No Stupid Questions

Mamdani won by focusing his campaign on the most pressing issue to voters today: affordability. The cost of living keeps going up, wages stay the same, and everybody's scared and frustrated looking for someone to promise they can do something about it. And he had answers.

In increasingly uncertain times, we can win voters over by appealing to their fears and frustrations and promising change that will directly address their needs. This is, in a way, how Trump won. He told voters, "I know you're upset and scared in a changing world. Well it's the immigrants' fault, it's trans people's fault, it's whatever target I tell you to hate next's fault, and when I own the libs, I'll bring the price of eggs down."

Of course you and I both know Trump was full of shit. But as long it sounded like he was addressing their fears, the most frightened people struggling to make ends meet latched onto whatever false hope he gave them. And I believe we can win people back by speaking to those same fears, but this time we offer real solutions.

However, there is a very important catch. Do not ever say the word 'socialism'. The legacy of McCarthyism has ensured that that word is still political suicide on the national stage today. You can get away with it in a city as deeply blue as NYC, but not in a general election.

But it's really only the word that's the problem, not the ideas behind it. People really are fed up with capitalism, they just don't know that that's really what they're fed up with. And as long as you avoid the word, I think you'd be surprised what you can get people to agree with.

Look at Obama in 2008. He ran his campaign on universal healthcare as his main issue, knowing that healthcare in America is a major problem voters wanted addressed. Detractors called it socialized medicine, but as long as he never said that word himself, voters just understood that he was offering change and they wanted to try change. They were fed up enough with American healthcare that red scare tactics didn't stop them from considering change.

I believe a viable next step that could work in 2028 could be to campaign on universal basic income. The job market is becoming increasingly unstable, especially with the AI bubble. People fresh out of college can't get jobs because everything that claims to be entry level wants three years of experience, and they can't get that experience because they don't have experience. We're coming to a point where it's time to rethink one of the fundamental flaws of capitalism, that everyone must work or else they starve and die, as this is about to break when too many people lose their jobs. But don't use the c-word, don't use the s-word, just talk about UBI as its own issue and I think people will warm up to the idea.