Zohran Mamdani is reshaping the Democratic Party faster than anyone expected
5 days ago by MicroWave to c/politics
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, once a figure of contention among leaders from both major political parties, has seen a remarkable surge in his political standing just six months into office.
The 34-year-old democratic socialist, a prominent figure on the progressive left, has garnered unexpected praise from both Donald Trump and New York Governor Kathy Hochul.
He has also emerged as the face of the region's sports renaissance. Now, days before New York's primary elections,
But leftists are both useless and totally destructive at the same time according to neo-liberals.
I hope this brings enough change to make the Democrats actually progressive instead of giving lips service to it then doubling down on corporatism.
Who cares if the Dems go progressive? It's the voters who are important. The Republicans kept resisting the rising far right movements like the Tea Party, and then MAGA, but the voters just bulldozed right over them.
The corporatist establishment Democrats all made it extremely clear that they would prefer a corrupt asshole like Adams for Mayor, but the people told them to go fuck themselves, and now the DNC has no choice but to get on board.
The voters don't have to do what the DNC demands, but the DNC has to live with whoever the voters force upon them.
The DNC will continue to ratfuck progressives in primaries and has historically burned down the house before letting progressives take over.
The DNC has been pretty progressive for about 16 years.
True leftists, like any medium-small minority, can make or break any coalition of medium-small minorities. And likewise, they can't really direct policy all on their own, because the rest of the minorities in the coalition aren't on board yet. One minority can't make it, but they can break it.
I also hope this brings progressivism to the Democratic party. That would be a good way to bring more of the coalition on board.
Thank you!
The thing that drives me crazy is when progressives act like they have a massive majority of the people behind them.
Back in the day, Jerry Falwell leveraged his Moral Majority into power by sending his church people into every local GOP club.
If the usual attendance was twenty folks, the MMs would show up with fifty. They might only have fifty followers in the whole town, but all of them were there where it counted.
the Democratic Party is a lot less monolithic than people make it out to be, it’s just that a lot of influential people in the back end have been fighting to keep progressives out, arguing that they needed to stay close to republicans to win “moderate” voters.
More visible progressive wins will erode that narrative and allow various parts of the coalition to abandon the neoliberal orthodoxy imposed on them by corporate consultants. We can’t get anywhere untill that dead weight is dropped. Maybe the Democratic Party won’t be the one to adapt to the new conditions, maybe something new will take their place, but nothing is going to happen till that narrative is dead.
It won't be easy. We must keep getting progressives in office if you want more than lip service.
There are Leftists in this thread who are saying Mamdani's no good because he hasn't done everything he promised.
I hope this brings enough change to make the Democrats actually progressive instead of giving lips service to it then doubling down on corporatism.
Its hilarious how people think this is even practically possible
We're literally talking about a progressive that just became the mayor of the city that is at the very heart of American finance and capitalism. AOC could get elected president and you would still be saying it's not practical.
Leftists already attacked him for not firing the cops involved in last winter's snowball fight.
Kamala Harris received 1,748,140 votes in New York City,
Zohran Mamdani received 1,036,051 votes
Thank goodness he wasn't getting more help from the Left.
We have a real bad "No True Scotsman" problem
I edited my comment to point out that Mamdani got fewer votes than Harris did when she ran in NYC, and Harris did worse against Trump than Biden did.
People vastly overestimate how popular their positions really are
Or the fact that people are idiots and a large % only vote every 4 years
Kind of proving my point there.
People had a choice between a known molester, an idiot, and the Democratic Socialist and the DS barely edged through.
It's almost as if the progressives don't have a commanding majority and have to work with others if they want to advance.
Lmfao.
Democrats are plenty progressive, Mamdani's policy stances are pretty normal, but without state and federal majorities we're not gonna see fuck all for change.
Amazing what electing somebody who wasn't born in the 1940s can do!
There are tons of young fascists.
Thanks to Beijing's TikTok psyop theres a brand new generation of fascists from the USA to Germany.
The fascists are on Russia. They have literally been funding right wing extremism all across Europe and the world for decades, as a matter of stated intent and strategy and they've been caught doing it straight up.
Tiktok only exacerbates the issue, but make no mistake, Russia bears by far the biggest part of the blame.
Meh.
TikTok led to the largest shift rightwards among youth voters ever recorded in the USA.
It isn't just conjecture it is measured.
are there? hard to say with none of them in charge of anything.
Seems to me when we get the boomers out of the way, a lot of problems also go away. ever notice how racism and sexism is much more prevalent and "normal" with older people? Stands to reason that putting those people in care homes and out of power would make drastic improvements to society.
I think it depends on your definition of "young", but there are the folks like Kyle Rittenhouse, Jacob Chansley, Ben Shapiro, and tons of other netizens younger than Joe Rogan with their hate-mongering podcasts. Being emboldened in the way they are, more seem to be popping out of the woodwork instead of being shamed or reformed into better viewpoints.
Teachers are having trouble with boys as young as 8 not listening to them because the manosphere tells them they shouldn't respect women.
Pretty much everyone went to school with some Young Conservative type who was weirdly into politics at a young age.
JD Vance?
Are you familiar with the Joshua Generation at all? Literally a training ground for christo-fascists that trained former and current senators.
There's absolutely young fascists currently in charge. Heck "DOGE" was nothing but a bunch of 20 somethings allowed to enact part of their fascist wet dream.
Putting the blame on age and not class is why you're getting so ratiod
Ratioed? Kharma's not a thing here so who cares. And maybe I've just met more old people than you have.
Also your Joshua generation thing doesnt show a prevalance for idiocy in youth, just that some exists. Idiocy in the elderly is a fact of life. Brains dont get better as they age, and the context they grew up in doesnt keep up with the times they live into. I dont care if people like it, people dont get smarter or more relevant to the times as they age.
At the very least, the younger generation would have less lead to addle their brains.
Or at least different kinds of addling. Although, I suspect that algorithmic social media does less long term damage than persistent developmental lead poisoning (SERIOUSLY, WHAT THE FUCK? LEADED GASOLINE?)
already has made drastic improvement everywhere else in the world outside of the USA, Israel, Russia..
all still run by rapidly aging boomers.
To be fair I think this guy has actual talent for this kind of work.
Oh god. I didn't do this math. This means that the same people in that age bracket were kids glued to the TV during all the McCarthy-era bullshit. No wonder.
Not to mention global radioactive contamination from nuclear weapons testing and the occasional reactor meltdown!
This is how MAGA took over the republicans.
Now we just have to convince leftists to get out and vote in the primaries and generals which might be a chore.
Except the leftists did vote that's why he's there? Maybe it's because he wasn't a shit tier neo-liberal candidate like the Democrats have put up in the last election.
He was up against Cuomo in NYC.
I’m pretty sure Hitler could run as a democrat there and win.
Don't forget Curtis "I'm Walkin' Here!" Sliwa
With seven percent of the vote I’m pretty sure he forgets about himself.
Kamala Harris received 1,748,140 votes in New York City,
Zohran Mamdani received 1,036,051 votes
I imagine you'll struggle to find any locally elected politician anywhere who got a bigger turnout than that for the presidential race.
You know how many comments I've seen from lefties calling him a liberal plant? Never gonna happen.
The only thing leftists are good for is destroying their own chances of creating a political party then blaming the liberals for it.
Not, you know, workers rights, the weekend, higher wages, greater social mobility, higher standards of living, higher wages etc?
Try listing an accomplishment from the last seventy-five years.
So you’re a righty?
No just a realist.
Can you tell me his accomplishments?
Fixed the NYC budget within 100 days of taking office.
Got shitty landlords to fix thousands of apartments.
Didn’t bend the knee to wealthy people.
Doesn’t talk in empty platitudes like the typical DNC centrist Zionist.
Prove thousands of apartments are fixed.
You cant convince me that you haven't seen article after article of shit he's doing and just decided not to click it. Do a Google search troll.
Can you not be a little shit for two seconds?
In a sea of shity news, why do you have to be the turd that makes it's way into the punch bowl as it just tries to stay afloat on the surface?
Are you a plant? Trying to creative division?
I'll take any good news in the leftward direction over the waterfall of bad news we scroll through everyday.
Grow-up. Stop fighting with people who agree with you on the big picture stuff.
Do you really think being a little shit to someone after telling them not to be a little shit is going to make them care about anything you say?
Just makes me feel more justified tbh. Thanks
Balanced budget. Massive improvements in roads and transit. Helping fix food "desserts", etc.
Deserts ≠ desserts

But he's not the right flavour of Democratic Socialist.
Sorry but it's four more years of fascism. I don't make the rules.
And that's why the US marches ever to the right
I mean this guy does have a profile pic of Mao lmao
No, you cant defeat right wing by votes. The US is marching right because its the logical conclusion of capitalism and american society. It has nothing to do with not voting democrats
No, you cant defeat right wing by votes.
Not just wrong, insanely wrong. That's exactly how it's done. You can't do it overnight if that's how you mean.

You defile the word "fact" with this usage
Electing someone who is actually DOING STUFF for the city he's elected to run? I mean, yeah we should totally hate that. 😩
electing someone who even understands what their job even is seems to be a welcome change. Schumer claims his whole job is keeping the dems in line with what a foreign power wants. And almost all of congress seem sto agree. Thats not their job at all. And that rot goes top to bottom through both parties. The president and judiciary also dont seem to understand what their jobs are anymore. Cops too, no frickin idea what they do exactly.
Cops document events and threaten violence. Well, instigate violence as well, but only the Rotten Apples™.

Yeah, wtf is wrong with Mamdani.
Doesnt he know hes supposed to make big promises, then do none of it while giving handies to CEOs in his office before selling his citizens out for literal pennies per person?
TBF he's renegged on a lot of his plans and watered down all of his enacted ones.
Pretty normal for the DNC.
Good and carry on. The USA needs a progressive left president too.
Republicans, propping up Mamdani?
Interesting strategy. But you know what they say, never interrupt your enemy while they're making a fatal mistake.
Let's hope it works out EXACTLY as well for them as Hillary's Pied Piper strategy of boosting Trump did!

Isn't he self-described as a "democratic socialist"? (I mean, his faction aren't super radical socialist as far as I'm aware, in terms of trying to bring about a workers democracy. The NYC "city run" grocery stores are just contacted out, not actually city run. But hey, it's way, way, way better than what other US political factions are doing)
baby steps, baby steps.
Oh I don't disagree. Just pointing out that 1. Socialism isn't a dirty world like the meme above implies and 2. That Mamdani calls himself a democratic socialist
Democratic Socialist =/= Socialist.
Indeed, hence the second half of my comment :)
With enough people like Mamdani, we could finally advance beyond a two party system.
Not if it's still FPTP. Spoiler effect is too strong, more split "left" means right wins
Explains why NYC elected Mamdani with ranked choice voting, then! Any candidate in favor of FPTP wants the right to win.
They changed the rules. We will never see anything other than the Democratic Republicans in the US
Perhaps.

They're both the party of old rich white billionaires..
We truly is reshaping and healing the state of NYC.
Zohran Mamdani is reshaping the Democratic Party In New York faster than anyone expected
FTFT. If he can spur change in the country, excellent. Democrats in Idaho still have to work with Idahoans. They don't care about the Nicks.
Just saying - red states are still red states. New York wasn't that kind of red.
They don't care about the Nicks
I'm guessing you don't either? New York Knicks
Oops. I thought that looked funny. Eh, whatever.


As he should. We need to take any populist progressive momentum we have and use it to run the Democrats out of town. Along with the republicans. The two parties are just a black hole of corporate money.
Because, you know, he has and will continue to reject that money. Because he is so great and has such great ethics and morals....
Totally wouldn't become the exact same thing. Or worse.
We can only hope that this is true. I'll buy it when I see it in Illinois.
I have a horrible feeling he's going to be assassinated in the not-too-distant future. I really hope I'm wrong.
He's six months in and like ⅔ of the way through his campaign promises. And that's with standing against ICE and dealing with both an extreme winter and and extreme summer. He defeated multiple establishment-backed candidates. And he's managed to do this all without any major scandal.
Plus, if this is a psyop by the right, it's absolutely backfiring. Mamdani is showing the electorate how a government can work for its people. That's good for people, but terrible for the establishment.
I realize where the cynicism comes from, but "just don't change" is always true right up until it isn't.
Planted by whom? The democrat establishment that dragged their feet on giving him any support whatsoever? The republicans who were urging their own candidate to drop out in order to give Cuomo an edge? High roller donors who were desperately trying to prop Cuomo up? Seems like the entire establishment across the political spectrum was against Mamdami. The wealthy and powerful clearly did not want him in office, I don't think there was some 5D chess gambit behind their opposition.
You're not going to get leftist polices from democrats. Vote left.
I'm not an American, so I could be incredibly wrong here, but don't you have a two party system? If you don't vote Democrat, who do you vote for?
The US has over 50 parties, depending on where you vote.
Democrat, Republican, Green, Libertarian, Constitution, Peace and Freedom, No Labels, Progressive, Socialist, etc
They are relevant only if they can act as spoilers for one of the big two parties.
This is not true for voters who have rank choice
Then why do I only ever see (R) or (D) behind names in your government? Why don't I hear about the Green party candidate for Senate, or the Libertarian in a state legislature? I mean, you say there are other parties, but if they exist surely someone from one of them has made it into the government of a state or to the federal level at some point.
Not trying to be argumentative here, just trying to understand.
You're probably watching shitty corporate news that's intentionally trying to tell their viewers that the only option is the 1 party (both democrats and republican parties are nearly identical when you zoom out to include progressive policies)
The US has great independent media. Try reading something run by a nonprofit that does not take money from corporate sponsors.
He's a DSA member! I'd call him a DINO if he wasn't evidently reshaping it.
I'll vote third party as soon as the next guy, but if the Democrats decide to run an actually good candidate, then I'm not holding a grudge.
Isn't DSA a separate party?
you know mamdani is still a democrat right? He is still approved by the richoids of america, y'know the guys who've been terrorizing the world for decades, and he already gave up on being anti cop. Ultimately guys like him are just there to fool you that the system can be change by voting, doing slight improvement so the system survives until it can take those improvements away.
They fought tooth and nail to keep him from winning, just like they did Bernie.
It's just a show. He is still there, not to mention Bernie sanders is also a Zionist who turns American rage at the system into votes for democrats. I mean come on, Zoharan said he'd defund the police, where is that now?
The system has improved by voting. Like, take a quick gander through history. We're in a down trend right now, and we need to fight, and fight to improve the system, but to deny that the system can change by voting is to deny history
No, the system never ever improved by voting. It only ever improved in response to fear of revolution, and any "improvement" through voting was nothing more than a temporary concession, Britain used to be the face of social democracy then Thatcher came and since then standard of living has been constantly getting lower, Obama brought Obama care(which was absolutely not enough) because Occupy wallstreet happened, then trump came and gutted it. You can't change and improve a system that's built to keep you down, by working from inside of it
As I said. Denying history.

He's not very socialist, no. But based on your take that socialists on the west are imperialist simply for existing within an imperialist nation, something tells me you think anyone who's the enemy of the USA must be great. (Do correct me). And that usually ends up being tankies.
He's been outspoken on the genocide in Gaza, at least. Which is one of the USA's proxy imperialist projects.
USA, Russia, China, they're all terrible in their own way. We don't get to choose where we're born.
I'm a socialist (edit: not a "democratic socialist", like actually a socialist who wants revolution and institution of a worker controlled society) in Australia. Am I okay with imperialism too because of Australia's actions?
In conclusion, Mamdani isn't gonna bring about socialism, but he's certainly not as bad as you're describing (that I can tell, so far).
No, according to me socialists in the west are imperialist because they behave like that. How many times has zohran spoken about gaza after getting elected? I think its 0. I think anyone against the US isnt great, but they are better. I dont mind you calling me tankie, I support the soviet union, cuba, vietnam, maoist china, etc.
USA is clearly by far the most terrible of those nations. We must apply the lesser evilism that liberals apply in every election.
Mamdani allows west bank land sales in NY synagouges, he isnt that bad if your moral compass revolves around western left
for your change you need 10-15 consecutive election wins otherwise one republican can undo all it at once. Not that democrats do good work to even get re elected. Structural change is not incremental
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Progressives have been hoping for someone like Mamdani to actually win an election for a long time, now. If he is what finally instigates a break in the wall the Democratic party has erected, it's not surprising that others are picking up their sledgehammers.
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