“We are not endorsing a candidate” wrote the New York Times Editorial Board today, and several paragraphs later, they proved themselves to be liars. “Given those polls, however, the crucial choice may end up being where, if at all, voters decide to rank Mr. Cuomo or Mr. Mamdani. We do not believe that Mr. Mamdani deserves a spot on New Yorkers’ ballots.”
Well, if it’s a two-man race for New York City Mayor and the Times is endorsing not ranking one of them, then they are by definition, endorsing the other one (New York City uses ranked-choice voting where you can rank five candidates). There is no other way to interpret this without giving yourself a full-frontal lobotomy or not knowing what words mean. If the fancy classical logicians at the New York Times are confused about this dynamic they are presenting to their readers, I encourage them to ask a freshman philosophy major for help, or they can head over to Wikipedia to learn what a disjunctive syllogism is.
This is embarrassing. We are witnessing a group of elite commentariat just outright lie to themselves in public while pretending to be Very Serious savants descending from Mount Sinai to tell us to how to vote. I feel so bad for all the journalists at the Times still trying to practice journalism at a publication where much of it has become something like a sanitized Rupert Murdoch rag in recent years. Jeff Bezos’ Washington Post has coverage of what looks like the largest protests in American history on their front page as of this writing, but the NYT does not outside the opinion section (while we’re putting it in our top spot today). The New York Times leadership tells us every day who they are, and today they told us they are the kind of people who will endorse a sex criminal in public and then lie about it.
While some might think of their Trump-friendly coverage in that reference, like many crimes that define Trump, they can describe Andrew Cuomo too. He also has a long sordid past of sexually harassing women, in addition to being the avatar of the soulless craven politician who believes in nothing other than his own power. As governor, he cut a deal with rogue Democrats to effectively overturn an election and return control of the New York State Senate to the Republicans after they were voted out of power, and the Times is out here pretending that Cuomo is a “liberal.” He’s getting an avalanche of Trump donor money for Pete’s sake. Funny how that fact doesn’t show up in the NYT’s Andrew Cuomo endorsement today. In fact, the word “donor” doesn’t even appear in the text. What a strange and not at all telling detail of mainstream political media coverage!
Given the severity of the crimes and failures they downplay, the New York Times Editorial Board clearly sees Cuomo as the best representation of their political value system, and also how shameful it would be to say so in public. They try to hide it behind this cowardly headline and their insistence that “We will also be rooting for a stronger field in the 2029 election,” but the framing of the endorsement gives away how they really do like Cuomo’s politics. While they lead with Cuomo’s “significant shortcomings,” detailing the “allegations of sexual harassment or inappropriate touching from at least 11 women,” as well as their call for his resignation over it, that’s the only “significant shortcoming” they list before describing why “Many New Yorkers are nonetheless planning to vote for Mr. Cuomo, partly because of his policy record as governor.”
The very next sentence contains ten “accomplishments” they admire before tracking back to his “significant mistakes,” of which they spend just one sentence referencing: “He also made significant mistakes, such as his mishandling of Covid at nursing homes and poor management of public transit.”
Now compare that to how the Times introduces Zohran Mamdani to their readers. After noting up front that he “is running a joyful campaign full of viral videos in which he talks with voters” and how he “offers the kind of fresh political style for which many people are hungry during the angry era of President Trump,” the next word is “unfortunately” and any kind words for Mamdani disappear for the rest of this Cuomo endorsement. They say that Mamdani’s agenda of rent freezes and more public works like government-run grocery stores to serve the 750,000 New York City residents who live in food deserts is “unsuited to the city’s challenges.”
The NYT spends the next two paragraphs talking about how Mamdani “shows little concern about the disorder of the past decade,” and how he “would also bring less relevant experience than perhaps any mayor in New York history.” They spend multiple paragraphs on former Mayor Bill de Blasio, asserting that he “bears significant responsibility for the city’s problems,” and using it as justification to slam Mamdani since de Blasio “came from this wing of the Democratic Party.” That they extend this attack on Mamdani to telling their readers not to rank him is the only part about this cowardly screed that’s honest.
This is an Andrew Cuomo endorsement by the New York Times. I don’t care what their headline says and just because they put “we have serious objections to [Cuomo’s] ethics and conduct” at the end of this disjunctive syllogism does not let them off the hook for the many other words they first dedicated to trying to help Andrew Cuomo win the election for New York Mayor. This would not be the first time the New York Times wrote an inaccurate title that did not represent what was detailed in the body of the story, and it certainly won’t be the last. The Times’ Editorial Board is endorsing the sex criminal they called on to resign in disgrace because they like his politics and think that serial sexual harassment and killing elderly people at nursing homes are minor “shortcomings” when compared to the unforgivable sin of being a democratic socialist. Given how sweaty and desperate the elite New York City commentariat are right now, that’s confirmation that Mamdani’s recent surge in the polls is very real.
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