by Matt Taibbi at Racket News
Mainstream Republicans died nine years ago. The Democratic Party’s funeral started last night
Zohran Mamdani became New York City’s Mayor last night. At the victory party, his once-pal, podcaster Hasan Piker – who was also seen last night embracing Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez – said this in an interview:
Hasan Piker just went full mask off at the Zohran election victory party, declares it a tragedy that the USA defeated the Soviet Union in the Cold War.
AOC embraced him on camera just two minutes before he said this pic.twitter.com/2VynJOL7BK
— Drew Pavlou (@DrewPavlou) November 5, 2025
“We are in the heart of the imperial core*. This is the country that defeated the U.S.S.R., unfortunately.”
Piker has said so many ostentatiously crazy things that even Mamdani had to denounce him, so he can be left aside. Look however at the beaming face of the young woman interviewing him. She has no clue what he just said. That’s why last night was a prime historical horror story.
Like Donald Trump’s first election, Mamdani’s win spoke to the deep failures of 21st-century American politics. By 2016, Republican voters had tired of throwing votes away on McCains and Romneys and Bushes who promised to reduce federal spending and protect “family values,” but were unmasked finally as mannequins for donors who mostly brought war and exported jobs. Mamdani’s win similarly signals the beginning of the end for the old Clintonian Democratic Party, whose original formula courted Wall Street and relentlessly sought a “business-friendly” neoliberal middle, while retaining a patina of progressivism through social issues like choice.
Both parties took their voters for granted to obscene degrees. If they and their donors…
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