TLP Weekend Edition (June 28-29, 2025)
What we're reading and checking out.
📊 "Behind Trump’s 2024 Victory, a More Racially and Ethnically Diverse Voter Coalition," by Hannah Hartig, Scott Keeter, Andrew Daniller, and Ted Van Green. Pew Research has released the final major analysis of the 2024 election. We will have more to say about their findings this week, but anyone interested in getting a jump start can check it out here. Among the most important findings? It's unlikely that higher turnout would have helped Kamala Harris:
When asked how they would have voted, people eligible to vote who did not do so were fairly evenly split in their preferences: 44 percent say they would have supported Trump, while 40 percent say they would have backed Harris. This is a stark contrast to 2020, when those who didn’t vote expressed a clear preference for Biden over Trump (46 percent to 35 percent)…
As a result, if all Americans eligible to vote in 2024 had cast ballots, the overall margin in the popular vote likely would not have been much different. (Italics added.)
🗽 “The Anatomy of Mamdani's Earthquake,” by Michael Lange. This NYT article by Lange, chronicler extraordinaire of NYC political trends, includes an absolutely fantastic interactive map which shows you neighborhood by neighborhood the results that netted out in Mamdani's favor. It really helps give you a sense of where all the different neighborhoods are located geographically and how they voted—so it's a twofer! Lange, while he has his political leanings, is a trustworthy guide to the relevant data.
🤷♂️ “The Bougiest Proletariat Revolution Ever: A worker's revolt spreads among well-off urbanites,” by Jeff Maurer. Speaking of Comrade Mamdani, the always acerbic Jeff Maurer has a serious point to make about the nature of the new regime in NYC:
Mamdani’s movement was in no way a “working-class” movement against “elites”, though of course his backers portray it that way. The Democratic Socialists of America—of which Mamdani is a member—claim to speak for the poor, and Mamdani certainly goes for man-of-the-people vibes; he’s mastered the politician-walking-through-the-city-with-his-sleeves-rolled-up genre of viral video. But evidence suggest that this grassroots movement against elites mostly appeals to…elites. Mamdani did well with high-income voters in high-income areas, especially the upwardly-mobile and highly-educated parts of Brooklyn and Manhattan. And that dynamic would have been even more pronounced had Mamdani not scared away Jewish voters in Upper Manhattan with his “globalize the Intifada” comment, a dynamic that brings to mind the classic Onion “Our Dumb Century” headline: German Jews Concerned About Hitler’s “Kill All Jews” Policy.
This is the second time in recent years that a “populist” left wing movement has turned out to be not-so-populist after all. The post-George Floyd “racial reckoning” was ostensibly a rising up by non-white Americans against “white supremacy”, but as information came in about the preferences and voting patterns of non-white Americans, it became clear that they mostly didn’t share the movement’s goals. Very few Black people want to defund the police. Latinos do not typically favor open borders. Nobody wants to run through the “preferred language” minefield, in which you can be blown to bits for, say, using the term “Eskimo” instead of the preferred “Indigenous Person Fighting A Non-Stop Battle Against Literally Freezing Their Ass Off”. The difference between the Racial Reckoning and Socialism is that the former sees the world through the lens of race while the latter focuses on economics, but they’re similar in that the people they’re ostensibly “for” don’t seem to be on board.
Sounds…not ideal.
⚽️ CONCACAF Gold Cup Quarterfinals, USA vs. Costa Rica, Sunday at 7PM EST on Fox. The United States men’s team finished on top of the group stage of this bi-annual international tournament (featuring nations from North America, Central America, and the Caribbean) without a loss. Stars and Stripes FC offers a pre-match scouting report ahead of Sunday night:
The United States Men’s National Team took care of business in the first phase of the 2025 CONCACAF Gold Cup by finishing atop Group D with victories over Trinidad and Tobago (5-0), Saudi Arabia (1-0), and Haiti (2-1). However, there is still work left to complete as the tournament field narrows into the knockout stages and the pursuit of an eighth title begins in earnest. Costa Rica awaits in the quarterfinal round, with the consistent Central American program having qualified for five out of the last six World Cups but fallen behind in regional competitions. The match is set for Minneapolis, Minnesota’s U.S. Bank Stadium, an enclosed, multipurpose 66,860-seat stadium with a “bouncy” and “springy” Act Global Xtreme Turf artificial monofilament surface.
This is the 44th meeting between the two nations, with the USMNT holding a 20-17-6 advantage and claiming the most recent result during January’s friendly (3-0). Ranked 54th internationally by FIFA, Costa Rica earned a spot in the Gold Cup by reaching the quarterfinals of the Nations League and falling to Panama on aggregate (2-3 [0-1, 2-2]) before downing Belize in the Prelims (13-1 [7-0, 6-1]). Prior to the competition, Los Ticos played two World Cup qualifiers, topping the Bahamas (8-0) and Trinidad and Tobago (2-1) to secure advancement to the third round. In the current tournament, the quarterfinal was clinched with a second-place finish in Group A, beating Suriname (4-3) and the Dominican Republic (2-1) before drawing Mexico (0-0).
🎷 Small Medium Large, by SML. SML is an improvisational quintet featuring bassist Anna Butterss, synthesist Jeremiah Chiu, saxophonist Josh Johnson, percussionist Booker Stardrum, and guitarist Gregory Uhlmann. This record was recorded during two live performances at the now-closed Los Angeles venue ETA. TLP got wind of this group at the Jeff Parker ETA IVtet show which included Butterss on double bass. Check out some groovy animation to go with the musical flow on, “Three Over Steel.” Enjoy the weekend!
Getting the proles to behave according to Marxist theory has spawned a number of quite successful Marxist heresies. Lenin was certainly that and I loved the vulgar version of the Vanguard of the Revolution. Mussolini figured how to do that but it didn't end well. An interesting counterfactual history would involve Hitler not hijacking fascism, say by catching a bigger dose of gas in the war. Germany would still have been militaristic and antisemitic but without the Marxist trappings. Mao just redefined the proletariat. I won't mention the Cultural Marxists since they don't exist, according to the Cultural Marxists.
Someone in the Zohran Mamdami campaign must have read John Judis's book on the Emerging Democratic Majority. They won the Democratic primary through voter registration and GOTV. This is bigger than Bernie Sanders because the achievable electorate is bigger.