It would not be surprising, because Mamdani's mother is Mira Nair, a renowned filmmaker (who is primarily makes movies for a western audience, but is heavily influenced by Bollywood).
The uncomfortable truth Donald Trump is finally articulating forcefully is that Europe built its welfare state under the US security umbrella, but then started getting cocky with antitrust actions, restricting American companies' access to their markets etc, while simultaneously doing next to nothing to secure their own neighborhood by investing in defense (France being a notable exception). Even if we charitably assume that they took 50 years to build back up from the destruction of world war 2, they have wasted the next 20-30 years with zero preparation or thought about their own defense.
No one did a thing when Crimea was taken. In fact, there was simply no firm response after Russia shot down the airplane brazenly. In fact, leaders such as Merkel further increased dependence on Russia by importing gas and integrating them deeply into Germany and many other EU countries' economies! Staggering incompetence and frank delusion!
I agree with your characterization of Europe's actions. However, belittling Ukraine and siding with the aggressor to make a point with europeans is not "articulating forcefully". It's bullying.
It feels like a lot of people who joined the workforce after 2008-2010 are experiencing their first "tough times". It's natural to respond in this manner. But there is an important caveat: one must seek out good work and deliver in order to stay employable, and have access to good opportunities. Or, they must develop a good network and essentially hop from one job to another with the exact same set of people (this is much more common than you'd think). For the former, you still need to show up and go above and beyond every once in a while, so getting excited about work is still a prerequisite.
This is a weak argument. The US has a patchy K-12 system whose quality varies from abysmal to world-beating, depending on many factors. It has, indisputably, one of the world's best universities. Lots of people who have gone through the former but are also products of the latter. They can be very well educated, and do better than credentialed teachers (let's face it, the only difference is that; also a known fact that brighter, higher-IQ people do not gravitate toward K-12 teaching).
