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This Zohran Mamdani video is absolutely INCREDIBLE. The numbers he cites, the strategy and results they produced — it’s the future. When have you heard *any* campaign talk about this, ever? It is the blueprint.
in reply to Anil Dash

Oh man, the way things are in the US right now I fear for his life... these kinds of videos only anger the establishment.
in reply to Anil Dash

also I love his “look, i am wearing a casio watch” attitude
in reply to Anil Dash

yes, it is. In fact, it’s a blueprint that isn’t all that new: it’s the core ideas of Category Design applied to a politician. (Note: my consulting firm offers exactly that, for both companies and their products but also for individuals such as politicians.) The strategy is pretty simple: explain to your customers (voters) how your product (you) solves their problems.
in reply to Andreas Gebhard

And yes, their tactics, such as showing up, authenticity, relentless focus on what matters to the voters and above all: a feeling of voting FOR something is what really made the difference. A positive choice is always much, much stronger than being against something. We all want a better tomorrow!
in reply to Anil Dash

Did you notice all the We’s? We turned out voters, We talked to New Yorkers, We listened. Very very refreshing to have someone willing to share space, not make it about themself.
in reply to Anil Dash

Yeah - it's a great piece of work.

I also admire the focus - he hasn't gotten mired in the ridiculous critiques people have been lobbing his way - instead, he stays focused on what he is for.

The realistic positivity is great, and we need more of it.

Hope, rooted in listening and doing the work.

in reply to Anil Dash

young socialists with functional social media skills and impeccable rizz are the future of politics -- this basically exempts Millenials, lol, but we can handle it
in reply to Anil Dash

He seems all good EXCEPT for an interview, when pressed, he refused to separate himself from the term "global intifada".
This entry was edited (4 days ago)
in reply to Anil Dash

the vibe took me back to an SF mayoral campaign, early 2000s, that i accidentally volunteered for when visiting friends there, doing GIS stuff. Local DA-type named Matt Gonzalez, ran against Gavin Newsom, who'd shipped in Clinton, the party machine was so strongly behind

Remember being amazed by the energy and groundwork behind the Gonzalez campaign. Candidate was pure, too, lived in a rented flatshare. California's trajectory missed a big moment!

in reply to Anil Dash

Is .. is this *hope* I feel?

He's incredible. I hope he inspires a hundred more of him.

in reply to Anil Dash

this is the kind of thing that we need everywhere!

In our city, we formed a coalition of citizens working to steer and suggest what City Hall needs to do to be more transparent, more accountable, and communicate more clearly with citizens.

We're putting a lot of pressure on them right now and we have both a budget approval and commissioner elections this year.

We're non-partisan and willing to educate anybody who wants to come talk with us about what collaborative governance means.

We won't win at everything that we're trying to do, but there's a lot of energy for this kind of people-focused change right now. People want to make a positive difference and have a say in the place they live.

in reply to Anil Dash

Very impressive

It gets harder now

Good luck, New York.

in reply to Anil Dash

The content is chefs kiss perfect.

But its purposefully amateurish film making? For the feel.

This is a list of dont do this examples (dont shoot an edit of someone starting to walk then talk).

Its cute right? Just a bunch of young people trying to be real politicians.

in reply to Anil Dash

@Anil Dash He's an amazing politician. I just hope he has a real plan to accomplish some of the crazy expensive things he's promised, or the Dems are done in NYC forever...
in reply to Blaise

@blaise they’re not expensive at all. We’ve had rent control similar to his program, many times. We already have dozens of free markets much larger than the one he proposes. The ferry system is free to Staten Island and our city university used to be; buses are not much larger scale than that, and we’ll save a ton on safety costs. None of this is anywhere near the increase in costs we had from flooding the subways with useless cops.
in reply to Anil Dash

@Anil Dash I'm not saying it can't be done, I just don't have much faith in political promises like "We'll get the state to help", "We'll just tax corporations and rich more", and "We'll just raise the minimum wage". I literally don't remember *any* of those ever producing anything but just-barely-statistically-significant results...
in reply to Anil Dash

@blaise SO much money is saved on fare enforcement by making transit free.
in reply to Anil Dash

so it took (counting since Bernie's 2016 campaign) *nine* years and *two* Trump wins for normie liberals to stop being afraid of progressives and for young voters to realize they have to fucking show up. Better late than never I guess.
in reply to Anil Dash

Ok. But the blueprint for what exactly? If you are a fan of policy, then you need to be a fan of winning first. Recent elections should serve as wisdom for future action. Do you think this video is going to victory? Cuz it feels like an ad for a primary in which the electors are already convinced.
in reply to Anil Dash

Wasn't Obamas campaign like that? It's also a pretty well proven strategy, but a loooot of work which is why most candidates don't do it.

And don't get me wrong, I am glad they achieved the results they did AND think they are worth celebrating even when they are tried and proven and not innovative.

This entry was edited (4 days ago)
in reply to Anil Dash

"This Zohran Mamdani video is absolutely INCREDIBLE. The numbers he cites,"...
Mamdani sys"give the people someting to vote for, tot something to vote against".
But then he only talks about his wins, and not why poeople should vote for him. Where is the message? Where is the strategy? Will he take neglected houses out of the hands of slum landlords? Will he organise affordable childcare for working parents? No contents, no blueprint.
in reply to Anil Dash

It's a good video, but I don't totally get the data on Trump-won neighborhoods. He won the *Democratic primary* -- not the overall vote -- yet from what I can tell he's sort of assuming the Trump voters contributed, when they presumably didn't vote in the Democratic primary. Is there more detail on this or something I'm missing?
in reply to Anil Dash

Impressive and happy for his defeat of Cuomo. It is important to note though that some of the comparisons are between a primary and a general election. Those are very different and should not be directly compared.
in reply to Anil Dash

Check the watch, I think it's no accident he is showing a nerd digital watch as opposed to some show off expensive watch.
in reply to Anil Dash

Harold Washington. Who shocked the Chicago Machine by beating Richie Daley and Jane Byrne. Harold wouldn't run until we registered hundreds of thousands of new voters - we did! And he announced.

I have been beating the drum for years - we can upend conventional political wisdom by turning out new voters. In 2024 the number of eligible non-voters exceeded the number that voted for Trump.

We win with disaffected Trump voters, new voters, and by not scolding our most loyal voters by telling us we lost because we needed to be nicer to racists, fascists, sexists, homophobes, transhaters, xenophobes, and the like.

in reply to Anil Dash

Having grown up in a society where parties speak of themselves as representatives of classes, economic interests, and/or provinces, or as big tents, it's really strange to listen such clear and up-front cadre partyism.

In my youth I studied marketing (a regret), and the way video spoke seemed to be closer to market campaign trying to find a way to sell a new sodapop on a saturated market.

I mean, it's not wrong, but shows how distant the politics there are from the people.

in reply to Anil Dash

I really like his style, he's the kind of politician who sets a good example for everyone. Often he's been interviewed by people who are skeptical about his policies and they walk away still a bit skeptical but they say "gee, he's such a nice guy!" He comes across at not the least bit divisive and we need leaders like that.