Status Quo

Mamdani shakes things up in New York City

Yesterday, I did a live broadcast here and drew on camera. The phrase “I’ve had it with the status quo” was in my mind, I heard someone say it on Tuesday. Or rather it was a reporter saying that NYC residents have had it with the status quo, that’s why the city went for Zohran Mamdani, a democratic socialist. He won the NYC Mayoral primary, beating out Andrew Cuomo, an older Democrat with lots of baggage (to put it mildly). So during the broadcast last eve, I mused and explored and played around with how to use that phrase in a cartoon, I love drawing cartoons that make reference to current events without hitting people over the head with an idea. Several approaches I explored didn’t work. But this morning, I decided that using the pigeons worked, and drew it up. I sent it into The New Yorker for their daily cartoon, but alas, they did not buy it.

But you get to see it right away!

It will be very interesting to see if Mamdani can win the general election. He just might, and it would signal a huge shift for the Democratic party. It will perhaps be the beginning of a generational shift, and ideological. Mamdani’s ideas seem far-fetched to me, I find it hard to believe that some of them would work in NYC. And his inexperience worries me, but Cuomo’s baggage worries me more.

People voted for Trump in part because they wanted something new. He pitched himself as a Washington outsider, among other things. They/we got the same old, same old politician behavior, exponentially so. And with blatent lies and blatent corruption and blatent lawlessness.

What have you done in your life that is breaking free from the status quo?

Thanks for being here, see you tomorrow! Have a great Thursday.