The old politics was a gentlemen's game: incumbents reigned, challengers were rare, and primaries were sleepy affairs where the establishment always won.

The new politics is a knife fight in the dark, where the primary is the blade, gaslighting is the smokescreen, and a new breed of carpetbagger uses identity politics and victimology to storm the castle while pretending to be the underdog.

Take Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) in 2018. She was a 28-year-old bartender from the Bronx, primarying 10-term incumbent Joe Crowley in NY-14.

The Democratic machine dismissed her as a fringe DSA upstart, with internals showing her at single digits. But through stealth — leveraging social media for small-donor fury and framing Crowley as a "corporate Democrat" — she flipped the script.

Victimology ruled: AOC positioned herself as the voice of the oppressed working class, the Latina underdog against the white male machine. Identity politics sealed it: her campaign tapped into Bronx and Queens' diverse demographics, turning "bold change" into a rallying cry for the marginalized. She won 57%-43% in a low-turnout primary, then cruised to the general.

The gaslighting pivot? Post-win, the party acted like the upset was inevitable, erasing how they had mocked her months earlier.

Zohran Mamdani in 2025 followed the blueprint.

A DSA-backed state assemblyman from Queens, he primaryed centrists like Andrew Cuomo and Eric Adams in the New York City mayoral race.

Early polls pegged him at 18-26%, but by sustaining the underdog label — "a Muslim South Asian outsider fighting the elite" — he built a stealth attack.

Victimology was key: Mamdani leaned into narratives of Islamophobia and immigrant struggle, while identity politics mobilized youth (55% under-30) and foreign-born voters (62%).

Gaslighting sustained it: the establishment downplayed his surge as "niche," until he clinched the primary 56-44% over Cuomo.

Suddenly, the pivot: "Everyone saw this coming."

He won the general with 50.78%, a new carpetbagger in old clothes — using progressive cred to conquer from within.

This is the new form of carpetbagger politics: not Northern opportunists in the post-Civil War South, but leftist insurgents primarying centrists in their own party, wielding identity and victimhood as weapons.

Democrats' stealth attack is brilliant — sustain the underdog label to avoid scrutiny, then gaslight the loss as destiny.

It's not about policy; it's about power. AOC and Mamdani aren't anomalies; they're the model for others like Cori Bush or Jamaal Bowman (before their 2024 losses). The primary is the battlefield, where low turnout favors the activated base, and gaslighting keeps the center asleep until it's too late.

The republic pays the price: a polarized politics where centrists are purged, extremes rule, and the middle class wonders why nothing works. Balance is gone; every day is a devaluation of norms. If we don't wake up, the new politics will fiatize democracy itself — unmoored from reality, worth less every cycle.