These are the words not of a left-wing activist but of Fraser Nelson, former Editor of the Spectator writing in the Times (12th July)
His subject is the victory of the left-ish candidate Zohran Mamdani in the recent Democratic Primary election to determine who would be the candidate in the next election for Mayor of New York in the autumn.
He argues
‘If Mamdani can win, anyone can; that’s the real shock to the system. In a political culture supposedly ruled by party tribes, money and machinery, a skinny-tie socialist with barely a campaign office managed to flatten the Democratic establishment. He didn’t need a newspaper endorsement, a donor network or even a coherent policy agenda. He needed anger, fluency in the digital platforms where that anger lives and a generation ready to listen and then vote’
The underlining idea that leads Nelson to this conclusion is in the Monty Python very silly category, namely that its caused by having too many graduates, with too few graduate jobs.
The reference for this is a 2009 book by Peter Turchin, Secular Cycles, which opines for example that the reason for the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution was an over supply of graduates. Its the way they tell them.
Even so Nelson’s analysis of Mamdani’s victory is to the point
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