In just a few months, Mamdani, a 34-year-old state assemblyman and Democratic Socialist, has gone from a long-shot fringe candidate to a national figure — securing an upset win in the June primary, where voters 18-29 had the highest turnout of any age group.
Now, on the cusp of Election Day — where polls show him the clear frontrunner over his closest rival, former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo — Mamdani is counting on that youth coalition to show up again. But his pledge to address rising costs appears to be resonating with young people far outside of the five boroughs. It’s a message that many Gen Z and millennials say speaks to their most pressing concerns at a time when many feel hopeless about their leaders and yearn for new voices willing to break with political norms.
“When a candidate is able to speak to the concerns of the populace and validate those concerns … I think that that has a big impact, especially when it comes to young people,” said Ruby Belle Booth, who studies young voters for the nonpartisan research organization CIRCLE.
Crazy to think people want representatives who actually put forth ideas to HELP THEM…
I remember when I was in college and people were clamoring on the Ron Paul bandwagon, entirely because he was a high profile politician from a bright red state that wasn’t rabidly pro-war. Like, the demand for something that wasn’t (Republican: KILL’EM ALL!) or (Democrat: Let’s only kill as many people as is fiscally sensible) was so overwhelming that Paul’s dogshit economic and social politics failed to register for millions of people who probably should have known better (myself included).
Over twenty years later, I feel like we’re getting something of the reverse. A guy whose politics would normally rub GenZ / GenA liberals the wrong way and whose faith/tan would enrage young conservatives is getting a Katamari-like following across the political spectrum entirely because he’s outside the increasingly narrow R/D divide.
Its such a stupid shit show where we have one side of Democrats pushing for healthcare and food for all, another side of Democrats refusing to provide trans support and want more big business, and then Republicans who say fuck all those things except businesses.
I met a waitress in Paris who reminded me to vote for him. I was syrprised someone overseas cared that much.
Lol I’m in Estonia and I care more about this than our own municipal government elections that was… I think 2 weeks ago? I mean I voted, I just don’t remember when it was. The folks who got in were mostly OK and we’re keeping the previous mayor who was OK.
Mamdani could be the leading force behind change in what is arguably the most influential nation to most of the western world. And it’s all starting off in one of the most iconic cities in the world, that desperately needs all the help it can get.
I honestly dont think he is going to get all of that stuff done, but im ok with that because intent is more important to me
I mean, he’s a mayor—not city council. People ascribe far too much power to the executive branch to get things done as opposed to the legislative branch which holds all the actual power in a representative democracy
Sometimes bringing people hope is more important than whether you get everything done or even just half. When people have hope, more progressive politicians may get their chances.
I love this post. You are on the other side of the world yet you’ve envisioned an optimistic and plausible path for this country to start not just rebuilding but to find some redemption and even inspire people again. Eventually.
I’m not in NY, but am in the US within a several hour drive of there.
Well I’m hoping that what Mamdani can prove to the democratic party is that charismatic young leaders with progressive ideas are the way forward. Maybe then a certain monitor brand can get the 2028 presidential election nomination.
Part of me still wants to live and work in the US, NYC in particular. Ain’t gonna happen in this current state of things though. First you guys need a new president, then a huge lack of software engineers and then the country would be ready to receive me lol
But even that aside - some European conservative parties are just mirroring the republican party. I think if they lose power, our conservatives will also lose confidence and pull a bit to the left.
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I’m 35, I live in North Carolina, and the only TikTok videos I watch are Zohran Momdani’s… Just give me something to hope for, people. And I’m not unique. There are a Fuck Ton of me.
I pray to the god that does not exist that he does not get assassinated, and if they try I want them to fail so hard that the assassins kill one another instead.
I’ve seen a persistent theory of politics within liberal circles that conservatives want Mamdani as mayor, because they see it as an excuse to send hordes of ICE / National Guard into the city at the first hint of defiance. Also, a lot of speculation that the NYPD is going to preemptively hate on this guy so much that they’ll practically roll out the red carpet for far-right radicals to terrorize the city. Given the degree to which people seem to have zero hope for the future, its certainly tempting to indulge in “There’s no way to win!” bleak prophecies.
But my expectations are significantly more muted. I think he’s going to get into office, run into a massive wall of bureaucratic intransigence, and lose his popular momentum when he’s not able to spin municipal straw into socialist gold overnight.
I guess only time will tell. But the worst thing for a progressive candidate’s image in the US is getting what they asked for and being expected to deliver. Just look at AOC, Keith Ellison, and Bernie Sanders.
The ICE gestapo is going to terrorize NYC no matter who’s mayor. I don’t think even Curtis Sliwa in office would discourage Trump.
But yeah, Mamdani has high expectations just like Obama did. Luckily, he has a lot of councilpeople on his side. The DSA has grown a lot in the past decade.
Bernie had a lot of resistance when he was first elected mayor too, but that didn’t stop him from making a difference there and getting elected over and over again.
The struggle doesn’t end on election day!
The ICE gestapo is going to terrorize NYC no matter who’s mayor.
Part of the indignity of the Adams administration has been the NYPD doing a lot of the dirty work. In a city with a $5.8B budget (by comparison, the entire North Korean military apparatus runs on $4B/year adjusted) that’s an enormous force multiplier. Mamdani’s pledged to pull the plug on this relationship in his first 100 days. And that’s going to provoke an ugly backlash without a doubt, both inside the NYPD and from DC.
The struggle doesn’t end on election day!
Hard truths. Far better to have a guy like Mamdani at the wheel than a Kapo like Cuomo or Adams.
Was screwing around with IPTV last night, so the Cuomo ad against him.
“DANGEROUS PLANS” ohhhhh
the ad was infuriating. the guy wants to be a half decent human and they need to brand that as danger. seriously fuck these guys.
The young desperately want someone, anyone, to actually believe in… and it isn’t Chuck “strongly worded letter” Schumer or some other limp and ineffectual bureaucrat trying to do damage control for the Democrat party.
On the one hand I’m farther to his left and am critical of some of his campaign decisions, and am not optimistic about his abilities to overcome the capitalists through purely electoral means.
On the other hand I’d be happy to see him prove me wrong.
Oh wow.
‘Mandani isn’t left enough for me.’
What planet are you from?
.ml users tend to be Marxist-Leninists (hence .ml), so when they complain that someone is not “left enough”, it’s a code to mean is that the person is not a Marxist-Leninist/communist who wants to instigate an armed revolution, overthrow the system, and then seize the means of production. The thing is, many Americans could distinguish the difference between communists and socialists. Even the Fox news survey showed most young people support socialism, while only few support communism. I imagine ML clutched their pearls as hard as the conservatives upon learning of the survey.
.ml users are basically conservatives who want free money.
centrists know that money is for netanyahu and won’t use it for anyone else’s benefit.
Actually I think Marxist-Leninists and Black Maoists and anarcho-communists all have good ideas.
I’m really a centrist if you think about it.
Freezing the rent on rent controlled apartments has been done by many mayors including Bill de Blasio.
Kansas City has free busses.
I can’t believe the Overton window has shifted so far to the right that you can’t even imagine someone being to the left of de Blasio or Kansas.
If you read my comment carefully you’ll see I’m not talking about Blasio or Kansas I’m talking about Mamdani.
I read it carefully enough to notice you didn’t specify which of his campaign’s policy positions you consider extreme left. So I assumed you were talking about his main ones.
Perhaps you could clarify? Is it government-funded childcare?
Taken as a whole they’re pretty left so there’s no need to point out specific ones.
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I agree with you, and also, the US left is in no material position to hold our noses when a progressive politician gains mass popular support, so long as their words and deeds are to the benefit of the working class.
Don’t let ideological purity stop you from joining a movement that is, at the very least, building organizational power and class consciousness.
I’d vote for him if I lived in New York, but I wouldn’t expend any other energy on his campaign.
Who says he has to do it through purely electoral means? Why would you even assume that’s the plan? He’s a politician. The electoral part is where he fits in. That doesn’t mean he expects the rest of us to sit back and watch once he gets elected It’s never this approach or that, it’s everything.
It’s the only thing I see him doing. I don’t see him organizing workers or tenants and helping them unionize. I don’t see him distributing mutual aid. I don’t see him engaged in mass education. I don’t see him arming the poor and training a people’s army.
The electoral part is the only part I see him doing, and the only part I see his supporters doing.
Again, I’d be happy to see him prove me wrong.
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I don’t see him arming the poor and training a people’s army.
If you think that’s a realistic expectation to have for someone running for office in the imperial core you are in desperate need of a reality check. Even if your goal is an armed revolution there are so many prerequisites that have not been met to make such a thing possible. This is what happens when you spend too much time reading about revolutions and not enough time getting in touch with the people around you.
The Black Panthers existed.
But I notice you skipped over all the other things he could be doing, but isn’t, because he’s just doing electoralism and has no politics outside of it.
My point is you can’t expect him to do everything all at once. He’s chosen electoralism for himself and that is what he’s dedicated his time to. If your issue with Mamdani is that you think electoralism is pointless for socialists then just say that, and we can have that discussion.
One man doesn’t have to do everything. He is making space for those things to happen. Rent freezes and free transportation are at least cousins to mutual aid by my estimation, and they help free up resources in the community for members to do more. Again, one man, one role. Activists don’t make very effective politicians, and visa versa.
He’s not just one man. There’s an entire team of people behind him and an army of volunteers, and they all seem to be solely focused on the election. What I want to see is for him to focus on his role as merely the electoral front of that larger organized effort, he focuses on the election and the rest of the people around him have plans that extend beyond and outside of elections. That’s not what I’m seeing.
My expectation is, once the election is over, they’re going to go home and forget about politics.
We’ll see.
Sounds like armchair quarterbacking to me honestly, and you have no idea what else those people have going on.
Is it a fucking secret? Why would any of this be happening behind the scenes? We should have an idea what else they have going on! It would be the height of stupidity if they were engaged beyond electoralism but they kept it in the dark so no one could find out.
I’m not saying it’s a secret, but it’s not exactly stuff the media is gonna be covering now, is it?
Mamdani’s campaign isn’t intended to establish socialism in New York through purely electoral means, that’s impossible and no one serious is actually pushing for that. His campaign is part of the DSA’s party surrogate strategy. It’s a shift away from the realignment strategy they had been attempting before, and IMO is a move in the right direction, but I still think they have further to go. As far as I can tell they haven’t decided on a plan for a “dirty break” from the DNC when the time comes, and seeing the party surrogate strategy find success might lead some in the DSA to warm back up to the realignment strategy, which I don’t think has a chance in hell of working (though I would love to be proven wrong).
Edit: I’ll add that the DNC seem particularly afraid of the party surrogate strategy, and that gives me hope that it can actually work.
I think he’s going to run into a brick wall with the city council and police union and organized business leadership when he tries to do any of the things he promised. They’d happily destroy New York if it meant kneecapping the DSA from making any progress.
New Yorkers are pretty savvy, I don’t know if they’d be happy about that
And then what?
Unless he taps into that anger and uses it to overthrow the political interests aligned against him, he won’t be able to do anything. They’ll just be mad and march around, but no real change will occur.
There is a whole lot of money in influence centered in NYC. I think there is a reason why ICE hasn’t gone all out there yet.
Only time will tell.
Watching establishment Democrats freak out over him has been very satisfying.
This is arguably the biggest threat to his administration if he wins. The establishment dems DO NOT want someone to their left succeeding because it is a threat to their donation pipeline. The GOP dont need to do anything because the dems will eat him alive before anyone else.
I hope it cleans house.
I say vote him in and let’s see what happens.
I’m well beyond my youth and I’ve been following his campaign since early this year despite living very far away.
If he wins, I wonder how soon will some crazed redcap attempt assassination.
I hope they fail so badly that they kill themselves as a result.
I’m an old dude, and it isn’t just young people who feel hopeless about our elected representaives, and want new, dynamic leadership. I may not have as long a future as they do, but I’d like what time I have left to not be terrifying.
I’m in my middle aged years, whatever I’ve read of him seems hopeful if he’s the future. Also not from the US but if they can vote in someone like that for, what is considered one the the top cities in the world’s, mayor that is encouraging. If elected I hope he proves what is better for people.
Seriously we always have someone okay vs someone that wants to take away benefits from the less well off of our neighbors and friends (I will say I’m luckier but not exactly out of that group). It’s refreshing to see someone to least state he wants to make a better balance.
Heaven forbid billionaires make a few less dollars that they only use to influence things to their preferences. No one is perfect but his ideals have merit it seems.
I’m a young dude and biased I may be, I believe socialism is the ideological result of a capitalist society. It’s not a competition the way I see it. It’s as natural an evolution as how containerization arose from the era of virtual machines. Change is slow, but we’re having 5% more debate about the merits of democratic socialism than we were 5 years ago. It’s something that won’t go away, dominos are falling. Trump having destabilized things only helps broadcast issues that have always existed within this society and usher in new ideology that aims to address those issues. Modern politics is becoming more and more like progressives versus traditionalists, with each passing day. That evolution, away from left versus right, is evidence that capitalism is on the defensive.
This guy isn’t a socialist. Neither are politicians like Bernie. Also universal healthcare and food stamps aren’t socialism either. Likewise countries like Denmark and Sweden aren’t socialist either.
The biggest issue with this country is that people just don’t know what they’re talking about, and this applies to the left and right. The right freaking out over him and the left fawning over him is really baffling. Mamdani’s politics are unironically considered centrist in the rest of the developed world.
Growing up on the 60s and 70s, we constantly heard about how we had to prop up terrible dictators, because the Communist/ Socialist system that would replace him would be worse.
But like you, I always thought that Communism/ Socialism was the natural bridge between a Dictatorship and a true Democracy. The Dictator goes to far in abusing the citizens, they rise up and take the country back for themselves.
Unfortunately, that usually means another dictator - Meet the new boss, same as the old boss. At that point, the citizens start to get behind the idea of electing their leaders.
That is, if they don’t get taken over by ANOTHER dictator.
You raise valid points, yet I think we’re talking about different kinds of Socialism in a way. Your form of socialism here is like a Cold War era form of the ism. That form is often thought of as something which needs be imposed in a top-down fashion unto society — an inherently vulnerable approach. Look to history, a lot of 20th-century “socialisms” were really authoritarian states using socialist language to justify centralized control, and they did often end up as new dictatorships.
I think what I am aiming for, though, is not socialism as a bridge from dictatorship to democracy, but as a result of capitalism evolving beyond its own contradictions. More like democratic socialism: cooperative ownership, strong social infrastructure, but still open markets and innovation. It’s less about revolution or replacement, and more about integration. A phase where capitalist systems start to internalize social equity and worker participation as competitive advantages rather than ideological opposites. The socialism Id advocate for can (and maybe should) rise organically from the bottom up.
Great post, clarifying some of my vague notions. I’m no expert political scientist, so I appreciate constructive explanations.
I have always liked the idea of blended political dogmas. I think that any philosophy, from the right or the left, would be disastrous if it went to their extreme ends. The best solution is choosing the best elements from every political philosophy (they all have something) and reject the stupid stuff (they all have something). That’s difficult, because many people can’t handle nuance, and worse, MOST people can’t agree on what those muances should be.
Our country is good example of a blended political philosophy, that can’t get its arms around the nuances. We need to make some serious adjustments, but unfortunately our nation has been taken over by people with evil political philosophies that respect only money and oppression.
Democratic Socialism is an excellent example of a blended philosophy that honors the citizens, and not just their wealthy overlords. We are already there, in great part. Many of the best, most deeply-baked concepts in our society are already Socialist, like Public Education, Public Libraries, Parks, Fire Departments, etc.
Expanding this philosophy, and making it the driving force behind our society, is exactly what this nation needs at this crossroads we are at. It is either that, or the most oppressive form of fascism imaginable.
There’s a 3rd type of socialism that was more rarely spoken of in the 60’s and 70’s, because it didn’t have the drawbacks of centralized soviet style communism and therefor was more difficult to demonize: Anarchism. This ideology was successfully implemented for a few years in parts of Spain during their civil war, and its success in creating a non-hierarchical decentralized and free society even attracted George Orwell to visit it, and join their cause to fight for what they were building.
It was eventually crushed by both fascists and communists, as both sides were terrified of that concept spreading. If we’re able to implement it again someday, possibly in a spot where it would be much harder to crush militarily, then it would be a genie impossible to put back in the bottle, as it would be so self-evident in how superior of a way of life it provides to everyone, without the downsides of a centralized dictator.
