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The election of Moron Zamdani has led to the expected post-mortem cud-chewing, much of it devoted to praise for an excellent campaign on the Left and cries that the socialists are coming to git us on the Right. Neither is true. What we have here is simply the latest evidence of a derelict opposition party, unable to go so far as to field a plausible candidate in an important election.

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When the concept of “blue and red states” was first employed in the late '90s, the idea was that blue states — those under control of the Democrats — had shifted permanently to the Left and were no longer in contention. They would remain blue Democrat havens until the end of time. Red states, on the other hand, were up for grabs. They would be targeted relentlessly until they shifted to purple and at last to blue, to remain in that state in perpetuity. It was a domestic version of the Brezhnev doctrine: “What’s ours is ours — what’s yours will be ours.”

This has been disproven time and again, Scott Brown in Massachusetts, Glenn Youngkin in Virginia, and so on. A good candidate with control of the issues can take the prize — though support from a viable, vigorous party is also helpful.

And that’s the problem. Throughout the northeast, along with scattered states in other areas of the country, the GOP is effectively moribund, unable to meet the lowest standards of action required by a political party. Large numbers of GOP organizations in these states have deteriorated to the level of elite social clubs operated by failing geriatrics who think that protecting their status is the key mission of the GOP.  

They can’t recruit, they can’t campaign, they can’t canvass, they can’t do much of anything apart from “reaching across the aisle.” They are, needless to say, opposed to any kind of reform, particularly that coming from Donald Trump and his MAGA hordes. Their fondest hope as we move deeper into the new millennium is to last out the MAGA upstarts and resume their Rip Van Winkle mode of politics.

I’m not speaking theoretically here. During my years of political activism in New Jersey, I encountered it constantly in interactions with the state GOP. They didn’t want new blood; they didn’t want new ideas; they wanted to be left alone to vegetate.

This led to the nomination of politicians like John Scott, a Bergen County Republican who amused himself by insulting and antagonizing everybody he encountered, secure in the knowledge that he had a lock on the local party apparatus. (In contrast, John Lynch, longtime mayor of New Brunswick, long-term president of the NJ Senate, and widely reported to be associated with the Mob, was slick and charming to everyone he met.) When finally reaching the state house in 1992, Scott’s first words were, “It’s our turn to belly up.” Any questions as to why the GOP has lost ground in Jersey?

Another such paragon was Ernie Oros, a Middlesex County Republican of the same era. (He and Scott actually served identical terms, 1992 to 1996.) Oros ran for the General Assembly shortly after Democrat governor James Florio took over and immediately raised taxes in the biggest tax hike in American history up to that time. (One of his staffers was quoted as saying, “We’re declaring class warfare in this state.”)

An easy target, you’d think. But when Oros met with a group of political activists I was involved with, he was immediately asked, “Which of the Florio taxes are you going to revoke first?” Old Ernie gaped at us all and said, “Now, hold on there… we need taxes… how do we keep the roads fixed up?” That meeting broke up within minutes. Oros was elected regardless.

We later learned that both of these legends were working directly with left-wing NGOs to get green policies enacted. The outfit in question was NJPIRG (Public Interest Research Group), a Naderite organization that had long been implicated in exploiting college students through involved funding.

Scott represented Bergen County, where a large section of the Meadowlands, an enormous marshland, was located (only in New Jersey would you find a swamp called a “meadow”). The Meadowlands was under full federal protection, but Scott still found it worthwhile to pose as its protector and work with the greens to get useless legislation passed in Trenton.

As for Ernie Oros, it seems that his hometown featured a marsh where he used to play as a kid, and he’d sought election in the first place to preserve it — nothing like sticking with important issues. So he was easy prey for the greens.

That pair was among the best that the New Jersey Republicans could offer. I assure you that nothing has changed. The same situation prevails throughout the northeast, with few exceptions.

Which brings us to New York City. Mamdani had two opponents: the deeply corrupt Andrew Cuomo, a former Democrat running as an independent, and, representing the GOP, Curtis Sliwa.

Sliwa would make an interesting case study in politics as sideshow. He’s one of New York’s great publicity hounds and political hustlers, and has been since his appearance in 1977.

Sliwa first came to public attention as the founder of the Guardian Angels, a civilian anti-crime patrol that focused on crime in the subways. Distinguished by their t-shirts and red ranger berets, they were in operation for some years with no discernible effect on crime rates. (By contrast, subway crimes dropped precipitously for weeks after Bernhard Goetz shot four muggers in 1984.) But the controversy they engendered — leftists squealed in unison about “vigilantes,” which the group was not — earned Sliwa a high profile.

He exploited this for decades, gaining a talk radio show on WABC-FM, in which he appeared with rabid leftist attorney (he inherited the mantle of the infamous William Kunstler) Ron Kuby. An idea of the content can be gained from the fact that Sliwa was suspended in 2018 after talking about how “hot” a City Council candidate was and claiming that he’d slept with three members of the council. Since most of the females on the NYC Council are lesbians, this claim is dubious.

In 2025, he was the last man standing. The GOP allowed a fringe candidate with no hope of winning to represent the party in a crucial election. I don’t think there’s any question that the abuse handed out to Rudolf Giuliani had a lot to do with it.

Giuliani was arguably the greatest mayor the city ever had. His actions after the 9/11 attack alone attained the status of legend. (Mamdani would have been up in the airliner with Mohammed Atta and company.) Before 2025, it could honestly be said that Giuliani saved New York City. Today, the best that can be said is that he bought it another twenty years.

A close advisor to Donald Trump, Giuliani became, along with many others, collateral damage in the leftist witch-hunt against Trump. Virtually nobody spoke out in Giuliani’s defense — certainly nobody in New York City, the city he had redeemed, and in particular, nobody from the New York City GOP.

Under those circumstances, it’s only to be expected that the party would have trouble recruiting a worthwhile candidate for mayor of the city — or any other office, for that matter. Who would risk their fortune, their family, their reputation, and their livelihood for a party full of chickens***s and a city packed with ingrates?

That’s how a fringe candidate like Curtis Sliwa gets to act as the candidate for a major party.  The result, clearly, was a sham election in which a sideshow act and a turncoat reprobate slugged it out with a candidate carefully groomed, supported, and financed by every corrupt institution in the city. That’s the only lesson to be drawn from it.

The New York State GOP is in better shape, at least compared to the city. On the national level, two House members, Elise Stefanik (21st District) and Claudia Tenney (24th District), are among the most effective members of the U.S. House. If it can be done in the wilds of upstate, it can be done in the city. All it requires is nerve, backbone, clear-sightedness, and lotsa cash. If Stefanik chooses to run for governor, overall reform of the party should be on her agenda.

This should act as a lesson for state and local GOP organizations across the country. This, too, could happen to you. So you must work while it is yet day.

Rejuvenate your party apparatus. Give the geriatrics a plaque and send ‘em home. Break up the cliques. Recruit new and younger members. Run off the overpaid political techs. They have their place, but actually running the party should not be in the hands of 400-pound professional hustlers.

To MAGAnistas in particular: go out and get yourself elected to the party committee. It’s straightforward, simple, costs little, and can be won with minor effort — a few downvotes often throw a committee election.

Our MAGA comrades often talk about starting a third party. I can’t see the point—there’s a perfectly good party lying there that nobody’s using at the moment.