Two households, both alike in dignity,
In fair Verona, where we lay our scene,
From ancient grudge break to new mutiny,
Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.” – Prologue to Romeo & Juliet

Not two houses alike, and the dignity is probably debatable – but certain things struck me on casually reading about the two young men who appear to be rivals as well as political up and comers on the American scene: J.D. Vance and Zohan Mamdani. The first thing was that superficially they look rather similar: young, dark, bearded, energetic and highly charismatic. They are relatively close in age, only six years apart. Both are married, and only once – to women, which in male politicians these days has something of the charm the unusual, although Mamdani only took the marital plunge relatively recently. Both appear to have surfaced relatively recently into national visibility on the political scene – one as a senator and currently as vice president, and the other poised with much anticipatory fanfare (or dread) to gain high municipal office as mayor of a big and very prominent American city.

There the similarities end. In all else, Vance and Mamdani couldn’t be less alike. Vance was born American and nominally Caucasian. This circumstance of birth would normally have the usual lefty commentariat baying about his so-called privilege, save that he managed to overcome the disadvantages of being born into the poorest, most wretchedly dysfunctional, substance-addled rural community imaginable without a Martin Luther King Boulevard in it and put it all out there in a best-selling memoir. He enlisted in the Marines, served honorably – and then went to college. Lest the usual suspects sneer at him for having gone to a no-name public university (like they did with Sarah Palin) – he was bright enough and savvy to get into Yale’s Law School for post-graduate school. (Enable dripping sarcasm mode: It’s one of the elite American schools, don’tcha know. All the best go there, or one of the other approved Ivies. Disable dripping sarcasm mode) By being a Republican, of course he is assumed to be a racist of the most blatant kind – only oops – he married a woman of unmistakably Indian heritage – from India, not one of our own Reservations. In short – the usual accusations of being privileged, uneducated, racist, and out of touch lobbed in the direction of Republican politicians just can’t gain any traction with Vance. This is probably why the establishment proggie commentariat hate his guts. None of their customary slimes get any traction. And he responds with zestful humor, which is another nice change from the normal recent run of GOP politicians who sniveled like a third grader being relieved of their lunch money on a school playground – and left it at that.

Now – Zohan Mamdani, although of genuine India-Indian descent, by way of Africa where his well-to-do parents maintain a luxurious family compound – can legitimately be described as a child of privilege, but dontcha know – he has the right kind of privilege. His mother is a prosperous international filmmaker of notoriously Jew-hating sympathies. His father has been a resident scholar at Columbia – although one with such peculiar notions regarding American history, apparently believing (for example) that Adolph Hitler got the idea for concentration camps for Jews directly from Abraham Lincoln’s consignment of American Indians to reservations. This is a ball of wrong so deeply convoluted that one hardly knows where to begin untangling it. I fear that such perverse historical fantasies may be common currency among the professoriate these days and demonstrate why the utility of higher education is seriously in doubt among MAGA-affiliated Americans.

Anyway, back to the photogenic and attractive young Zohan Mamdani, whose disdain for MAGA-affiliated Americans, Jews, ambitious strivers of any ethnic background or degree of economic success, and those wealthy who aren’t among his donors and supporters appears to know no bounds. So – an international background of privilege and the kind of progressive and race-based activism usually funded by indulgent parents or a family trust fund, untethered by any experience in hardscrabble, minimum-wage-paying reality. It appears that yes, indeed, he will be the next mayor of New York, as adept as he seems to be at saying the appealing things to the voters there. Never mind if such plans as he has shared with the public are anything like achievable. It’s as the senior NCO who was one of my mentors early in my own military service observed – “Sometimes all you can do is let ‘em fall on their sword. Afterwards, if you’re feeling generous, you can pull out the sword, wipe up the blood, and maybe they’ll listen when you ‘splain where they went wrong.”
So – sword is it for New York? Comment as you have insight and observances to share.