But I’ve seen it when telling someone you’re voting for a dictator and get laughed at is telling (and stupid on their part).

And the current DNC recognized that "trump bad" isn't enough to win elections and pointed that out as one of Mamdani's biggest strengths after he won his primary last year...

Ken Martin:

Well, first, it was a brilliant campaign. And there's a lot of lessons.

One is, he campaigned for something. And this is a critical piece. We can't just be in a perpetual state of resisting Donald Trump. Of course, we have to resist Donald Trump. There's no doubt about it for all the reasons we just talked about. But we also have to give people a sense of what we're for, what the Democratic Party is fighting for, and what we would do if they put us back in power.

And that's really critical. And I think that's one of the lessons from Mamdani's campaign, is that he focused on affordability. He focused on a message that was resonant with voters, and he campaigned for something, not against other people or against other things. He campaigned on a vision of how he was going to make New York City a better place to live.

I think that's one of the lessons. The other lessons, of course, is the tactics he used to get his message out, both a very aggressive in-person campaigning, meeting voters where they're at, and then also in those digital spaces, using very creative messaging to cut through the noise and to get to voters in an inexpensive but authentic way.

There's a lot to learn from that campaign, and I'm excited to learn more.

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/dnc-chair-on-the-path-to-winning-back-voters-and-lessons-democrats-can-learn-from-mamdani

The DNC won't "pick" a candidate like that, they won't pick any candidate.

But they're not going to block a candidate like that, and that's all progressives have ever needed