'Attention-grabbing charisma and magnetism': Is Mamdani setting the stage for the 'future of American politics'?

3 months ago

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00:00Well, to get more insight, we can speak now to Lecter in Political Science, Lex Paulson.

00:03Thanks so much for your time and joining us on France 24.

00:06We've just heard Mandani speaking a bit there, but, you know, certainly from abroad,

00:11his rise in politics has been extremely rapid.

00:14Can you tell us a bit more about him and his politics?

00:19Well, Mandani is a member of the New York State Assembly.

00:22He's 33.

00:24He has a very interesting life story as someone who grew up in New York City,

00:29but with immigrant roots, as is the case with many millions of New Yorkers.

00:34He studied at Bowdoin College in Maine and so has also an activist

00:40as well as a liberal arts intellectual background.

00:44I think much is made of the fact that he calls himself a democratic socialist,

00:49although when you look at the actual issues that he's talking about,

00:53things like reduced fare, bus journeys, rent freezes, things like state-subsidized or city-subsidized

01:02grocery stores.

01:05These are not things that would cause a Marxist or Leninist to storm the barricades.

01:11These are very quality-of-life, cost-of-living-oriented proposals.

01:19Mandani has really taken advantage of the new modes of communication in campaigning,

01:25especially straight-to-video YouTube shorts and TikTok shorts

01:29to interview New Yorkers and make his case.

01:36He really shows a deep affection for New York,

01:38as opposed to someone who is trying to criticize or break down a system.

01:43You can tell when you watch Mandani campaign how deeply he loves the city

01:46and how laser-focused he is on the human problems facing the city,

01:51number one being that New York is becoming an increasingly expensive,

01:56prohibitively expensive place to live for most of its working people.

02:00So if, as we are currently assuming, he does get elected,

02:03how much will he actually change New York City and in what way?

02:07Well, becoming mayor of New York City is in many ways a thankless job.

02:12A friend of mine who worked at City Hall used to say that New York City's mayor's day

02:17is taken up with choosing between two bad decisions and trying to choose the least bad.

02:23And you're managing an enormous bureaucracy of hundreds of thousands of city workers.

02:29So I think Mandani has to show the same kind of creativity and energy as a manager,

02:36as he has as a legislator and campaigner.

02:39All signs so far is that he has really been diligent in seeking advice

02:44from people who know how to manage these large bureaucracies.

02:49So I do think that as someone who is, I would say, in the center-left of New York City politics,

02:55maybe from the far left of American politics,

02:58but not too far on the fringes when it comes to New York City,

03:01that he will be able to build coalitions around some of these issues.

03:05Is he going to solve the housing problem in New York?

03:08No, but I think he's going to tilt the discussion toward housing

03:12and toward especially the problems of renters and those seeking to get their first home in New York City,

03:20which is becoming vanishingly difficult.

03:22So I do think Mandani will have enormous difficulties,

03:26but he looks like the kind of person with his energy, his creativity, his seriousness,

03:31but also his sense of humor and whimsy, who, if anyone could succeed in this very difficult job,

03:37it might just well be him.

03:39One challenge he faces, though, is the President Donald Trump,

03:42which has been very clear in his opposition to Mandani.

03:47He's gone from threatening to arrest and deport him

03:50to saying he'll simply cut federal funding to New York City.

03:52Yeah, I mean, this is the game that the federal government has played before with New York City.

03:58One of the most famous newspaper headlines in American history was during the 1970s

04:03when New York went through a bankruptcy period.

04:05General Ford was president, and the headlines said,

04:07Ford to City, Drop Dead.

04:09So, I mean, this is a very old story.

04:12Frankly, I think Trump has a lot to lose by mismanaging his relationship with New York City,

04:17just because so much of the financial and media attention of America is perpetually centered upon New York.

04:25So, causing needless friction, dysfunction, violence that can be directly attributed to Trump,

04:33and, of course, he wants to attribute everything to him,

04:36it's going to hurt him a lot more in New York than it would in a place like Philadelphia or Albuquerque.

04:41So, I think Donald Trump will pick fights with New York City,

04:44but I also think New York City, New Yorkers are resilient.

04:47They're used to being picked on by the federal government,

04:50and Mamdani doesn't seem like the kind of person who is going to shy away from a fight.

04:55And how do businesses see Mamdani?

04:59Yeah, I think it's very different depending on who you ask.

05:04I think the business community, some of the folks on the right who have funded Cuomo's campaign,

05:11have been demagoguing Mamdani as a socialist or a communist who's going to be disastrous for business.

05:20You know, frankly, it's a great time to do business in New York City,

05:25especially if you have money in the markets.

05:27The markets have been doing phenomenally well.

05:29So, Mamdani, what he's trying to focus on is how can we, as an entire community in New York City,

05:37make sure that the kind of economic benefits that have been going very disproportionately to the richest New Yorkers

05:45become something that benefits all New Yorkers.

05:49And I think there are ways of doing that in a win-win manner.

05:53If you create more housing, if you create safer streets,

05:56these are things that rich and poor New Yorkers benefit from.

06:00And so I think there are a lot of issues, actually, that don't divide on economic class,

06:05but that are quality of life issues that everyone in New York benefits from.

06:09I think Mamdani, he doesn't seem like the kind of person who picks fights just to win a kind of a symbolic culture war,

06:17as Trump does.

06:19Mamdani seems the kind of person who, if a business leader has a problem that he can address,

06:25he's going to listen.

06:26But what he's not going to do is compromise to the very, very wealthy interests

06:32that tend to dominate American politics.

06:34Now, of course, it is a three-man race.

06:37I mean, Mamdani is running for the Democrat Party,

06:41but then you have a former Democrat governor, Andrew Cuomo,

06:44who's now running as an independent, and he is the candidate, not the Republican one.

06:48He's the candidate that has the backing from the U.S. President Donald Trump.

06:52I mean, how much should we read into this on the state of the Democrat Party

06:56and what it might mean for future elections?

06:59Yeah, it's a great question.

07:00I mean, I was actually kind of surprised to see that Cuomo accepted Trump's endorsement.

07:05Now, Trump did do significantly better in New York City in 2024 than he had in 2016 and 2020.

07:12So it does show that Trump's support, political support in the city of New York,

07:18has broadened, including voters of color and voters of lower income.

07:26So I can see Cuomo, I can see a little bit why he would have thought that this was a good idea.

07:31But as someone who is the son of a Democratic icon, Mario Cuomo, his father who had governed the state for many years

07:40and part of this political dynasty, it does strike me as kind of a desperate maneuver to accept Trump's nomination this late in the game.

07:49He did quite well during COVID. He resigned because of a sex scandal.

07:53Eleven women accused him of inappropriate sexual behavior.

07:56He doesn't seem to have any new ideas for the city.

07:58He ran a quite listless primary campaign.

08:02And Mamdani, with his energy, with his dynamism, I think took Andrew Cuomo very much by surprise.

08:07But Cuomo is a candidate of the status quo.

08:09If you are a very wealthy New Yorker and you want to make sure, above all, that no one raises your taxes,

08:15I think Cuomo will speak to you.

08:18He also tried to make this race about Israel and Gaza, given that Mamdani has been very critical of Israel's genocide in Gaza.

08:28And Cuomo has tried to paint Mamdani as some kind of Muslim extremist.

08:33I don't think it's working terribly well, given how diverse New York is, given that most New Yorkers have Muslim friends or colleagues.

08:43This is an extremely diverse city.

08:45And playing that kind of demagogue-type game, I don't think is going to be as effective as it would be in other places in the U.S.

08:54So, yeah, I think Cuomo has woken up to the fact that he is likely to lose this race.

09:00But really, given all the resources that were behind him, the fault can only be his own.

09:05And finally, before we leave you, the Republican candidate in the race getting very little attention,

09:09really falling far behind, not even getting the support of the Republican president.

09:14I mean, what does this mean for the Republican Party?

09:16And we are just a year away from the midterms.

09:18Yeah, I mean, Republicans used to win the mayoralty in New York.

09:22I mean, going back to Giuliani, Bloomberg, Grant ran as a Republican.

09:25But use the word attention.

09:26I think the word attention is really important.

09:28We've left an era of American politics behind that was decided by money.

09:32We're in the era where the successful political candidate is defined by attention.

09:36And so where you are on the left-right spectrum is less and less important.

09:40And your ability to magnetize interest through earned media, through online ads and videos,

09:48this is what determines success in American politics in the 2020s.

09:51Mamdani has that.

09:53Cuomo briefly had that when he did these daily briefings during the COVID times.

09:59But he looks totally listless and out of energy.

10:01And Sliwa, he has kind of a sideshow appeal.

10:04But I don't think anyone thinks that a Republican has a chance in this year's election.

10:07But again, party labels are going to mean less and attention-grabbing,

10:12attention-grabbing charisma and magnetism.

10:14This is what is coming to define the future of American politics.

10:18Alex Paulson, thanks so much for bringing your insight and giving us your time here in France 24.

10:22Very much appreciated.

'Attention-grabbing charisma and magnetism': Is Mamdani setting the stage for the 'future of American politics'?

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