Everyone criticising Schumer but no one gives him credit for handcuffing Cornyn to a radiator

Look if we keep at it we can come up with a simple rule of thumb which means I don't have to learn anything about politics and can just say that all the time.
How about "US Politics is actually the exact same as European Politics and left and right blocs in Europe = Democrat & Republican"?

NYC Mayor is a weird election. Liberal city with very low turnout because the Dem Primary winner should win the General. That's not a dynamic that's repeated in a lot of other places and it's hard to pull direct lessons from that (but there are more general lessons that can be applied elsewhere)

Yeah I mean I've seen some terrible takes about the election, I saw one person call it an underperformance by Zohran which I think is ridiculous given the "uniqueness" of Cuomo

This is why I think it's important to keep one foot on the ground and be really rigorous in how we interpret these things

(And arguably labour did do this strategy in the 1920s and turned them into a top 2 party but instead of non voters it was "expand the vote")

I'm happy Zohran won but I think people are too easily buying into wish fulfillment fantasies of how everything can be fixed if we do this one weird trick

I don't think "turnout left wing non-voters" is a strategy that is viable nationally, it's viable in some places but I think those are quite limited and you hit a ceiling quite fast and need another tool in the toolbox to go further.

The goal was always to get more though right?
Like I think the lib dem theory of power where they try to get a small number of MPs, slowly building outwards and ideally influencing things in a hung parliament is a sound one.
But I think you always need to be aware of the limits of your strategy

Will get you any power. Like winning a council seat in a council dominated by another party is nice but it doesn't let you change much (which is going to be the most common thing you can find that will meet the first two criteria).

It's a lot easier to make the argument for turning out non-voters when it's the NYC Mayor that went from 23.39% turnout in 2021 to 39.91% in 2025.

But where in Britain are you starting from that low a floor *and* has an untapped left wing non-voting bloc *and* is worth winning?

9 - Dinky is a terrible name and I'm annoyed that its a load bearing, plot important character name throughout the entire book

8 - There is an interesting historical tension with the book in that it's (supposedly) a condemnatory screed about the sex obsessed gay culture of the time, a culture that was quickly wiped out by AIDS and now the book is really this time capsule of a halcyon age.

6 - Man you can just put anything in a book huh? Lotta big swings.

7 - I recommend people read it because I want people to talk about it with but uh.......

4 - The no chapters thing does give the effect of being dragged through a whole community that feels alive but also just like real life i forget who half the peope im introduced to even are which is not ideal.

5 - Is it any good? Ask me in 3 years to see if I went back to reread it or not.