There is a hunger for bold, transformative politics in the United States right now. Zohran Mamdani shows how the Left can run on a principled, disciplined message that speaks to voters’ lived concerns — and win.
  • SabinStargem@lemmy.todayEnglish
    27·
    7 days ago

    Apparently, Faux News calls him “Zohran the Destroyer”. This is exactly the sort of name that I want with progressive leadership. 🤩

  • BlameTheAntifa@lemmy.world
    20·
    7 days ago

    The number of opinion pieces having meltdowns over Mamdani is simply off the charts. The fascists and neolibs are losing their minds about this. It’s incredible.

    Mamdani isn’t even remotely radical as far as leftists go. What’s he’s proposing is just the bare minimum of common sense as far as the rest of the world is concerned.

    • Allonzee@lemmy.world
      10·
      7 days ago

      They’re acting like Luigi broke out and started making the world a better place one capitalist at a time again.

      allegedly

    • RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world
      4·
      6 days ago

      Right? I don’t get this at all. The guy gets elected, offers a couple things via social policy change, and everyone loses their shit. Even the title of the article this is about calls it “socialism” when it’s a far cry from it.

  • bitjunkie@lemmy.world
    9·
    7 days ago

    The status quo is garbage and has been degrading rapidly for most of my life. Here’s hoping the rest of this country gets its shit together in time.

  • wpb@lemmy.world
    2·
    6 days ago

    Reality proves big tent liberalism wrong at every turn, but still people advocate for it. Can’t beat stupid, I guess.

  • hperrin@lemmy.caEnglish
    753·
    8 days ago

    Social Democracy is not the same as Socialism. But, I wasn’t following the race, maybe he does want the public to own the means of production.

    • TrippyFocus@lemmy.ml
      861·
      8 days ago

      I get the hesitation since in US politics they often get conflated and I can’t say I’ve followed him very closely but someone else shared this. I know he’s also advocating for city owned grocery stores.

      • solrize@lemmy.ml
        22·
        8 days ago

        Quite a lot of red states have state owned liquor stores,[0] so city owned grocery stores doesn’t sound that radical. Apparently, Atlanta is doing it.[1] I hadn’t heard of this idea before, but web search shows it is a thing. I’d consider it socialism if he also wants to close down the privately run grocery stores. He doesn’t seem to be doing that

        [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcoholic_beverage_control_state

        [1] https://thefern.org/2025/03/are-government-owned-grocery-stores-the-answer-to-americas-food-desert-problem/

        • grue@lemmy.world
          18·
          8 days ago

          Apparently, Atlanta is doing it.[1]

          I’m an Atlantan and this is the first I’m hearing of it. Neat!

          Reading the article, though, it’s really just that the city is subsidizing a private business (and in one of the two cases, acting as its landlord) in order to create an incentive to open in a food desert, not actually getting into the business of operating a grocery store directly itself.

          I mean, I got a loan from Invest Atlanta to help with the down payment on my house, but that doesn’t mean the city owns my house or that it’s some kind of ‘government housing.’

          • Zexks@lemmy.world
            1·
            7 days ago

            I mean, I got a loan from Invest Atlanta to help with the down payment on my house, but that doesn’t mean the city owns my house or that it’s some kind of ‘government housing.’

            That really depends on who you ask these days doesn’t it.

            • grue@lemmy.world
              1·
              6 days ago

              Well, they sent me a letter a few years back saying the loan had been forgiven since I’d owner-occupied the home for a decade, so now the only other entity that might claim to own it is the creditor for my regular first mortgage. And the state (in the sense that my title is ‘fee simple’ and not ‘allodial’ so I’m still subject to things like taxes and eminent domain), I guess.

          • solrize@lemmy.ml
            3·
            8 days ago

            I see. Question then is whether the store operator gets to set the prices. Donald Trump of course lives in government housing right now, so that’s ok too.

          • Cethin@lemmy.zipEnglish
            1·
            8 days ago

            That’s a fair criticism. Usually with public-private partnerships there’s requirements they have to meet though. I’m curious what those are planned to look like. It could be something as lax as “continue operating at this location” or it could be “prices cannot exceed this value, and employees must have these things, etc.”

            It could be a good start to actual state operated grocery stores, but starting from scratch and setting up the logistics is an insane barrier, and it’s also part of the issue. It’s too hard to compete with existing companies, so they can do whatever they want and no one else can reasonably enter the market to compete with them.

        • Gorilladrums@lemmy.world
          22·
          8 days ago

          The government running public alternatives isn’t socialism. Socialism is specifically about control of the means of production. The only people who think socialism is when the government does stuff are Bernie bros who think Sweden is socialist and MAGA who also think Sweden is socialist. Basically, if someone think that Sweden is socialist then they have no idea what they’re talking about.

          • dermanus@lemmy.caEnglish
            14·
            8 days ago

            The word gets used so often as a pejorative it’s weird to see it used accurately by that crowd.

            • catloaf@lemm.eeEnglish
              5·
              8 days ago

              Don’t worry, Fox was quoting Trump calling him a communist today.

              • Ensign_Crab@lemmy.worldEnglish
                3·
                8 days ago

                They say that about everyone to their left. We shouldn’t let them dictate our policy, but we keep doing it.

    • octopus_ink@slrpnk.netEnglish
      24·
      8 days ago

      I’m OK with it because maybe when they realize he’s just a guy making decisions to help his community, it will remove a smidge of the ZOMG SOCIALISM reaction to folks like not only him, but also Bernie, and maybe others who might like to call themselves social democrats instead of democrats.

      If Bernie and AOC start the social democrat party tomorrow with Mamdani and others, I’m registering before the ink is dry.

    • teft@lemmy.world
      6·
      8 days ago

      Also Democratic Socialism (Mamdani’s beliefs) are not the same as Social Democracy. They are slightly different.

      • JcbAzPx@lemmy.worldEnglish
        4·
        8 days ago

        That kind of depends. Bernie claims to be a Democratic Socialist, but Europeans have said that his stated beliefs align more with Social Democracy. This may be another case of us Americans having a different definition than the rest of the world (like with liberal).

    • 5too@lemmy.worldEnglish
      3·
      6 days ago

      That’s what’s fun about the whole establishment coming out swinging against him - he just won the primary. He’s not even elected yet, and they are losing their shit.

      (also, didn’t notice until after posting that you’d posted 2 days ago - sorry for the necro post!)

      • robocall@lemmy.world
        2·
        6 days ago

        Two days old post is still relevant on Lemmy. It’s when someone responds to a 3+ month comment that I’m like, “how did you find me?!”

        I think Cuomo is going to stay in the race, it will be interesting to see who wealthy establishment Dems support.

    • solrize@lemmy.ml
      502·
      8 days ago

      If Cuomo runs 3rd party and the Dem establishment supports him, I’m going to fling that back at anyone who tells me to not vote 3rd party in a presidential election, lol.

      • Kühlschrank@lemmy.worldEnglish
        281·
        8 days ago

        I’m going to flip out if the dems support Cuomo and I’m honestly half expecting them to

        • Viking_Hippie@lemmy.dbzer0.com
          171·
          8 days ago

          I’m fully expecting them to. The Dem leadership supporting an ACTUAL leftist is only SLIGHTLY more likely than them going full fascist and endorsing Curtis Sliwa…

      • tomenzgg@midwest.socialEnglish
        73·
        8 days ago

        You’re going to fling that a high-profile and well-recognized (even amongst non-politically engaged voters) organization gave recognition and resources to a third party in a local (not even gubernatorial but) mayoral election as a counter defense for voting for a third party in a presidential election?

        • Ensign_Crab@lemmy.worldEnglish
          61·
          8 days ago

          If they do it against a progressive after making a huge deal about not doing it against a centrist? You may like that level of rank hypocrisy.

          • tomenzgg@midwest.socialEnglish
            24·
            7 days ago

            I mean, I’m not even arguing one way or the other. When people argue against voting for a third party in a presidential election, it’s on the basis that the candidate has absolutely no shot at winning and, at best, will split the vote.

            It has nothing to do with liking or not liking hypocrisy; the basis of their argument is entirely about whether a strategy is viable, not whether they felt good about the decision.

            I assumed that the OP was actually trying to poke holes in the argument but arguing that the Democratic party has backed a third-party candidate in a local election doesn’t negate any of the actual points regarding dissuading voting for a third-party candidate who is without the same resources and does not have the same kind of outreach (such as appearing in debates, etc.) in a presidential election. That’s why, notably, OP had to specify a presidential election: people don’t, generally, argue against voting for third parties at the local level because the visibility of those candidates winning is entirely different.

            Do you get what I mean? It wholly doesn’t engage with the actual reasoning or evidence for the argument so it…wouldn’t mean anything, if you did try to use it as a rebuttal.

            • DancingBear@midwest.social
              41·
              7 days ago

              I get that you’re talking out of your ass making excuses and trying to justify random decisions you’ve made to kiss copirate dems asses, why you repeat the corporate media talking points I can’t explain but you clearly are just a parrot and not thinking it through

              • tomenzgg@midwest.socialEnglish
                11·
                6 days ago

                justify random decisions you’ve made to kiss copirate dems asses

                Damn; that’s…really impressive to’ve gleaned all of this insight about my past decisions on a comment that has mentioned none of my past decisions. You’ve got nothing on Miss Cleo.

                Would you care to explain what corporate media talking points I’m reiterating?

                Also, I’ve not been remotely as aggressive or attacking to anyone here; you’re acting like I’m encouraging people to vote for Cuomo or Adams. I have not given this level of hostility or assumption of poor character out the gate like this, remotely.

            • Ensign_Crab@lemmy.worldEnglish
              5·
              7 days ago

              Do you get what I mean?

              Yeah. It’s conveniently different in this case because the nominee is a progressive.

              • tomenzgg@midwest.socialEnglish
                12·
                7 days ago

                It seems I’m not able to break down the core basics of the underlying mechanics well enough so we’ll probably have to end the conversation but, just in case I’m still being avoidably unclear, I’ll try to summarize as barebones as possible:

                it’s about resources.

                More resources behind a candidate materially changes that candidates viability; unless you can explain how a progressive candidate in this scenario invalidates the resources and reach that’s actually of concern when weighing whether a candidate can succeed, you – likewise – are opting to ignore the details of the reasoning and not actually address them.

                P. S.

                I’m not someone who prefers centrist or even left-of-center candidates; if I lived in NY, I’d definitely be voting for Mamdani and most certainly not Cuomo.

                It’s weird to be like, “His progressivism makes the difference,” as though I’m hoping the party backs Cuomo or Adams and would rapidly vote third party in this case.

                • Ensign_Crab@lemmy.worldEnglish
                  4·
                  7 days ago

                  It’s weird to be like, “His progressivism makes the difference,” as though I’m hoping the party backs Cuomo or Adams and would rapidly vote third party in this case.

                  It’s honest. Voting 3rd party is literally voting for the worst candidate, in all cases unless there’s a progressive as the party’s nominee, in which case it doesn’t matter.

                  I’m sick of the double standards and I don’t buy the excuses for them.

      • Viking_Hippie@lemmy.dbzer0.com
        62·
        8 days ago

        If Cuomo runs 3rd party

        He’s running as an independent, yes.

        and the Dem establishment supports him

        Unless they suddenly fall back in love with Adams or go full Sliwa, they will. They fight the left exactly as much as they accommodate the far right.

        • Cethin@lemmy.zipEnglish
          5·
          8 days ago

          Last I heard, which I think was just hours old, is he’s still considering running as an independent. He hasn’t decided yet. I guess he’s waiting to see how much corporations will pay him?

    • Viking_Hippie@lemmy.dbzer0.com
      22·
      8 days ago

      It would take a catastrophe for him not to.

      His opponents in the general are as follows:

      • The corrupt former governor sex pest he just beat, running as an independent in order to get a do-over

      • Current mayor in spite of being a hair’s breath from prison until he went full MAGA, always being a fascist cop (but I repeat myself) and genuinely unhinged, Eric Adams

      • Perennial loser and hyper-racist vigilante lunatic Curtis Sliwa.

      Not only are they all awful candidates in themselves, their core demographics also overlap to such a degree that it’ll be an upset if more than one of them reaches double digits!

      • Schmoo@slrpnk.net
        81·
        8 days ago

        If NYC uses ranked choice voting in the general as well and Cuomo learns from his disaster of a campaign then he might try coalition-building with Eric Adams or others to pull off a win by getting neoliberals and MAGA to gang up on Zohran. It’s a headscratcher for me because I never expect neoliberals to learn from their mistakes, and yet they might actually feel forced to because they never fail to pull out all the stops against progressives, let alone an actual socialist.

        • TauZero@mander.xyz
          2·
          7 days ago

          If NYC uses ranked choice voting in the general

          It does not, for some weird reason. City primaries only.

  • ComradeSharkfucker@lemmy.mlEnglish
    552·
    8 days ago

    “Socialism” lol

    It is a win though, it shows people are willing to vote for change through alternative parties and thats fucking huge

    • Tillman@lemmy.world
      3·
      7 days ago

      Funny how the gop are calling him socialist when it’s they who have free healthcare and live off public money.

      • DancingBear@midwest.social
        3·
        7 days ago

        Cuomo is the third party candidate

        It never makes sense to vote third party, according to what the blue maga have told me.

      • ComradeSharkfucker@lemmy.mlEnglish
        241·
        8 days ago

        Shit I will amend that. Forgot he won the democratic primary. He is still heavily associated with DSA though and this is well known.

      • mienshao@lemm.eeEnglish
        101·
        8 days ago

        Because he had to run in the democratic primary in order to have a shot. He’s a member of the DSA tho—I feel like it’s disingenuous to call him just “a Democrat” (same with AOC)

        • solrize@lemmy.ml
          8·
          8 days ago

          AOC is a Democrat too, what is the issue? There are factions within the Democrats and she’s in one of them but afaict she is nowhere near as radical as she was depicted as being. Part of that is from getting slapped around by the leadership I’m sure.

        • Ensign_Crab@lemmy.worldEnglish
          32·
          8 days ago

          Yeah, he’s not corporate enough. Let’s kick him out. Why do we keep losing? Must be the progressives we keep insisting aren’t welcome.

    • gandalf_der_12te@discuss.tchncs.de
      216·
      8 days ago

      “socialism” in the sense of the french revolution, where they executed lots of people with the guillotine, must never happen again.

      The problem with killing people is that it’s a lot like eating potato chips: Once you start, it’s impossible to stop.

      Look at the Reign of Terror that immediately followed the French Revolution. They basically continued to kill people after all of the nobles were gone. These actions discouraged a lot of people and were one big factor that scared potential revolutionaries in other countries away from trying a revolution in their home country as well.

      Take the rich’s resources, but don’t kill them.
      “Tax the rich”, not “eat the rich”.
      That is socialism for the 21st century.

      • RamenJunkie@midwest.socialEnglish
        2·
        7 days ago

        I have seen too many rich assholes actually go to jail, then just get out a few years later and continue the same grift.

        Fuck this softy nonsense.

      • ComradeSharkfucker@lemmy.mlEnglish
        8·
        7 days ago

        The french revolution, atleast the one you are referring to, was a bourgeois revolution and decidedly not socialist. It was the rising merchant class overthrowing the feudal class structures that held back their ability to obtain capital. It was not the proletariat overthrowing the capitalist class structures which hold us back. If you try and take property from the rich they will kill you for it. This has been endlessly proven throughout history, every workers revolution has a violent counter revolution from the bourgeois. Will you roll over and take it? Or will you defend yourself and the revolution?

  • Gates9@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    305·
    8 days ago

    They will rig the general. Look to the firms in control of the individual machines and the tabulation servers…

      • MrMcGasion@lemmy.world
        102·
        8 days ago

        Considering Eric Adams already is running as an independent, Cuomo is more likely to siphon votes away from him. Although I think it will be ranked choice anyway, so “splitting” the vote won’t really matter.

    • Ledericas@lemm.eeEnglish
      42·
      8 days ago

      use the same methods as the gop, which dnc never bother pursueing when it was reporting in all counties last nov 5 election.

  • solrize@lemmy.ml
    9·
    8 days ago

    No idea about Mamdani but does the election not mostly show that people hate Andrew Cuomo? He seemed awful.

    • theneverfox@pawb.socialEnglish
      281·
      8 days ago

      No, this campaign was everything you could ask for

      His core platform - free and faster buses, free childcare, rent freezes, and no one making less than $1M will be paying for any of it

      It’s simple, it’s hard to fear monger against, and it’s things the people want. The best they had was “but he’s Muslim”

        • Soup@lemmy.world
          6·
          8 days ago

          You can just skip the “but”. Other policy makers either horribly fail with their much shittier policies all the time and when they do succeed that’s still a problem because those are bad policies.

          And don’t worry, a lot of that stuff has already been successful in better places so it shoukd go fine.

          • solrize@lemmy.ml
            1·
            8 days ago

            Ok fine. His platform is interesting and I wish him luck delivering on it.

            Shitty policies are usually successful in the sense that they achieve or at least advance their (shitty) goals, fwiw. Are Mamdani’s proposals serious (e.g. does he have financial projections for them), or are they like platitudes like wishing for world peace? Tbh I don’t think the mayor has the authority to do any of that stuff.

            We’ll see how it goes.

            • Soup@lemmy.world
              6·
              8 days ago

              Cities are often where these things start. To underestimate a mayor’s impact, especially in a city like New York, is not the play. It also sounds like you aren’t even that familiar with his platform since it took me only one simple google to find a couple examples of a costed plan.

              The US is plenty happy electing people with zero plan whatsoever, and what they do have is easily disproven nonsense that has never, ever worked. Major cities and economies in the world have done, with success, what Mamdani is proposing.

              For the love of god, just be happy that the United Shithole of America is finally taking a step in the right direction. It’s going to be ok, and it pretty much can’t be worse since even trying and failing would be better than purposefully destroying everything for a quick buck.

              • solrize@lemmy.ml
                1·
                8 days ago

                Well, we’ll see what actually happens. NY has a history of chewing up mayors.

                • Soup@lemmy.world
                  3·
                  8 days ago

                  Yea, their really shitty or barely mediocre mayors? This is very different from times before and I think it’s ok to be excited. If it does end up going wrong you need to know that being a massive pessimist just for the sake of the world’s most depressing “win” is not a healthy way to live. Plus, nothing is really pointing to this being a bad thing except your own evident misunderstanding of the situation.

                  I wish him all the best, and more than anything I hope that the federal government doesn’t sabotage him and I hope that even if they do people will be able to understand that instead of going “wow he failed! No I’m not going to think about it harder than that.”

            • theneverfox@pawb.socialEnglish
              5·
              8 days ago

              Yes, he’s the real deal. He has the math worked out, he’s got a cohesive plan, he’s made alliances, he’s got a ton of energy behind him, and he just nails every interview - even hostile ones

              Yes, it’s going to be an uphill battle. There’s going to be a ton of institutional resistance… But if he can force policies through anyways, it would so huge for the entire country

    • Ledericas@lemm.eeEnglish
      1·
      8 days ago

      and he was primiarly beeing pushed by republicans as a frontrunner, go figure.

  • Regna@lemmy.world
    55·
    8 days ago

    It seems that every article from Jacobin is skewed ever so slightly, not enough to make most think there’s something wrong, but it seems to skew anti-progressive by tone and wording, while being assertive in part to some center (or right-leaning by European standards), and aggressive in language towards selective parts of the far-right while mellowing down the tone against conservatives in general.

    It’s like eating candy and discovering that the sugar coating is actually aluminium.

    • newfie@lemmy.mlEnglish
      11·
      8 days ago

      Within the context of US politics, the center left/Democratic Party is the largest political obstacle for socialists. So antagonism towards the center left seems to be rational within that

    • ZombiFrancis@sh.itjust.works
      3·
      8 days ago

      They do tend to passively address the American Overton window in their articles. I think it’s pretty easy to navigate as an American because they do it mostly in the same style of our mainstream media.

      The overall dynamics of American political language I think can be pretty jarring to both Europeans and any American trying to first learn about socialism.