Joseph Sabino Mistick: In NY, another wild-card candidate challenges status quo

After last week’s primary election for mayor of New York City, President Donald Trump let loose with one of his trademark tirades on his Truth Social platform.

“It’s finally happened, the Democrats have crossed the line. Zohran Mamdani, a 100% Communist Lunatic, has just won the Dem Primary, and is on his way to becoming Mayor. We’ve had Radical Lefties before, but this is getting a little ridiculous,” he wrote.

Aiming his usual insults at Mamdani, Trump added, “He looks TERRIBLE, his voice is grating, he’s not very smart.” That was followed by his obligatory shots at “AOC” and Sen. Chuck Schumer, calling them “Dummies ALL.” Standard stuff for Trump.

While neither man would be happy with this comparison, Trump and Mamdani owe their political success to a common approach to the voters. Both Trump and Mamdani talked about the issues that the voters were talking about. Trump spoke with anger and Mamdani spoke with kindness, but both spoke with candor.

For Trump, it was foreign wars, an out-of-date immigration system that allowed criminals into the country and the return of the mills and mines. He had spoken for and against the Iraq war at first but settled on a promise that he would keep our sons and daughters far from foreign battlefields.

For many of his supporters, his cruelty toward immigrant families was a small price to pay for his promised tightening of the borders. And for displaced blue-collar workers, his promises to reopen factories and mines at least gave them hope when hope was hard to find.

Mamdani took on the insane cost of living in New York City. He campaigned on major policy changes that he believes would lower the cost of housing, transportation and food.

He would expand and tighten rent-controlled apartments while loosening zoning regulations to generate the development of more affordable units. He promised free buses for all. And he proposed a small network of city-owned grocery stores to deal with food deserts in very poor neighborhoods.

Both Trump and Mamdani challenged the status quo. For the most part, Trump has yet to deliver on those campaign promises. And Mamdani’s plans may be just as ineffective as Mayor Bill de Blasio’s progressive plans were when he replaced Mayor Michael Bloomburg and city services declined.

Both Trump and Mamdani have enflamed the opposite party. Both have caused splits within their own parties. But their supporters believe that their guy has simple fixes to complicated problems.

Neither Trump nor Mamdani would have had much of a chance if the traditional moderate leaders of their parties had not simply run out of gas. Voters in both parties are fed up with the same old same old.

Trump mowed down an array of traditional Republican leaders in both of his races for the Republican nomination for president. Democratic leaders unsuccessfully pushed former Gov. Andrew Cuomo for the Democratic nomination for mayor.

Until last week, few might have imagined that an obscure state assemblyman with a name like Zohran Mamdani would be in line to be mayor of New York City. It is also true that not so long ago no one would have bet that a former reality television star named Donald Trump would be the president of the United States.

The New York story is not over. Either Cuomo or current Mayor Eric Adams — or both — may be on the ballot in a very well-funded general election in which there will be a much higher turnout. Stay tuned.