>In November 2024, Zohran Mamdani was a little known member of the New York state assembly, a 33-year-old leftist who had declared an apparently quixotic campaign to become mayor of New York. The city looked to be trending right, like the rest of the country, after Donald Trump’s re-election to the presidency. And Democratic stalwart Andrew Cuomo was the favourite for the party’s mayoral nomination. Yet in the months running up to the primary this June, Mamdani’s campaign — powered by tens of thousands of volunteers mobilised by a group called the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) — succeeded in attracting a broad coalition of voters. He won the nomination.
>Now, barring a shock, Mamdani will become mayor of the biggest city in the US next month, making him the torchbearer for a beleaguered US left — and the highest-profile elected official in the DSA’s history.
>To some, it might come as a surprise that organised socialism exists in America. DSA, established in 1982 just as the Reagan free-market revolution gathered steam, has always wrestled with the question of how to define itself in relation to the Democratic party. And there remains a lively debate inside the organisation today between those who believe its role is to change the party from within, and others who insist that an independent workers’ party should field candidates on its own ballot line. If Mamdani wins the mayoralty running as a Democrat, that argument will shift decisively in favour of the former camp.
>A victory for Mamdani might also give pause to Democrats wondering what kind of message could help them win back the US House of Representatives in next year’s midterm elections. It would certainly be the culmination of a remarkable decade for the DSA.
>For many of the group’s activists, Year Zero was 2016 — when Bernie Sanders ran Hillary Clinton close in the Democratic presidential primary race. One observer called it the “greatest political campaign ever waged by an American democratic socialist”. It was a turning point for DSA, which declared triumphantly that, having endorsed Sanders’ candidacy, it was “finally re-emerging as a vital and powerful force after an extended period of stagnation and demoralisation”. Young people joined the organisation in huge numbers. Today, it has 80,000 members. The question for many of them now, as they contemplate triumph for Mamdani, is where DSA goes next.
>American exceptionalism takes many forms. But one significant aspect of it, in politics at least, is the absence in the US of a successful mass democratic socialist or workers’ party on the European model. For a century, or more, there has been no American analogue of France’s Parti socialiste, Germany’s SPD or the UK’s Labour party. Socialists in America have therefore long faced an uncomfortable choice: adhere to doctrinal purity and suffer political irrelevance, or submit to the clammy embrace of the Democratic party.
Koszulium on
After eighteen months on the job he’ll get thrown out of the DSA
I’d say no
dietomakemenfree on
The guy is trying to be Mayor of New York City. It’s a dead-end job that chews people up and spits them out like gristle. The question should actually be how is Mamdani going to survive a position that is almost always fatal to a candidate’s political prospects?
MayorofTromaville on
I am begging people to stop talking about a mayoral election for a city they don’t live in where the most prominent national accomplishments of prior officeholders include holding a press conference at the wrong Four Seasons and spending millions of dollars to win the American Samoa primary.
5 Comments
No. Next question
>In November 2024, Zohran Mamdani was a little known member of the New York state assembly, a 33-year-old leftist who had declared an apparently quixotic campaign to become mayor of New York. The city looked to be trending right, like the rest of the country, after Donald Trump’s re-election to the presidency. And Democratic stalwart Andrew Cuomo was the favourite for the party’s mayoral nomination. Yet in the months running up to the primary this June, Mamdani’s campaign — powered by tens of thousands of volunteers mobilised by a group called the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) — succeeded in attracting a broad coalition of voters. He won the nomination.
>Now, barring a shock, Mamdani will become mayor of the biggest city in the US next month, making him the torchbearer for a beleaguered US left — and the highest-profile elected official in the DSA’s history.
>To some, it might come as a surprise that organised socialism exists in America. DSA, established in 1982 just as the Reagan free-market revolution gathered steam, has always wrestled with the question of how to define itself in relation to the Democratic party. And there remains a lively debate inside the organisation today between those who believe its role is to change the party from within, and others who insist that an independent workers’ party should field candidates on its own ballot line. If Mamdani wins the mayoralty running as a Democrat, that argument will shift decisively in favour of the former camp.
>A victory for Mamdani might also give pause to Democrats wondering what kind of message could help them win back the US House of Representatives in next year’s midterm elections. It would certainly be the culmination of a remarkable decade for the DSA.
>For many of the group’s activists, Year Zero was 2016 — when Bernie Sanders ran Hillary Clinton close in the Democratic presidential primary race. One observer called it the “greatest political campaign ever waged by an American democratic socialist”. It was a turning point for DSA, which declared triumphantly that, having endorsed Sanders’ candidacy, it was “finally re-emerging as a vital and powerful force after an extended period of stagnation and demoralisation”. Young people joined the organisation in huge numbers. Today, it has 80,000 members. The question for many of them now, as they contemplate triumph for Mamdani, is where DSA goes next.
>American exceptionalism takes many forms. But one significant aspect of it, in politics at least, is the absence in the US of a successful mass democratic socialist or workers’ party on the European model. For a century, or more, there has been no American analogue of France’s Parti socialiste, Germany’s SPD or the UK’s Labour party. Socialists in America have therefore long faced an uncomfortable choice: adhere to doctrinal purity and suffer political irrelevance, or submit to the clammy embrace of the Democratic party.
After eighteen months on the job he’ll get thrown out of the DSA
I’d say no
The guy is trying to be Mayor of New York City. It’s a dead-end job that chews people up and spits them out like gristle. The question should actually be how is Mamdani going to survive a position that is almost always fatal to a candidate’s political prospects?
I am begging people to stop talking about a mayoral election for a city they don’t live in where the most prominent national accomplishments of prior officeholders include holding a press conference at the wrong Four Seasons and spending millions of dollars to win the American Samoa primary.