The Defeat of Andrew Cuomo Would Be a Devastating Loss for Scumbag Centrism

Any argument for voting for Andrew Cuomo over Zohran Mamdani as mayor of New York City is about as convincing as an RFK Jr. vaccine briefing. But the worst reasoning for choosing Cuomo over Mamdani is that the young assemblyman would “hurt the brand” of Democratic anti-Trump opposition and “voters need to play the long game.” In other words, yes, Cuomo might not be as politically daring or charismatic as Mamdani, but if Cuomo loses, a fundamentally centrist country will turn against Democrats for electing such a radical. But the “long game” is a losing one, and it is remarkable how many times the Democratic Party needs to learn this lesson.

Ranking Cuomo is to reward a legacy centrist for his corruption and to ignore his misogynistic personal life. It should be disqualifying that Cuomo supported a group of Republican-aligned Democratic state legislators known as the Independent Democrats who blocked laws that would have helped working people. It should be disqualifying that as governor he covered up the number of Covid nursing-home deaths. It should be disqualifying that he is credibly accused of sexually harassing at least 13 women. The “long game” means cheering for a candidate whose only principles are uncritical support for Israel’s genocide and the prosperity of billionaires (who, of course, will raise all boats).

The establishment Dems making this case—from Bill Clinton to James Clyburn—seem to have zero awareness of how toxic Cuomo is as an individual and how repugnant his political profile has become to voters, especially in this era of acute crises and rising fascism. People crave politicians who promise programmatically, not just rhetorically (followed by a text to ask for money), to oppose the right. (Why do I get texts asking me to help pay for the DNC’s debt? How did it get my number?)

The “long game” has produced 50 years of political defeats and ensures more. Our few victories since Nixon won 49 states in 1972 have been due to courageous social movements with roots in the 1960s and ’70s. Everything else has been near-invisible change around the margins, performative representation, and a bipartisan attack on workers that has produced a level of wealth in the top 10th of 1 percent that is destabilizing and would have been unimaginable even 15 years ago, when it already felt apocalyptic. With Cuomo Democrats in charge or even as the opposition, we will need to get ready for the trillionaire class. Get ready for more gated communities, more private police, and more vigilante violence from both sides.

I hope Zohran wins. Not because I think he’ll succeed in all his initiatives and not because I’m naïve enough to think that there won’t be an ugly bipartisan backlash. I hope he wins because it will a statement about the appeal of his platform; it will be a statement against Trumpism and especially ICE’s gestapo war on immigrants; it will be a statement that the people of the city find current Trump-controlled Mayor Eric Adams’s violent cop crackdown on peaceful Palestinian rights protesters unconscionable; and it will be a statement that Trumpism demands a political response and not some multimillion-dollar search for “the left Joe Rogan.”

Perhaps most importantly, it will be a resounding statement that the centrist Democratic gerontocracy (Cuomo is 67) that has been clutching to power for decades is about as relevant—and about as pleasing to the ears—as Internet dial-up. But ranking Mamdani and not Cuomo is not just a vote against something. I find Mamdani’s agenda and the movement to elect Mamdani—which is rousing my most (understandably) cynical high school buddies to not just vote but campaign—inspiring and optimistic at a moment when both emotions are in short supply. Without inspiration and optimism, building the movement that could change this country for the better is impossible.

I make no prediction as to who is going to win or whether as mayor Mamdani would be able to execute his ambitious plan to actually make the city livable for working-class people again (I swear it once was), but I do know that it will be a blow to the boorish liberal centrists that refuse to let go of power—even for a scumbag like Cuomo. The demise of these Whigs cannot come soon enough.