Why Mamdani could play nice with Trump

by marking time

Community

(This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Sunday, Nov. 23, 2025 Sunday, Nov. 23, 2025 at 6:54:07am PST

I was flabbergasted when Trump welcomed Mamdani to the oval office and was actually civil to him, even “honored” to meet him. That was not on my bingo card. But Mamdani played nice too. As I thought about it this morning, it seems that he didn’t run primarily on demonizing Trump. So he lost nothing in saying we have things in common, we both want a successful and safe NYC, we both want to focus on affordability of basic essentials for everyone, nice things for normal people — not just more baubles for the top few rich ones. He didn’t need to capitulate or reverse himself — just keep saying what he’s been saying and now start to make it happen.

So for the midterms, maybe Democrats need a positive, assertive message that goes beyond “Trump is bad and the GOP enablers are too”. A clarion call for affordability and quality of life worked for NYC, it may well work in most of the rest of the country. Then, after a blue wave, the new Congress can play nice and welcome anyone who shares those goals and wants to get on board and help.

And they still need to hold Trump and his enablers accountable for their actions. Biden failed to do that, and it was a mistake. But there still has to be a positive forward looking agenda that moderate, reasonable republicans (if there are any left) can get behind.