Mamdani is a Gift to Moderate Dems

Say It With Me: "Triangulation"

My first reaction to Zoran Mamdani’s primary election win to be Mayor of New York City was “Christ, the socialists are going to bring down every Democrat in the country.” To be sure, I wish more candidates campaigned as he (and even Alexandria Ocasio-Cortes) did; pounding the pavement, meeting people where they were and getting out of the business meetings and C-Suites, down on the ground with the actual voters. It doesn’t change the fact most of America views Mamdani and socialism generally as unelectable.

My second reaction¹ was “New York is it’s own bubble, and won’t impact anything else anywhere around the country. Those loony New Yorkers can have him.”

My third reaction, after a full day of taking it all in was “This may not be so bad for moderates across the country after all.” Let me explain.

For starters, he’s not elected mayor yet. For all practical purposes, he’s just the Democratic nominee. He can still fail miserably in the general election ballot, but against whom, is a toss up between a corrupt current mayor and a kooky vigilante leader. If an independent entered the race, so long as they’re competent and electable, they could win the election handily. In terms of GOP ads though, it won’t matter— Mamdani and AOC are going to be the poster children for why the left is considered crazy loony leftists. You can already see their images on GOP ads complete with hammer, sickle and Che Guevera motif writing itself.

And that ties into why I think this may be OK for moderates nationally.

Back in 1994, Bill Clinton had just suffered the single biggest drubbing in a midterm election ever², giving Republicans control of both houses of Congress for the first time since Truman. Now, all you readers out there would be forgiven if you thought Clinton was first elected in 1992 as a moderate. He wasn’t. He was just another liberal Democrat at the time. “He’s a draft dodging, pot smoking, womanizing former hippie from Arkansas.” That Arkansas thing was actually the most important aspect because his southern roots (and Al Gore being from Tennessee) helped bring a few southern states with them. The first major issue he promoted in his first term? Universal Health Care, chaired by a committee run by his wife Hillary Clinton.

His Presidency was in shambles, he had all the makings of a lame duck President. Republicans were sharpening up the knives and getting ready for a 1996 Presidential Cycle that had all the makings of the bloodbath. So what was Slick Willie to do? He called him longtime friend and Republican Political Consultant Dick Morris³ to offer suggestions on how to fix this mess.

The strategy they agreed on was one described as “triangulation.” Clinton would stake out positions between the rabid Republicans and the uber-liberal Democratic Left, and the result would hopefully make him appear more like the adult in the room than either of the other sides do. They would do this using a combination of policy stances staking out the center of the electorate, taking Republican issues and giving them a Democratic tilt.

• Clinton would adopt free trade and global economics, and ditch the protectionist economic policies of Democrats’ past.⁴ These were primarily GOP positions during the Reagan-Bush years, so this pivot was one of the most problematic initially to Clinton.

• Clinton would work with Republicans to pass a welfare reform bill and a crime bill (that even included an assault weapons ban!).

• Clinton would tamp down and even criticize the more fringe-y Democratic positions on a number of issues, particularly cultural issues that proved divisive.

• Following the George H.W. Bush recession, and some of Clinton’s earlier economic bills being passed, the economy was coming back and the tax revenues might achieve a surplus. He would stake a position early to use the surplus to shore up Medicare and Social Security, while Republicans would scream irresponsibly for more tax cuts.⁵

• As a Democrat who didn’t serve, being hawkish wouldn’t suit Clinton well. However, being a former hippie at a time when the Berlin Wall had fallen and the world was opening up he could use to his advantage; he staked out foreign policy positons that encouraged peaceful transitions to capitalism and worked to expand NATO to the former Soviet Bloc.

• He would cut overinflated Cold War military budgets as part of a “peace dividend.”

• Most importantly, his rhetoric became more unifying; he spoke to many who didn’t vote for him and broadened his approach.

It worked. Clinton cruised to re-election in 1996 and his approval rating soared.

These positions and the pivot he made following the 1994 Contract for America bloodbath, helped revive his Presidency and turned him into the moderate we see him as today. That moderation is what made him broadly popular and one of the more successful presidents of the past 50 years.

So What Does This Have to Do With Mamdani?

There has not been a time since then more ripe to stake out the middle just as Clinton did, than right now. Republicans have gone off the deep end, and are as rabid as ever. They loosely peeled away working class and middle class votes, but it wasn’t becasue people liked their policies, they just followed the zeitgeist in their direction just like in 1994 with the Contract with America. I might add, it wasn’t a very strong zeitgeist either, the benefit of having an octogenarian on the ballot that then got swapped out by a San Francisco liberal. Speaking of the left, right now they just nominated a socialist to be Mayor of New York City (he won WALL STREET for crying out loud) and the Progressive proletariat are whipping up a lot of crazy ideas and youthful naivite that your average voter across the country is looking cross eyed at. If you took away MAGA from the equation, people would look at these progressives wondering WTF and Why. This gap in the middle is RIPE to be addressed.

So how do you triangulate in this era? The same way Bill Clinton did; you take typically Republican issues and give them a Democratic slant.

• The easiest is the Border and Immigration. Offer up the same bill that Biden did for Immigration and Border Enforcement. Republicans aren’t going to do anything about it with Trump in office, and the more his gestapo squads make a mockery of the issue, the more voters just want a solution to the whole problem.

• Patriotism. Most on the left treat flying the stars and stripes as a form of fascism. What they need to do is take the flag and being patriotic back from Republicans. Start leaning into patriotic memes and messaging. A little nationalism goes a long way. Ditch the divisive flags and messaging and unite behind Old Glory.

• Shift the focus from college funding to veterans and active duty military pay. Expand the G.I. Bill, increase veterans health care benefits and make going into the military for a 2 or 4 year commitment a viable option for people coming out of high school.

• Fund the IRS, increase taxes on the wealthy and commit to using the increased revenue to paying down the national debt. Not only does this have the benefit of improving the economy, but also the derivative benefits of savings coming from lessened interest payments can then be used to shore up social security and medicare, just as Bill Clinton did 30 years ago.

• Support police and law enforcement and openly contradict liberal Democrats advocating to “defund police” or obstructing law enforcement activity. Moderates should stake positions that the law is the law and that there is no place to advocate for anarchism in the Democratic Party. Many of the protesters go too far in this regard; moderates should disown them outright and instead pivot to making the law and enforcement better and more controlled.

• Expose liberal utopian beliefs exactly for what they are; pipe dreams and impractical policies. Work on bringing economic success to small town America and revitalize them; that’s where it’s felt the most.

By taking a position between the extremes of MTG, Trump and MAGA on the right, and AOC, Mamdani and the DSA on the left, reasonable, moderate Democratic candidates can succeed and prosper everywhere across the country. As I mention in this post here, that may also include running in some areas as Independents or persuading moderate Republicans to (to offset more extremist nominated candidates).

So as it turns out, the solution to the Democrats’ electoral problems is to run against Mamdani and Trump. Simple enough.

PurpleAmerica’s Obscure Fact of the Day

Triangles are the only polygon that are inherently rigid, making them the strongest polygon.

What does that mean? If you build a shape out of straight sticks and flexible joints (like a frame), only the triangle will hold its shape under pressure. Squares, rectangles, or any other polygon will collapse or deform unless they’re braced—usually by adding a diagonal, which forms triangles inside the shape!

This is why triangles are the building blocks of bridges, towers, and trusses. Engineers love them because they don’t budge—making them the secret backbone of stable structures everywhere. So while triangles may seem simple, they’re quietly holding up the world!

PurpleAmerica’s Final Word on the Subject

If we want to strengthen, secure and protect our democracy, we have to build up the triangulation point between the extremes of both sides.

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Footnotes and Fun Stuff

1. Which I originally actually thought before the results came in

2. That is, until the Tea Party shellacking of Obama in the 2010 elections.

3. One of the truly great DC Political scandals in memory was that in the same week that Dick Morris was on the cover of many magazines as Bill Clinton’s policy guru, it came out that he paid substantial fees to a prostitute to suck his toes. He was soon persona non grata at the White House and resigned.

4. Clinton didn’t know it then, but this would be greatly increase the pace unions left the Democrats, which came to fruition in 2024.

5. This actually led to a huge government shutdown; Gingrich was adamant about using the benefits for tax cuts and the Clinton White House wouldn’t budge. The end compromise was that 1/3 would go to Tax Cuts, 1/3 would go to SS and Medicare and 1/3 to further debt retirement. This helped improve the economy MORE and Clinton came out of it looking like a superstar.