How Can A Blue State Like New York Let MAGA Seep in

 Kevin Smith was a truck driver who found himself out of work during the pandemic, so he began 

organizing car caravans in support of Donald Trump and other conservative causes. | Photos 

by Mark Peterson for POLITICO

For all the post-mortems on the red wave that never was, there’s another lingering question still festering from last year’s midterms: What the hell happened in New York? It’s been decades since the GOP came within 15 points of carrying the state in a presidential election. They hadn’t won a single statewide race since 2002 — the longest losing streak in the country. But then something remarkable happened: New York Republicans flipped four U.S. House seats, providing almost all of the margin that handed Kevin McCarthy the speakership. They shaved incumbent Gov. Kathy Hochul’s vote down to just over 53 percent. And they did it all with a style of politics centered around a figure many Democrats had written off as utterly radioactive in New York: Donald Trump. Which is why David Freedlander found himself at a New York Young Republican Club party in Little Italy, where such luminaries as “pharma bro” Martin Shkreli and minor Succession star Dasha Nekrasova showed up. The theme was “Martinis and Cigars with Roger Stone.” The longtime political “dirty trickster” would be pouring Richard Nixon’s favorite martini recipe for the crowd. Once a redoubt for Mitt Romney or Jeb Bush supporters looking for a blip of red in Manhattan, the century-old club that used to support figures like Thomas Dewey, Nelson Rockefeller and John Lindsay has taken an overwhelming dose of the red pill. And it’s indicative of how the GOP made electoral gains the state hadn’t seen in decades. “Like much else in our politics, the shift comes down to Trump,” Freedlander writes. Trump drove away the upscale suburban areas where the GOP used to have a foothold, giving Democrats an opportunity to forge awkward alliances between economic elites and fervent liberals. “But as Trump’s time in office faded, those ties frayed.” And the consequences would change everything we thought we knew about New York politics. Read the story.

“Jared Kushner has an IQ of 70.” Can you guess who wrote this about Donald Trump’s son-in-law back in 2020? Scroll to the bottom for the answer.**

Republican presidential candidate Ron DeSantis speaks during a campaign event on May 30, 2023, in Clive, Iowa. | Charlie Neibergall/AP Photo

Autism Advocates Decry Insinuations About DeSantis … Much has been written about Ron DeSantis’ awkward personal affect. But some political figures are twisting those criticisms into stereotypical armchair diagnoses. Last week, Trump hatchet man Steve Bannon said that DeSantis is “a little bit on the spectrum.” And he’s not the only one. All this has created a growing cloud of dread for autism advocates, who fear that ableist ideas about autistic people will get a megaphone as the GOP primary heats up. In this week’s Capital City column, Michael Schaffer talks to experts about the potential fallout. “My reaction is that, oh, here we go again, perpetuating false bits and negativity about the concept of autism and being on the spectrum,” says Barry Prizant, a University of Rhode Island professor and author of Uniquely Human, a bestselling book about autism. “It’s obviously trying to adhere a black mark to DeSantis. … I think there has to be major pushback against that because it’s perpetuating the stigma.”