NEW YORK CITY & THE DUCE'S MINIONS

 

The poster of the 1949 movie whose title was recycled in the famous book written by the two reporters who uncovered the Watergate scandal that broke Nixon's presidency...

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(Text based on three postings made on Linked In today.)

All the President's Minions may hit a wall with New York City, the way All the President's Men didn't save Nixon from the turmoil created by the Watergate scandal. It is fascinating to see how the Blue State of California and the Blue City of New York are fast becoming the twin anchors of the anti-Trump resistance. The Trumpians may have find their match in Gavin Newsom, the governor of California, and Zorhan Mamdani, the just-elected mayor of New York City. In this fight to the finish, California may count on the support of neighboring Blue States, like Oregon and Washington, plus Hawaii, just like New York City have good and reliable allies in the Blue States of New York and New Jersey, and also in the neighboring Blue States of New England. It all means that the Pacific Coast is self-organizing into a Democratic bastion of Trumpian resistance, while the Northeast is doing much the same thing. On the Republican side, Trumpian America is setting up around three main poles: the Federal District of Colombia and the Red States of Texas and Florida. One year into Trump's Second Coming, the United States, strangely enough, seems to enter a repeat of the Civil War of the XIXth century, not along the lines of pro-slavery States against anti-slavery States, though, but rather along the lines of pro-Trump States against anti-Trump States, with the important difference that the federal government is now in the hands of the pro-white supremacist Trump Republicans, not in the hands of the anti-slavery Lincoln Republicans. That repeat is an illusion, though. XIXth century and XXIth century America are not the same political entity. Their economy is quite different, as are their social makeup and geopolitical reality. It may not turn out as the North and the West against the South, as in the first U.S. Civil War. It may not turn out in some sort of a military conflict at all, between two well-entrenched and well-defined group of States. The opposition, here, between Blue people and Red people, is the result of a social conflict, than of a political one. It does not oppose two very different societies, each with its own economic structure, like the XIXth century Civil War between the industrial North and the agricultural South, with the nascent West as a very junior and insignificant player at the time. This present conflict is more complex and more diffuse, since a Red State (Florida or Georgia, for instance) may contain a Blue metropolis (Miami, Atlanta), and the national minorities are themselves divided (Spanish-speaking Cubans in Florida do not have the same voting patterns as the Spanish-speaking Mexicans in California, for instance). It is possible that this conflict resolves itself peacefully, and without territorial breakup, given the internal bonds that have developped since the United States started to aggregate in the XVIIIth century A lot will depend on what may (or may not) happen in the next three years of Trump's second mandate, and also in the way his successor is elected, and what political formation he's (or she's) from. Will there be continuity in this political entity, or will there be a breakup? And if there is a territorial breakup, will it be a small one or a large one? No one knows, at this particular point in time...

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2025/11/08/trump-threat-nyc-mayor-mamdani/87133111007/

The new mayor of New York, Zorhan Mamdani, is certainly a fresh of breath air in the increasingly overheated American political scene. Trump is intensifying its half-fascist, Mussolinian grip upon the Republican party, turning this political formation into a shadow of its former, respectable and Lincolnian self. Now, it is becoming a simple heartless and soulless machine, full of obedient cogs, all repeating what the Big Beautiful Boss (from whose mind originated the Big Beautiful Bill) wants them to repeat at this point in time, the Second Coming of Trump. At the same moment, the opposition is acting like a chicken who just lost its head, running this way and that, not even knowing what it is doing. The Democrat Party seems to have lost its way, after playing with wokism a little bit too much, and also getting disconnected with heterosexual America, in particular, and with ordinary people, in general. Can the Democrats renew themselves? The announcement about the departure of Ms Pelosi will probably help in that regard, as will Mr Mamdani's recent victory, in all likelihood. In fact, the new mayor of New York seems likely to catalyse Trump's hostility. Both men grew up in Queens, but that's about the extent of their similarities. They appear to be polar opposite: one is rich, old and very conservative, while the other is not. Moreover, one is a Christian, at least officially (he's certainly acting more like a pagan...), while the other is a practicing Muslim. Born in New York, one is the epitome of home-grown capitalism, while the other, born in Uganda, of Indian parents, is the very embodiement of globalized socialism. More to the point, one control the federal funds needed by the City Council, while the other may count on the support of Albany, New York State's capital, and also of the Governor of the State, a fellow Democrat. There is an epochal feud in the making here...

https://johnmenadue.com/post/2025/11/the-coming-class-war-against-zohran-mamdani/?utm_source=Pearls+%26+Irritations&utm_campaign=1a27a4d067-Daily&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_0c6b037ecb-1a27a4d067-668562871

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