I’d like to see this fury turned upon the Felon

As I blogged about recently, Zohran Mamdani, who won the Democratic primary for mayor of New York has thereby infuriated bigots (I presume he’s why the Felon wants to take over NYC) — but also a bunch of centrist Democrats and the media.

The New York Times, for instance, refused to publish hacked Trump campaign emails about JD Vance last year. They had no problems printing a right-wing eugenicist’s hacked reveal that Mamdani, born in Uganda, listed himself as “African American” on a college application. Which is hardly a sizzling scoop so the Times is going with “Mamdani faces scrutiny” as an argument this is a Real Story. Of course the only scrutiny he’s facing is from the NYT; it’s like articles I’ve seen discussing some quirk of politician behavior and then declaring “the story is sticking to him” — without admitting “sticking” means “we keep writing about it.”

Their performance is journalistically dubious but as Dan Froomkin says, there’s a school of thought that good journalism means punching left. It’s not a new problem but it is a problem. What’s even more dubious is describing right-wing race and gender hustler Chris Rufo as an “independent journalist.” He’s never been a journalist, just an online outrage artist — by his own statement, mission one is to scream DEI about everything that goes wrong until he makes it toxic. He’s never been a journalist but fear he’d break the story drove the Times to rush to publish.

It’s not all about the press. Democratic centrists, as I mentioned in the previous Mamdani post, are terrified that electing someone who wants to help people — free mass transit, government grocery stores in food deserts — is so radical he’ll doom Democrats everywhere. No question Republicans will happily hold up Mamdani’s policies — or any Democrat anywhere — as proof of how “radical” the party is, but I think describing his policies would make Dems look good (Republicans will solve that by lying).

I’ve heard the hostility to Mamdani stems from the influential pro-Israel AIPAC lobby (Mamdani oppposes the genocide against the Palestinians) or from rich people upset by someone who wants to help the poor. Or owners and publishers of the media who hang out with the rich people who hate Mamdani. I also think a lot of Democrats are terrified of Republican criticism and would rather do anything than take a stance that someone might object to. Spoiler: there’s no stance worth taking that won’t have detractors. If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.

As one meme points out, this proves the media and the Democrats can still stick it aggressively to a candidate they don’t like. So why are so many of them whaling on Mamdani and dancing around the Felon?