I have never made but one prayer to God, a very short one: ‘O Lord, make my enemies ridiculous!’ And God granted it.
—Voltaire
It’s one of Voltaire’s most famous quotes. (And, personally, my second-favorite of his — surpassed only by his deathbed protest, when he was asked if he was finally ready to renounce Satan: “Now, now my good man, this is no time to be making enemies.”) It also illustrates an inescapable law of American politics: In a binary marketplace, it’s just as much about the other guy as it is about you.
Thus, the more “ridiculous” your enemy, the easier your sales pitch.
There’s an old vaudeville joke about two middle-aged travelers on an African safari. Suddenly, a hungry, angry lion appears. When the first guy starts sprinting away, his buddy yells after him, “Are you crazy?! You can’t outrun a lion!”
“Don’t have to,” the man replied. “Just gotta outrun you.”
Such is life in a binary marketplace.
The biggest misconception people have about marketing is, they overestimate the value of eyeballs. For example, when they hear that a 30-second Super Bowl commercial costs a zillion bucks, they think, “Yeah, I guess that makes sense, ‘cause lots of people watch the Super Bowl.”
But that’s NOT what companies are actually paying a premium for!
I’ll prove it to you: I could build you an ad campaign that reaches a Super Bowl-sized audience for a tiny fraction of the cost… by buying enough banner ads on the top fifty-or-so “adult entertainment” websites and accounts. Right? If eyeballs were the only metric that mattered, this would be a vastly more cost-effective strategy.
Most companies don’t want their brands affiliated with that sort of filth and garbage! When audiences think of “Coca-Cola,” they don’t want us thinking of “Sexy Feet” (or whatever). They want us to think about family, fun, togetherness, and refreshment.
When companies pay a premium for a Super Bowl ad, they’re less motivated by the total number of eyeballs than connecting their brand to the biggest, most glamorous, most talked-about sporting event in the United States. It’s a glorious product affiliation: associating your brand with the greatest athletes — in America’s greatest game — in a battle between its two greatest teams!
That’s what companies are actually paying for!
And this brings us to the latest, greatest star in the Democratic Galaxy: Zohran Mamdani, the 33-year-old would-be mayor of New York City. By now, you’ve heard of his upset victory over the ex-governor and Empire State scion, Andrew Cuomo. (Turns out, there are political consequences for being a sexually-harassing killer of grandma and grandpa.) Mamdani’s supporters now want him to be the new face of the Democratic Party.
So should the GOP.
Ever since losing the White House, the Senate, the House of Representatives, and the popular vote to “literally Hitler” in 2024, the Democratic Party has been like an errant golf ball in the tall grass: lost. Driftless and aimless, liberals correctly identified the problem, i.e., the electoral abandonment of young men, minorities, and working-class Americans.
There’s unanimity about the problem. Democrats just can’t agree on the solution.
Related: Shock Poll: 47% of Dems Demand a Third Party. So WHEN Will the Rebellion Begin?
The more “pragmatic” Dem voices are calling for a return to the middle — and abandoning the woke, identity-based politics that got ‘em in this mess. That means, stop telling little kids to transition. Stop pretending that gender is merely a social construct. And for God’s sake, stop waving the Mexican flag, the Hamas flag, or ANY flag other than the American flag!
But radical voices within the Democratic Party are saying the exact opposite.
In the hammer-and-sickle-addled minds of these hardcore leftists, 2024 wasn’t a cautionary tale of incompetence, institutional hubris, and moving way too far to the left. The way they see it, Joe Biden was a moderate, as was Kamala Harris. (And compared to people like AOC and Zohran Mamdani, perhaps they were.) So why double down on the same old mistake and nominate another moderate?
Instead, fight fire with fire: Nominate someone as far to the left as they perceive Trump/MAGA being to the right!
And since they consider Trump to be “literally Hitler,” that gives ‘em an awful lengthy runway to the left. Which they’ll absolutely, 100% take: If you cede liberals an inch, they’ll take a mile.
The impulse is irresistible.
For their purposes, the most radical elements in the Democratic base will rally behind Zohran Mamdani, transforming him into their new poster boy. They want the Zohran Mamdani brand — and the Democratic Party brand — to be utterly indistinguishable. For their purposes, it would be a huge win.
The Republican Party ought to be delighted to help!
We couldn’t have scripted a better foil for the scattered remnants of Rockwellian America. For the same reason Zohran Mamdani delights the left and/or gives ‘em a “thrill” up and down their legs, the majority of Americans will find him emblematic of liberal ridiculousness: government-run grocery stores, socialized food, “Globalizing the Intifada,” getting arrested while protesting on behalf of Hamas, and vowing to lock-up the Israeli prime minister are a poor springboard for national success. It might play well in Portland, Frisco, and in the whitest, most liberal parts of New York City.
Considerably less so everywhere else.
In a binary marketplace, the more the Democratic “brand” is affiliated with Zohran Mamdani, the better it is for the GOP. The more face time Mamdani receives, the better. The more interviews he does, the more MAGA will win.
The “affordability crisis” he’s trying to highlight is a very real thing. It’s a legit issue that Republican and Democratic politicians better address — which is why I’ve advocated connecting it to the tariff debate. But for numerous reasons, including Mamdani’s smug, pompous, elitist demeanor and left-of-Lenin social policies, that’s not gonna be the focus. (Especially not in New York City, with its sky-high Jewish population and lingering scars from 9/11.)
Zohran Mamdani is manna from Heaven for conservatives. By actually nominating him for mayor, the Democratic Party has done the PR equivalent of buying banner ads on hundreds of sleazy, sordid, disgusting websites: This is the kind of product-placement that can destroy a brand.
Voltaire and Donald Trump, it seems, both offered similar prayers to the Almighty.
And God granted it.
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