Jonathan Chait

Right.

And so when I'm translating those arguments on the left, what I hear is Republicans get to nominate unelectable candidates.

Why can't we nominate unelectable candidates?

Why are you only complaining when we are nominating unelectable candidates?

We should get to do it too.

I mean, if you actually think about it precisely, that's what you're saying when you're saying that we should be able to do all the things that they do.

So both Mamdani and AOC come out of the Democratic Socialists of America, which I consider to be a crazy group.

And it tends to be dominated as a lot of far left groups do by the craziest, most committed radicals within the organization.

And you've had plenty of people who are well to my left who said like, I can't deal with this group anymore.

The lunatics are running the asylum.

It's just life of Brian, left-wing nuttery all the way down in DSA.

However, I will say that both

Mamdani and AOC have been pragmatic in office and especially more of late with AOC and all along with Mamdani.

I think they both recognized that DSA is far to the left of even their constituency, their heavily, heavily blue districts that they represent.

And they've been much more pragmatic in office and understand that the Democratic Party is a coalition of which DSA can be at best a small part.

So, I think they're both smart.

And I think while they have objectives that I don't really share in the sense that like my perfect world would look different than their perfect world, I think they've been impressive in their recognition.

And Madani hasn't made a bad move in office yet.

Well, I mean, those may come, but that hasn't happened yet.

Right.