Oh, you want life to get better now, do you? Do you even understand politics?
BY ANONYMOUS DEMOCRATIC CONSULTANT
SEPTEMBER 26, 2025 (Prospect.org)
JANDOS ROTHSTEIN/ISTOCK
This article appears in the October 2025 issue of The American Prospect magazine. Subscribe here.
Take it from me: I understand losses. I am a longtime Democratic consultant who has been pivotal in the losses of at least 27 Democratic campaigns. I am, by all accounts, a loser.
One time, however, I did win. That person is no longer in office and does not answer my calls, but I still won. That gives me the credibility, knowledge, and expertise to explain that the imminent victory of Democratic nominee Zohran Mamdani in the New York City mayoral race would be a dangerous loss for Democrats in the long run.
Political novices put far too much value on winning. Think about a game of basketball against your eight-year-old son. You may have scored more points, but now his feelings are hurt. Wouldn’t it have been better to simply let him win? The same thing goes for the Democratic Party. When progressives like Mamdani are too focused on winning, they don’t consider the feelings of more-established candidates who deserve to win because they want to. Or because it’s “their turn.” Or their dying wish.
As someone who won one time, I can tell you winning is often not worth it.
Let’s imagine that Zohran Mamdani does win, with a coalition of multi-class young people, immigrants, unions, renters, faith leaders, and pansexual mustache men. What does that mean for the losers? The investment bankers, the landlords, and the Wall Street guys who ask women on the street if “they’re sisters or something”? Was winning worth their tears?
As someone who won one time, I can tell you winning is often not worth it. You know what happens after you win? Governing. You know how hard that is? Who wants that kind of responsibility? Making people’s lives better by advancing policies? Responsibility is incredibly stressful.
Should Mamdani win and begin to deliver on some of his campaign promises like free buses, city-run grocery stores, or a rent freeze, it will certainly be a slippery slope. Giving Democratic voters what they want is just like the book If You Give a Mouse a Cookie. Whenever the mouse gets something, it only wants more and more, until the point where it is well-fed, well-rested, and happy. It’s a primrose path that will ultimately accustom Democratic voters to creature comforts like health care or education. As I’ve always told my clients, instead of giving a mouse a cookie, we should give him the ability to qualify for one chocolate chip, provided he completes a three-year apprenticeship program in an underserved neighborhood, and as long as his income doesn’t exceed $50,000 a year.
Let’s talk about the kind of candidate Democrats should win with. Mamdani is a telegenic, intelligent guy with real convictions. If he wins, what will that mean for the average, boring Democratic legislators and candidates who pride themselves on receiving all their beliefs from polls and the crypto industry? In a way, Mamdani winning is an ableist erasure of candidates incapable of believing in anything at all. Our big-tent party must make space inside for those who are dead inside.
Finally, winning just isn’t who Democrats are. This rebrand might take voters aback and give them pause before hitting Donate on their next URGENT, ALL HANDS ON DECK, WE’RE DOOMED fundraising email.
None of this is to say that winning isn’t important. It is. And Democrats will eventually win again. But we must manage how, when, why, where, and with the support of what billionaires this win happens. I live by the old Democratic Party adage, passed down by generations of neoliberals: Only after everything has been lost is it time to win. So let’s be patient, shall we?
–Francesca Fiorentini
