberger’s wins tell us anything, it’s that Democrats still need moderates to appeal to voters in the middle of the country, in the suburbs, and even in the cities where crime and immigration are still motivating fears for plenty of people.
Mamdani’s win is also a warning to Dem leadership. He won largely without the help or backing of the national Democratic Party, and in many cases without their endorsements, and instead relied on the infrastructure of the Democratic Socialists of America. If the party isn’t necessary to get candidates elected, what is its purpose?
The biggest question now is, can Zohran govern? He may have run a nearly-flawless campaign, but that’s not the same thing as running a giant city like New York. This will test his relationship-building skills, both with the City Council and Albany but also with the NYPD and Jewish voters. It will test his organizational skills, his executive leadership, his ability to make good on promises, his commitment to transparency (even when the news is bad).
What will be tested most, however, is Mamdani’s idealism. In a city as cynical and hardened as New York, is hope enough to make meaningful change? Only time will tell.
S.E. Cupp is the host of "S.E. Cupp Unfiltered" on CNN.
America is crying out for new leadership. We are stuck in a political swamp of hate and being hated. We can’t continue like this – we must make rational decisions to complex problems, and many of them need to be made quickly. It is simply not possible within the system that Congress has created. We need fresh ideas, fresh minds, and a fresh American spirit.
These are dangerous times for American self-government. We’ve heard that warning before—but the threat is here, right now, within the hearts and minds of our elected leaders. The institutions meant to represent us have become paralyzed or simply reneged on their duties. Partisanship has hardened into identity. Politics has turned into tribal combat instead of public service.
And yet, most Americans do not actually hate each other. For the most part, they feel helpless. What they hate is the system we have allowed to grow around us: a system where winning is more important than governing, where parties matter more than people, and where leaders treat political opposition as an enemy to be defeated rather than fellow citizens to be reasoned with.
The problem is not that Americans have different views. We always have. The problem is how we make decisions.
For decades, our public discourse has revolved around the idea that one party must be right and the other must be wrong. But in a country where razor-thin margins routinely decide elections, that framework makes governing impossible. In the last presidential election, the difference between the two major candidates was only 2 million votes — less than 1% of eligible voters. While 155 million voted, 90 million Americans didn’t vote or even register. They felt unrepresented by either side or disenchanted.
With numbers like these, there is no mandate for a political direction. No serious person can claim otherwise.
Yet our governmental structure treats it as one, and the winning party is emboldened by its announced dominance. The party that wins by the smallest of margins gains control of Congress, committee chairs, legislative agendas, and the mechanics of national decision-making. The losing party is basically locked out. The result is predictable: an angry party on one hand, and extremism and distortion on the other.
The Founders gave us a system of cooperation with checks and balances and meaningful representation. Our elected leaders have slowly replaced it with one designed for party control.
For much of our modern history, the unwritten norms of American democracy helped hold things together. The evening news provided a shared understanding of facts. Lies were disqualifying. The Constitution was respected not only in law but in spirit. Lawmakers negotiated differences in conference committees and found compromises that lasted beyond the next election cycle.
Technology, political incentives, and unheard-of wealth in and out of government have changed all of that. The rise of cable news, social media, and algorithmic outrage has fragmented our information environment. Extreme positions are rewarded. Moderation is punished. And the rules of Congress, created by the political parties over decades, have transformed our national legislature into a battlefield rather than a forum for problem-solving.
This is not what the public wants. We need a government we can trust to make high-level, complex decisions. It simply cannot happen in this twisted, entangled maze of politically-backed rules that Congress has woven for itself, where lobbyists and big money run wild.,
This is not a Constitutional problem. Most people don’t realize that the rules of Congress were developed for Congress, by Congress, and can be changed by Congress. The Public can demand that they be changed.
The Constitution allows each chamber of Congress to set its own procedures, its rules of operation. There is no requirement anywhere that the majority party controls committees. There is no constitutional principle that requires only one party to control the legislative process. The Founders never wanted modern party power structures; in fact, Washington explicitly warned they could destroy public liberty, and we can now see he was right.
So the issue is not that America’s founding design has failed — it’s that while we were working, taking care of families, and getting on with life, “we the people” let this miscarriage of governing happen. We ignored the oversight duty the Founders entrusted to us and let the mischief of political parties lead us astray.
Poll after poll shows Americans want cooperation, shared responsibility, and decisions grounded in broad public support. In polls, 70-75% of the public calls for members of Congress to compromise with the other side to address the nation's problems. They want leaders who respect their oath, work hard, and solve problems. They want to see Congress behave like a deliberative body.
Our current decision-making system fails on all counts and exacerbates the problems. It’s not structured to give us the results we want. If we want different outcomes, we have to change the way we make decisions.
We think of bipartisanship as one side agreeing with the other's position, not as both sides agreeing on a single position. Fortunately, we already have a working model inside Congress. It’s been operational for years, yet most people have never noticed it. The House and Senate Ethics Committees are the only standing committees structured with equal representation from both parties and professional nonpartisan staff. The House Committee even has an independent, non-legislative advisory committee of experts (Office of Congressional Ethics (OCE)) to increase accountability and transparency. These decision-making structures exist because ethical questions are too sensitive to be controlled by a single party.
If we can apply that principle where trust and compromise matter most, why not use it to all committees? If we want cooperation and compromise, why should one party have total control?
Imagine every congressional committee balanced 50/50. Imagine neutral staff, shared subpoena power, and rules requiring that any bill advanced from committee would receive a recorded vote on the House or Senate floor. Imagine informative hearings, not theater. No partisan leadership could bury legislation or shut down a chamber of Congress. Transparency, not messaging, would drive deliberation. Anti-gridlock provisions would force resolution if needed and prevent stalemate.
Republicans could adopt such a balanced committee rule change in the House at any time; however, it is highly unlikely given the current Executive Office's control over that body. If Democrats were to win control of the House in 2026, they could initiate such a change by majority vote at the beginning of the session in 2027. Such a change could be encouraged by various good government NGOs and launched by Democrats as a major response to public demands. A change in the House could serve as a model for the Senate, where there are formal (2/3rds majority) and informal (simple majority) processes for changing the rules.
Technology could help provide vastly improved transparency. Every member of Congress should be required to maintain a standardized, high-tech public dashboard: bills, amendments, votes, correspondence, meeting schedules, hearing schedules, lobbyist interactions, all searchable and open to the public in real time. Modern AI tools could make that information easily accessible and digestible to citizens and news organizations.
The solutions are here now. “We the people” must demand it.
If we want cooperation in Congress, we also need it in the Executive Branch.
A President committed to true bipartisanship should consider selecting a Vice President who is an Independent or from the other major party. Similarly, every Cabinet department should have diverse political interests at the top of the decision chain, supported by balanced professional staff. Policy differences would be debated, and when differences remained, the President would make the final decision, but with a public explanation of the reasoning and principles behind it.
Transparency and compromise would become the governing philosophy, not a slogan.
At the Constitutional Convention, George Washington argued that one representative should never speak for more than 30,000 citizens. Today, that number is closer to 765,000. Representation feels distant because it is. Washington also said it was the public duty to hold the government accountable.
But it’s also the government's responsibility to give the public the tools to do its job. We may not be able to expand Congress overnight, but we can close the distance between representation and constituents with new AI communication and information access systems. We can build systems that make legitimate, bipartisan petitions of the government meaningful. We can make constituent surveys accurate, reflective, and impossible to ignore. Enhanced technology can facilitate more beneficial public participation and involvement.
If we reconnect the public and journalists to the process of governing, we breathe new life into the representative democracy.
The United States does not need one side to win and the other to lose. The United States needs a system in which differences are acknowledged, common ground is found, and decisions reflect widespread public approval, not the dominance of one party.
We need a government that represents all of us, not just whoever won the last election by the smallest of margins.
We are not as divided as our politics suggests. We can restore cooperation. We can restore trust. And we can build a system designed not for victory, but for governance. If we don’t change the way we make decisions, America will fail. We are currently on that path.
It seems we have no choice, but we do. We must focus our protests on changing how we govern and make decisions. We need to expand the numbers to include the millions who cannot attend the rallies (e.g., the “a dollar for democracy” campaign, one per donor). We need coordinated, focused, and publicized electronic petition campaigns from respectable sponsors. Commitments must be received from elected incumbents and candidates in exchange for votes and support.
Enterprising NGOs and universities could lead the way by developing AI-driven information and communication technology (ICT) platforms to maximize interaction and oversight between elected members and their constituents. Several organizations are already pursuing the connection of AI to government involvement. The public could insist that such new technologies and standardized platforms be installed in all Congressional offices and utilized throughout the government.
If we change our decision-making process, we can begin to address the many critical issues and problems that must be addressed. If we choose cooperation over contempt, courage over confrontation, and country over party, we can begin a new chapter worthy of the generations who came before us. The question is not whether change is possible. The question is whether “we the people” will demand it.
Jeff Dauphin, aka J.P. McJefferson, is retired. Blogging on the "Underpinnings of a Broken Government." Founded and ran two environmental information & newsletter businesses for 36 years. Facilitated enactment of major environmental legislation in Michigan in the 70s. Community planning and engineering. BSCE, Michigan Technological University.
An armed National Guard soldier facing a crowd of anti-war protestors outside the Conrad Hilton Hotel, the Democratic party's convention headquarters on Michigan Avenue, Chicago, Illinois, August 28th 1968.
Grant Park, 1968
In the summer of 1968, I was living in Chicago when the city erupted around the Democratic National Convention. Tear gas hung over Grant Park. Demonstrators threw rocks and bottles; police responded with clubs and mace. What followed revealed as much about the nation's divisions as the war itself.
Today, more than half a century later, the United States faces another moment of internal confrontation. Since Donald Trump began his second term nine and a half months ago, federal agents have deployed to American cities as instigators rather than responders. In 1968, citizens initiated the confrontation. In 2025, the state does.
When Citizens Confronted Power
The 1968 protesters came to challenge the Democratic establishment over the Vietnam War. As the Walker Report documented, protesters threw "rocks, sticks, bathroom tiles, and even human feces" at officers. Police responded with "unrestrained and indiscriminate" force in what the report called a "police riot."
By early 1968, Gallup found that a slim majority of Americans opposed the war. The convention protests made that opposition impossible to ignore.
Citizens confronted authority in 1968, and the democratic system absorbed it. Courts investigated. The Walker Report documented abuses. Policy changed. Democracy was tested and held.
When Power Crushes Citizens
In 2025, the pattern has reversed. On September 8, the Department of Homeland Security announced Operation Midway Blitz, a federal immigration enforcement surge in Chicago conducted without the city's or state's request.
Federal agents deployed tear gas, pepper spray, and rubber bullets against protesters at the Broadview ICE facility. A CBS Chicago reporter was shot at with pepper balls while checking on protests from her car. Federal agents tear-gassed residential neighborhoods with no warning. An ICE agent fatally shot a Mexican immigrant during an arrest attempt. Court filings document that federal agents detained at least 27 people without warrants, including at least three U.S. citizens.
On October 9, 2025, U.S. District Judge Sara Ellis issued a temporary restraining order prohibiting federal agents from using force against peaceful protesters and journalists. She found that federal agents' conduct violated constitutional protections and noted that "whatever lawlessness is occurring is not occurring by peaceful protesters."
That same day, U.S. District Judge April Perry issued a separate restraining order blocking Trump's National Guard deployment to Illinois. Perry ruled the deployment violated the Constitution and found the Department of Homeland Security's account of events "simply unreliable."
The administration's response was defiance. Stephen Miller announced to ICE agents: "You have federal immunity in the conduct of your duties." Judge Ellis subsequently expressed being "profoundly concerned" that federal agents were not following her restraining order.
This 1968/2025 inversion matters. When violence flows upward from citizens to the state, democracy's institutions are tested. When it flows downward from the state to citizens, democracy is dying.
What Protest Can and Cannot Do
The lesson of 1968 is that protest changes history only when democratic institutions remain intact. In 2025, that mechanism is breaking down. Courts issue restraining orders; the administration ignores them. Officials claim immunity. The president deploys troops against governors' wishes, and his lawyers argue that "the president's judgment is unreviewable."
The Broadview protesters have done what 1968's protesters did: they have exposed state overreach through disciplined resistance. They have succeeded in obtaining judicial protection. Yet judicial protection only works if power submits to it. The question facing Americans concerns whether democratic institutions can still constrain a government that refuses to be constrained.
That task falls to voters. If the majority awakens but elected officials serve the strongman rather than the Constitution, then the democratic system fails because those sworn to uphold the law refuse to enforce it. The 2026 midterm elections will determine whether Americans choose representatives who will defend democratic constraints or those who will continue dismantling them.
But elections are only part of the work. What happens between them often matters more—how communities organize, protect local journalism, defend independent courts, and stand up for those targeted by the state. These small acts of solidarity sustain the trust that makes elections meaningful.
The System Under Assault
The Chicago I remember was a city in anguish, a microcosm of a nation tearing itself apart. But the aftermath proved something enduring: that even in division, democratic institutions could still hold authority accountable.
The difference between 1968 and 2025 lies in how systems respond. In 1968, the system could absorb citizen rage and respond with investigation, accountability, and ultimately reform. In 2025, the system is under assault from those charged with defending it.
If protests in 1968 helped end one unjust war, protests today must help end another kind of injustice: one waged against the constitutional constraints that prevent tyranny. But protest alone cannot restore what is being destroyed. That requires electoral consequences that force officials to fear voters more than they fear defying the strongman they serve.
The means are different, but the goal is the same: to awaken the majority and ensure that once awakened, the majority still has the power to govern itself. That defense doesn’t begin or end on Election Day. It continues in the choices people make every day, what they tolerate, what they question, and whom they stand beside.
Edward Saltzberg is the Executive Director of the Security and Sustainability Forum and writes The Stability Brief, which analyzes how civic responsibility, governance, and public trust shape national stability.
Edward joined this month's Fulcrum Roundtable, offering insights on his column Courage Is Contagious.
- YouTube youtu.be
Politicians, including Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), right, New York mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani, second from right,, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, middle, and New York State Attorney General Letitia James, second from left, march during the NYC Labor Day Parade on Sept. 6, 2025, in New York City.
Here we go again.
Socialism is making a comeback, according to friend and foe alike. A new NBC poll now suggests that a majority of registered voters don’t like capitalism.
A Gallup poll in September also found that support for capitalism was slipping. A Data for Progress poll around the same time showed that — after asking some decidedly leading questions about democratic socialism — people liked democratic socialism. Still, Politico combined the results to declare: “Capitalism is out … and socialism is in.” And just this week, an NPR podcast dedicated a segment to explaining “How socialism got sexy.”
This has happened before. In 2018, Gallup found for the first time that a majority of Democrats had a more favorable view of “socialism” than of “capitalism.” And we got similar headlines as a result. No doubt such polls partly explain why Democratic presidential primary candidates overwhelmingly ran in the Bernie Sanders lane in 2020. Joe Biden, the candidate who mostly avoided that lane, however, won the nomination.
Like Sanders, New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani describes himself as a democratic socialist. His popularity has driven many to claim that democratic socialism is popular too. It may well be, especially in New York City. But what plays in NYC may not have legs far outside the Big Apple. Indeed, Mikie Sherrill, the Democratic gubernatorial candidate in neighboring New Jersey, which shares much of the same media market, didn’t run as a democratic socialist and beat primary candidates who more or less did.
But punditry is not my aim here. My problem is with these periodic, poll-driven, “socialism is coming” fads.
For starters, issue polling — even when done well — is not very reliable. Change one word and you’ll get very different results. For decades, if you call a program “welfare,” Americans won’t like it. Call it “assistance to the poor” and Americans like it whole a lot more.
It’s also difficult to keep other issues from influencing issue polling. Capitalism’s popularity dropped — particularly among Democrats — during President Trump’s first term. It has dropped again during his second term. Is it really so hard to imagine people associating capitalism with the avowed party of capitalism? When that party is in power and is unpopular, it shouldn’t be surprising that the thing it claims to stand for is (slightly) less popular too?
And then there’s the messy fact that Trump’s brand of capitalism isn’t exactly the uncut free market stuff (that I like). It’s not socialism, but it’s definitely close to “state capitalism” — a system involving massive government interventions in the economy, usually on behalf of favored industries. Most serious libertarians would rather eat glass than call Trump’s program of massive tariffs, cronyism, industrial planning and partial government ownership of industries “capitalism.”
There’s a famous — and widely attributed— line that the problem with socialism is socialism, but the problem with capitalism is capitalists. When the administration is run from the top by private-jet-flying billionaires seemingly getting richer with insider deals and literally cosplaying “The Great Gatsby” at a time when SNAP benefits are running out for 40 million Americans, you’d think capitalism would be in even worse odor.
But take Trump out of it. When the status quo is unpopular, if you call the status quo “capitalism” they’ll have problems with it. Call the economic status quo “capitalism” and a lot of people will choose option number two, whether you call it “socialism” or not.
It’s not like the new “socialists” have cracked the books in their free time and suddenly have a newfound respect for Karl Marx, Sidney Webb, Michael Harrington or some other socialist thinker.
Socialist intellectuals have a hard enough time agreeing on what socialism is. The best definition the very well-read editors of the socialist journal Dissent could come up with in 1954 was “socialism is the name of our desire.” The idea that millions of Americans have a fully formed and coherent understanding of the concept, never mind know how to implement socialism, is preposterous. Asking people if they like socialism or capitalism is a “vibes” question and little more.
Of course, socialists are entitled to be happy about improving vibes. But the best way to make Americans sour on socialism is to put socialists in charge — which is why I’m not too worried about America becoming a socialist country.
Jonah Goldberg is editor-in-chief of The Dispatch and the host of The Remnant podcast. His Twitter handle is @JonahDispatch.
