Democrats are trapped between a rock and hard place (10-27-2025--Hour3)

What's going on. Thank you so much for listening to this podcast. It is heard live every day from noon to three on WBT Radio in Charlotte. And if you want exclusive. Content like invitations to events, the weekly live stream, I daily show prep with all the links, become a patron, go to vpeteclendershow dot com. Make sure you hit the subscribe button. Get every episode for free right to your smartphone or tablet. And again, thank you so much for your support. So a couple of things. Regarding the election of Zoron Mamdani, which all indications are he's going to win, but when you go into the pulling data in New York City, some interesting things emerge, some patterns emerge. For example, Mamdani is actually not that popular, Okay. I suspect he'll win the election again based on the polling, but I'm not sure if he wins with over fifty percent of the vote. Because you have Curtis Sliwa the Republican. You've got Andrew Cuomo. I think he's running as an independent, but Democrat, right, longtime Democrat, but you know, scandal ridden, so not a particularly popular governor. I mean, Kathy Hochel is the governor right now because of Andrew Cuomo's what Curtis Sliwa called him killing granny's and slapping fannies. That was the. In regards to the scandals that actually cost him his office. It wasn't the murdering of the elderly in the nursing homes during COVID, it was the sexual misconduct allegations. So when you look at the favorability of Democrats, and this was according to the sources, the argument. They put out this poll and they pull favorability among Democrats, Republicans, independents, and all voters, and they asked about Gavin Newsom, Alexandria caz Cortez, Kamala Harris, Zorn Mumdani, and Chuck Schumer. And Newsom has a favorability rating among Democrats at sixty six percent, AOC sixty eight percent, Kamala Harris seventy three percent, and then Zorn Mumdani is at fifty So only half of Democrats view him favorably. Chuck Schumer is at that is at the bottom. He's at seventeen percent, which is that's pretty bad. So that's why you know AOC is probably most likely going to mount the challenge against Chuck Schumer, and that's what's driving the shutdown, right, is that Chuck Schumer is trying to shore up support among Democrats, particularly in the primary voting base of the Democrat Party, which is now really far left. And the far left does not like Chuck Schumer, which is why he flipped on his position of passing a clean continuing resolution. You know, he did this back in like July, the last time the R came through, he voted for it. He said it would be pointless to shut down the government over this, and his poll numbers cratered. And so now he learned the lesson that the leftists want to make people pay, because that's very on brand for leftists. They talk about out the people, right, they talk about helping the people and the democracy and all of that stuff, But the tactics always seem to hurt people because it's about power dynamics for them. That's always at the heart of leftism. It's communism. It's about power dynamics always. So his favorability numbers at fifty percent, that's not exactly great for Zoron Mamdani. Then you break down the numbers based on gender, based on age, based on college degree, based on race, and you start looking at these candidates, and what you see here if the November twenty twenty five general election for New York City mayor was held tomorrow, and these were the candidates, who would you vote for? Right? And then they give the numbers and the top line is that forty percent would vote for Mumdanni, twenty four percent for Cuomo, fifteen percent for Eric Adams fourteen. But he's already dropped out. And I believe he endorsed Mumdanni, but I don't remember. Maybe that's wrong. I don't remember it. But he's at fifteen and Curtis Sliwa, the Republican, at fourteen percent, and that's why everybody assumes Mumdanni's going to win. People have been calling for Sliwa to drop out because a Republican cannot win in New York City. Saliwa refuses to drop out, and he says, you know, my job, you know, as a Republican is not to give my votes to Democrats. But you know, I am offering a different option from all of these other Democrats, and it's not on me to make Democrats pick a non socialist, non Jihati adjacent can If the Democrat Party chooses to do that, that's on them, that's not on Curtis Sliwa. If you were to drop out, you don't even know if all of his support is going to shift to Cuomo. Some people may just not even show up. But there are a lot of Republicans that will not vote for Cuomo. Right. But what's interesting is if you look at the under forty five category, under age forty five, that's where Mom Donnie is strongest, with sixty eight percent of people under the age of forty five backing him. All of the other candidates are in single digits except for Eric Adams who's at twelve percent, but everybody else is at nine percent, so under the age of forty five, and the largest gap besides that one of of the youth people with college degrees. Mam Donnie's got fifty seven percent of college educated, whereas Cuomo's got eighteen, Eric Adams at fourteen, Curtis Sliwa at seven. And that really tells you the story. It is an over production of the elites. And by the elites, I don't mean the billion is, I mean the upper middle class. The upper middle class they have been sold on this idea that they are part of the elites. And they went to college, they racked up a lot of debt. Usually they got trust funds, right, but they racked up a lot of debt. And they're looking at mommy and Daddy that have funded their lifestyle, and they want that lifestyle to continue. But now college degrees are ubiquitous and they're not actually the elite, and they don't want to be a stake in for the lower class, for the holy POLOI right. They don't want to be seen as those other people. We're better than those other people. Now I will pay lip service to you know, making them okay, and we're going to give them all this free stuff. And I'm more virtuous than you because I support these government programs doing for the less fortunate and these other groups of people that you know have lost life's lottery. So I am better than you because I want gov Code to do this stuff. I'm not going to do it, and I don't want to pay for it. I want to tax those rich. I want to tax the people above me, tax the billionaires, and pay for these lowly people over here that. I'm not a part of. I am better than them. Now we have the endorsement that everybody has been waiting for in this race, which is Hakeem Jeffries, the House Minority Leader, Democrat leader from New York. He has been COI. He has been hesitant to endorse Zoronmumdani. But he has finally broken his silence. Spoiler alert, he fell in line. Here's a great idea. How about making an escape to a really special and secluded getaway in western North Carolina. Just a quick drive up the mountain and Cabins of Asheville is your connection. Whether you're celebrating an anniversary, a honeymoon, maybe you want to plan a memorable proposal, or get family and friends together for a big old reunion. Cabins of Asheville has the ideal spot for you where you can reconnect with your loved ones and the things that truly matter. Nestled within the breath taking fourteen thousand acres of the Pisga National Forest, their cabins offer a serene escape in the heart of the Blue Ridge Mountains. 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A Republican won five out of the last eight New York City mayoral elections, with the most recent Republican victory occurring in two thousand and nine when Michael Bloomberg, who had left the Republican Party in two thousand and eight but ran on the Republican ballot line, was reelected for a third term. And then there's a quote from Henry Ford whether you think you can or think you can't you're right, yeah, I'm not sure that actually proves the point, though, Melissa, because Bloomberg ran as a Republican and everyone knew he wasn't. He just didn't want to run through the Democrat primary field. That was the whole point, right, he didn't want to run or sorry, he didn't want to run through the yeah, through the Democrat primary field because he would lose in the Democrat primary. So he ran as a Republican and he got Remember, in the first term, he was endorsed by Rudy Giuliani and that's why he won his first term. And then he left the Republican Party but ran on the ballot, so everybody knew he wasn't a Republican anymore. So if you want to count that, that's still almost twenty years ago that a Republican won, and they put Bill de Blasio in and again, Zorn Mamdani appears to be, you know, well ahead of the split field. And so maybe Bloomberg would be proof that a Republican can win in a head to head race, but I don't think that you have. I know you don't have a head to head race right now. So that's why they're calling. And look, I'm not saying curtisly what needs to drop out. I just don't think there are any Republicans or enough Republicans left, and the Democrat Party has radicalized to such an extent as I went over in the polling, that a Republican's not going to be able to win in New York City. But you know what, maybe I'm wrong. That's why I don't make these predictions on who's going to win. I don't know who's going to win. We'll see, but all the polling shows Mamdanni with the lead. Let me jump ahead to this. This was from David Weigel at Semaphore. Democrats have badly weakened their party, with left leaning ideas and rhetoric, growing only with self described white liberals while losing ground with other voters, according to a new report from a new center left group. The group is called Welcome. They consulted hundreds of thousands of voters over six months for its broad findings, including that seventy percent of voters think the Democratic Party is quote out of touch. Most voters the group found believe the party over prioritizes issues like protecting the rights of LGBTQ plus Americans, along with fighting climate change but not caring enough about securing the border or lowering the crime rate. The report urges party members to abandoned some of the progressive language about race, abortion, and LGBTQ issues that Democrats began using after the twenty twelve election, and they recommend the nomination of more candidates who are willing to vote with Republicans on conservative immigration and crime bills. This mirrors the same results we found in the report or survey that was done, but I think it was third way, remember, and they came out with this whole list of words that Democrats should avoid saying, and it was basically the entire vocabulary of the Democrat Party. This latest survey was inspired by one from nineteen eighty nine, a paper that was called The Politics of Evasion, which inspired the party's more centrist shift under Bill Clinton. It was a seventy page yeah. The seventy page document, called Deciding to Win, argues that Democrats have to be willing to break with unpopular party orthodoxies. Its prescription for getting the party out of its current wilderness is not simple, though, avoidance of both a pivot to corporate centrism and the pursuit of progressive ideology purity. So those are the things that they have to avoid. This is the recommendation is that you can't go corporate centrism as a Democrat party. You can't do that. You do that and you lose a lot of your own supporters because they're very wary of the corporate interests. But you can't also then pursue progressive purity because it doesn't play well in a general election. See, this is the problem Democrats have, is that no matter which way you're looking to turn, you're going to anger some element of your base. And that's a problem. That's a problem in a general election outside of New York City. The report directly challenges democrats predilection for the interests of quote highly educated and affluent voters, arguing that their influence may be responsible for the party's closer association with left wing politics. Ain't no maybe about it, Okay, ain't no maybe, that's that is the case. These people are quote highly educated and affluent. Right, this is the over production of the elites. We've made too many of them saying everybody needs to go to college. They come out of college, they have these degrees. They don't really work for anything. There's not really any. Marketable skills attached to these degrees, but they feel like they you know, I came you know, mommy and daddy, they were very affluent. I should have that same standard a living because I went and took all the college courses, I racked up the college debt. I need to be able to, you know, be part of that elite class. And oh I'm not my you know, degree in you know, fourteenth century interpretive dance is not actually a marketable degree. So what am I to do? And so take it from somebody else and give it to me. You know, stories are powerful. They help us make sense of things, to understand experiences. Stories connect us to the people of our past while transcending generations. They help us process the meaning of life, and our stories are told through images and videos. Preserve your stories with Creative Video. Started in nineteen ninety seven in mint Hill, North Carolina. It was the first company to provide this valuable service, converting images, photos and videos into high quality produced slide shows, videos, and albums. The trusted, talented and dedicated team at Creative Video will go over all of the details with you to create a perfect project. Satisfaction guaranteed. Drop them off in person or mail them. They'll be ready in a week or two. 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Native New Yorkers not voting for him. Indeed, I saw that polling as well over the weekend, and that does play a role in this absolutely. So I mentioned everybody was asking Hakim Jeffries, the House Minority Leader, who is from New York, whether he would endorse Zorn Mamdani, and Uh, he has, which I think everybody kind of expected. He would do. He kept playing koy and say, oh, I'm gonna meet with him, and I'm going to wait until I talk with him, and all this. Politico reports that House Minority Leader Uh Hakim Jeffries's decision to endorse Zorin Mamdani is a capitulation to the pressure from the activist left. Noah Rothman, writing at National Review says, indeed, the endorsement was the result of intense behind the scenes negotiations between the Mamdani camp and Jeffries's team, with the activist Al Sharpton serving as an intermediary. But nobody forced Jeffries to abandon the prudent trepidation that he previously had when asked for his thoughts on the campaign of the Democratic Socialist candidate. Jeffries took this step of his own free will. He and his party should be made to account for it, as the most recent mayoral debate demonstrated Mamdani, who has never held a job by the way, Ever, ever, he seems to have given little thought to the city's problems or the unintended consequences that will follow his proposed solutions. Mamdani defers to the activist class for his policy outlook, so it's no surprise that his policy preferences would give the activist class more control of city government. This is what he has said, by the way, this is what he has talked about and the activist class. I played this audio a couple of well probably now about two months ago, where you had Democratic Socialists that gathered for their annual convention in New York City, and one of them said that he basically wrote Mamdani's entire LGBTQ plus two IA platform for him, wrote the whole thing. Teachers' unions, they're going to have more power in the schools and the policies, housing, in construction policy, social workers as first responders. He wants to give emergency dispatchers the authority to decide the level of threat, which is a backdoor method to defund the police and these activists for whom Democrats have spent the last several years trying to distance themselves. From a Kim. Jeffries's throwing his arms around this unacceptable prospect for the benefit of the progressives and socialists who are attempting a hostile takeover of the Democrat Party. Jeffries' endorsement is cowardly, and it provides the GOP with ample opportunity to make the case with evidence now that Mamdani's views are shared in the highest echelons of the Democratic Party. Yeah, you're not going to be able to run from this guy. Now you're going to hear that argument a lot in advance of the next year's midterm. Right moderate Democrats could have said, well, Mamdani is an outlier, he's not representative of the party, he doesn't represent our views. A king Jeffries just changed all of that. That endorsement will now be hung around the necks of every Democrat running for office. Everything Mamdani does us, everything he says, everything he has said, All of this stuff will continue to be reported on the New York Post. Just I mean they just if Donnie wins, they're going to have a field day. With this guy. I mean, while obviously the city burns, but like they've already been dragging him for the last year. To wit. Here is the statement from House Speaker Mike Johnson quote, we saw our clearest sign yet that this radical insurgent movement in the Democrat Party is succeeding, and they are ending what has always been known as the Democrat Party in America. After a month's long pressure campaign from the far left, House Minority Leader Hakim Jeffries finally relented. He gave in and gave his endorsement to the socialist running to be mayor of New York City. The House Democrats have chosen a side they were forced to by the far left that they are so terrified of, and they have shown the world what they really believe. There is no longer a place for centrists and moderates in that party. Mamdani has sympathized with Hamas and openly embraced anti Semitic language. He has called to seize the means of production. That's a direct quote, because he's a Marxist. He has called to abolish our borders, to abolish and end immigration enforcement, to defund the police, and to legalize prostitution, among a long list of hits that could that I could share with you again. The speaker Mike Johnson Zorn Mamdani is expected to take the helm of one of the most important cities in the world and the largest city in America, and he now has the full blessing of the Democrat leader in the House of Representatives. It is shocking. Now there is a way to get him out. I don't think it's going to happen, but there is actually a way. The State of New York actually has a mechanism to remove mayors slight problem. It's going to require Democrats to do it. And if. The folding by Jeffries is any indication they are not going to do it. If the appearance of New York Governor Kathy Huckle on stage, you know, giving her full throated endorsement of the Jihati adjacent communist is any indication she is not going to try to remove him. But there is a mechanism. All right. If you're listening to this show, you know I try to keep up with all sorts of current events, and I know you do too, And you've probably heard me say get your news from multiple sources. Why, Well, because it's how you detect media bias, which is why I've been so impressed with ground News. It's an app, and it's a website, and it combines news from around the world in one place, so you can compare coverage and verify information. You can check it out at check dot ground, dot news slash pete. I put the link in the podcast description too. I started using ground News a few months ago and more recently chose to work with them as an affiliate because it lets me see clearly how stories get covered and by whom. The blind spot feature shows you which stories get ignored by the left and the right. See for yourself check dot ground, dot news slash pete. Subscribe through that link and you'll get fifteen percent off any subscription. I use the Vantage plan to get unlimited access to every feature. Your subscription then not only helps my podcast, but it also supports ground News as they make the media landscape more transparents. It's a text from the Hellion who says, recall that the DLC was formed to get the Democrats back from a hard left turn, or at least look like it. But they can't play that card again. Lefties would swamp it. Does the Democratic leadership Council still exist. That's the DLC. It does not. It dissolved back about I don't know, thirteen years ago, and according to the AI here it's ideological legacy continued through groups like the New Democrat Coalition as well as Third Way. So that's the modern iteration of the DLC. So here is the way that, well, yeah, here is the way that there may be an off ramp for Democrats should they choose to take it and try to excise this hard leftist turn that the that the party base has taken. By the way, I don't. I don't think that there's any chance that this is going to happen. I would be really surprised if this mechanism is employed in New York State, if Mom Donnie wins. Nor do I believe that the Democrat Party is going to be able to excise the communist wing out of its base. I think they're just too reliant on it at this point, and they have too many people that have been brought up through the K twelve education system that have been steeped in this leftist ideology and then they have gone on to college where they ruminate in it as well. And so I don't see any off ramp for them, especially if that was heard an interview over the weekend, very interesting breakdown on politics and gender and marital status and such, and younger females turning more and more progressive as their college education levels increase, and men turning harder right, and the highest rates of polarization politically in those same directions women to the left, men to the right occurs after divorce, and women without children who aren't married heavily left. And there is a theory that is percolating among the social scientists that this there is a sort of a biological instinctive desire among women to care for things, right, care for people, and if that's not being satisfied with their own babies, then they seek to do that caring for some other group. And that's what animates a lot of the political positioning that is attractive to females. So again, I don't know if any of that's true, but it's just an idea that I was that I heard being kicked around by some social scientist types. Over the weekend. Actually, before I give you the mechanism, I gotta play this. This was from that queen's rally for Zorn Mumdani over the weekend, and here's everybody's favorite socialist bartender, AOC. But we must remember in a time such as this, we are not the crazy ones New York City. We are not the outlandish ones New York City. They want us to think we are crazy, We are sane. I'm reminded of an old adage, never argue with an insane person, because the longer you do, the more people may not know which one is the sane person and not. You know, if you have to get up and say that you're not crazy, I'm not crazy. I'm the sane person here, like chances are you are actually not the same person. So the governor of New York State actually has virtually unlimited power to curb the mayor's authority or remove him, even if there is no crime committed, but the governor has to be willing to use it before removing a mayor. State law requires the governor to present grievances against the mayor at a formal hearing. Even so, the governor's decision is final, not subject to review by any court. The New York Supreme Court calls it quote the naked power of removal in the event a mayor is removed, the public Advocate acts as mayor until a special election is held within eighty days. Obviously, this raises the question, would Governor Kathy hookel have the guts to use her authority to protect the city. No is my guests on that one. No, she's already endorsed. Mo'm don. All right, that'll do it for this episode. Thank you so much for listening. I could not do the show without your support and the support of the businesses that advertise on the podcast, so if you'd like, please support them too and tell them you heard it here. You can also become a patron at my Patreon page or go to thepetecallanershow dot com. Again, thank you so much for listening, and don't break anything while I'm gone.