Pundit Bill O’Reilly recently said he was “surprised” that ex-NY governor Andrew Cuomo lost to Zohran Mamdani in the 2025 NYC mayoral race.

“I thought,” he told Cuomo during a May 14 discussion, “you were going to wax them [your competitors].”

Do you know when I realized Mamdani would win?

The very first time I saw him on TV.

No, it wasn’t that Mamdani was promising to rob Peter blind to pay Paul and then send both home to rent-frozen apartments on a free bus. It was that I understand the Luciferian Beauty Principle.

Now, you can take the following as metaphor if you’re not a theist. In Christian theology, Lucifer chose pride over God, rebelled and became the purest manifestation of evil: Satan. But he also was something else: As Lucifer, whose name means “light bringer,” he was known as the most beautiful of angels.

There is an all-important lesson there. It’s not just that evil doesn’t appear comic-book style, with a pitchfork and horns; it masquerades as something beautiful and impressive. Rather, it’s also that the malevolent know how easily humans are seduced by what pleases the eye and ear. We see this, for example, whenever a man is deceived by a comely gold-digger.

As for Mamdani the power- and national grave-digger, he’s a good-looking young guy with an easy smile, charisma on command and the most silvery of tongues, eloquent and articulate to the hilt. Note here the studies showing that it doesn’t matter what you say; if you say it well, you will sway people. It’s a testimonial to the power of style over substance.

Mamdani isn’t alone, either.

In fact, it appears that the hard-left (e.g., socialists) have possibly been purposely, actively applying the Luciferian Beauty Principle for a number of election cycles now. It’s a dangerous phenomenon, too, one threatening to vault us into tyranny.

I wrote about the appearance imperative in 2011 in “That Presidential Look: The Bad, the Beautiful and Voting-booth Realities.” I asked, essentially: When was the last time an unattractive, bald, fat and/or bespectacled candidate won the presidency?

If you say, “Prior to the television era,” go to the head of the class.

In fact, the last time we elected a balding president was 1956 (Dwight Eisenhower). Four years later we witnessed history’s first televised debate between presidential candidates—Richard Nixon and John F. Kennedy—and got an immediate lesson in the Luciferian Beauty Principle.

That is, Americans hearing the debate only on radio thought the more intellectual, but pale, sickly-looking and sweaty Nixon won. Those watching it on TV supposed that the younger, far more handsome Kennedy won.

Donald Trump would seem an exception to the appearance imperative with his generous girth. But, first, he carries it well; second, he did generally shed pounds during campaigns. Most importantly, however, Trump is a singular, historic, transformational figure (e.g., the first to win the presidency despite no military or prior political service). He’d long been a celebrity and a star on television, a member of the glitterati.

Speaking of which, the late Rush Limbaugh would say that politics “is just showbiz for the ugly.” Well, the Democrats generally, and their far-left fringe puppeteer crew in particular, may be applying a formula: Put an uber-attractive, ultra-articulate candidate who delivers his lines splendidly in ugly-people showbiz and “Voilà!” He perhaps can’t lose.

Lest you think I exaggerate, question: Do you know how Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) entered politics?

She was chosen by “progressive” PAC the Justice Democrats, from about 10,000 applicants, through what was, essentially, an audition-like process.

Yes, really.

The result was one of the biggest upsets in recent congressional history: Cortez trounced 10-term incumbent Joe Crowley in the 2018 Democrat primaries by 14 points.

By the way, don’t kid yourself, Cortez does fit the bill. She is attractive (I know some make fun of her), especially relative to the ugly-showbiz, female-pol norm. She certainly can talk chicken off the bone, too.

Oh, it’s empty talk, you say? Cortez is ignorant?

Sure, but you are not going to vote for her no matter what. You also probably wouldn’t buy snake oil. But the snake-oil salesman doesn’t need your business. He doesn’t have to know anything about medicine. He just has to be sufficiently charismatic and glib to convince enough suckers that he does, and he becomes wealthy. That is Cortez.

Rest assured, too: If she bested 10,000 other applicants, she has some skills—not at being a statesman, but a politician.

To cement the point, it’s instructive noting why professional commentators, and politics wonks generally, under-emphasize the Luciferian Beauty Principle. Such people are more likely than average to proceed intellectually, to evaluate candidates on their positions. But even the smartest among them can make a very human mistake: projecting your own mindset onto others.

The reality is that many voters, and probably most, often make decisions on emotional bases, not rational ones. This is perhaps especially true of the “undecided vote,” which can be 20-plus percent of the electorate early in campaigns. Also known as the swing vote, capture most of them and you win. And Luciferian beauty will entice them.

This brings me to the last style-over-substance candidate I’ll mention, Texas Democrat James Talarico. Running for the U.S. Senate, he’s polling even with each of his two possible Republican opponents: Senator John Cornyn and Texas attorney general Ken Paxton. This is in a “red” state, mind you, and despite Talarico’s radicalism (e.g., he firmly embraces abortion and sexual-distortion—aka “transgender”—treatments for children; he also believes there are six “genders” and fancies God “nonbinary”).

Now, I know polls can be manipulated and often are. But I warn you: Talarico can win (this isn’t to say he will). He has Luciferian beauty in spades, being young, handsome, charismatic and silver-tongued. He also claims Christian status—advantageous in Texas—and skillfully makes his un-Christian positions look pretty, too, with Luciferian rationalization.

We may wonder at this point how much of the Democrat’s beauty play is conscious strategy. We know it was planned with Cortez, chosen via her “audition.” And though Mamdani rose through the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) ranks more conventionally, his comrades surely recognized and decided to capitalize on his political skill. Talarico’s ascendancy was perhaps more typical still, but this brings us to another point.

With liberals being characteristically emotion-driven, they’re more likely than conservatives to subordinate substance to style. This being so, they’d perhaps be more likely to deliver in the primaries a Luciferian-beauty candidate.

Whatever the case, at issue here is a real phenomenon. Research has shown that in politics, the more charismatic and attractive candidate wins more often than not. Why, one study found that via exposure to candidates’ faces for as little as 100 milliseconds, research subjects picked actual congressional and gubernatorial race winners with 57-68 percent accuracy.

So perhaps one reason, aside from Americans’ declining virtue, we chose better candidates in the pre-TV/radio age is that most Americans never saw or heard major-office candidates; they perhaps only read about their positions in newspapers.

What’s for certain is that the Luciferian Beauty Principle combined with the idiot vote is a toxic mix. It can deliver an absolutely beautiful package—hiding a demonic inner ugliness that’s deadly to a republic.

Contact Selwyn Duke, follow him on X, Truth Social, MeWe, Gettr, Tumblr, Instagram or Substack or log on to SelwynDuke.com.