This isn’t difficult to understand…
It’s so simple I could say it in one sentence: Zohran Mamdani won the NYC Democratic Primary for the same reason Trump won the 2024 Election–because people were fed up with the status quo and wanted a big change.
And then also it is no surprise that this desire to overturn the table means people vote against their self-interest. We see that with Trump. Trump promised change and has delivered some ungodly changes, and is trying to push even more. Many of these changes will hurt those who voted for him.
Whether Mamdani delivers unwanted changes remains to be seen.
The Pendulum
This swinging political maelstrom is a generally normal behavior. People get frustrated and vote something other than they voted previously. It is comparable to the phases of the Business Cycle.
There is no longevity in politics, at least in democratic society. Every political group attempts to maintain power, but eventually and inevitably power fades from one group and to another.
The fading from one group to the next is caused by a variety of factors. One is corruption: groups in power seek to enrich themselves. Another factor is the eventual disenchantment of their constituency. We also can count exogenous events such as natural disasters, international actions, and so on. Whatever reasons there may be, things sooner or later shift.
That is not to say lasting damage cannot happen when one side is in power. The tornado-like actions that Trump has unleashed, and will unleash, will take years, even decades, to mend, if ever. I want to be optimistic about American values honoring courage and freedom, but now we have now entered a dark period.
On the eve of World War I, British Foreign Secretary famously said, “The lamps are going out all over Europe, we shall not see them lit again in our life-time.” This sad comment is as vibrant and active today for and in America as it was then. Trump is putting out so many lamps, that it is not possible to put the country back on its true path in any short amount of time.
There is lasting damage being done, and more will be revealed as time goes by. The quote attributed to Otto von Bismark, “The mistakes that have been committed in foreign policy are not, as a rule, apparent to the public until a generation afterwards.” It will take a generation or more to fully reveal Trump’s damage to the republic.
Illustrated are puppets from the Island of Bali., from the volume “A Book of Marionettes” by Helen Haiman Joseph, 1920.
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