Populism Not Policy

I agree with the observation that Gerald Baker makes in his latest Wall Street Journal column—that the appeal of New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani resembles that of Donald Trump:

But while we may mock the radicalism of Mr. Mamdani and his fellow socialists seemingly on the rise in the Democratic Party, I see in the man’s appeal, his evident popularity among a certain type of young voter especially, more signs of the continuing crack-up of American politics. Many Republicans like to think that the extremism represented by the likes of Mr. Mamdani and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is a signal of the Democrats’ growing irrelevance and unelectability. But his ascent—provisional though it may still be—is more likely a reflection of the fissures that continue to stretch our national cohesion than some proof of the marginalized nature of Donald Trump’s opponents.

Confronted with the electoral success of a radical shift by their opponents, political parties have two choices. They can accommodate the new electoral reality, acknowledge that the other side has captured fresh truths that command popular majorities, and accept that the Overton window has shifted. In these circumstances the distinctive proposition they offer to the voters becomes a promise merely to moderate the more extreme elements of the new governing dispensation, softening its edges to appeal to those most skittish about it, without fundamentally challenging its supremacy. The so-called abundance Democrats seem inclined to this sort of accommodation.

Alternatively, they can reject the revolution, refuse to reconcile with the new order, and put their faith in the physics of Newton’s third law of motion to produce an equal and opposite reaction. The successful radicalism of the other side has demonstrated not a rightward (in this case) shift in the nation’s center of gravity, but a potent popular openness to radical solutions of all sorts.

The latter seems closer to the temper of our times. While Mr. Trump and the Republicans have enjoyed not only electoral superiority but remarkable governing success in the past six months, there is little evidence of a wider political paradigm shift. The president and his party have succeeded in executing radical new approaches to immigration, foreign policy, trade and international economics, and have just passed one of the largest and most consequential pieces of fiscal legislation in the past 20 years, but with very few exceptions, Democrats seem in no mood to endorse the change. Not a single Democrat in either house voted for the One Big Beautiful Bill Act; few have shown any sign of temporizing on any of the other MAGA Republican initiatives.

Instead the temptation for Mr. Trump’s opponents may be to double down on the resistance and take their chances on the easy appeal of radical ideas. They can take inspiration from the apparent success of a reality-challenging radicalism evidenced in key elements of the MAGA agenda.

but I disagree as to the nature of the resemblance. I don’t think that the resemblance is the radicalism of their policies but that both are populists and both have made effective use of social media.