Zohran Mamdani and the Populist Poetry of Hope

"He has a Whitmanesque flair for painting a picture of what makes collective life beautiful and good along with a razor-sharp critique of injustice."

Well, that war didn’t last long. It turns out that the public’s less than enthusiastic response to Trump’s bombing of Iran’s nuclear facilities along with its ambiguous results produced one of the most astounding reversals in American history as the president pivoted from rabid war monger to ALL CAPS PEACEMAKER in one day as an uneasy ceasefire was announced. Unable to even wait until Taco Tuesday, Trump Always Chickens Out happened on Monday and left the nation bickering and scratching its collective head. Where we go next remains unclear though the perils I outlined last week remain.

Anything can happen, all the time.

Then, on Tuesday, in what may turn out to be a bigger development, Zohran Mamdani won a stunning upset over Andrew Cuomo in the New York City mayoral Democratic primary contest, putting the dynamic Democratic Socialist in the front runner’s seat for the general election. Doug Porter did a fantastic job of analyzing the race last week over at Words and Deeds, but there are still a number things are worth noting about it:

A good portion of the labor movement and most of the Democratic Party was on the wrong side. While Mamdani had a decent number of unions on his endorsement list including locals from UNITE HERE, the UAW, the Teamsters. AFSCME, and IATSE, too many others backed the morally and politically bankrupt Cuomo, joining the likes of Bill Clinton, Al Sharpton, along with a host of other establishment types and corporate interests.

Anyone who listened to a word that Mamdani uttered could not help but recognize that his entire campaign centered working people, unions, and working-class issues in a way that provides a roadmap for how the opposition to Trump should proceed, Democratic or otherwise. Instead of learning from his approach, too many in labor and Democratic circles let their fear of a red planet dominate their decision making. It was an embarrassment, and they lost big.

The only thing to fear is fear itself. Zohran Mamdani’s democratic socialism was and will continue to be a bugaboo. What is this democratic socialism he speaks of? For a good, thorough summary, you can revisit Corey Robin’s 2018 piece on the question that the New York Times seems to have forgotten. Perhaps the best insight about the fundamental nature of Democratic socialism he offers is this:

Under capitalism, we’re forced to enter the market just to live. The libertarian sees the market as synonymous with freedom. But socialists hear “the market” and think of the anxious parent, desperate not to offend the insurance representative on the phone, lest he decree that the policy she paid for doesn’t cover her child’s appendectomy. Under capitalism, we’re forced to submit to the boss. Terrified of getting on his bad side, we bow and scrape, flatter and flirt, or worse — just to get that raise or make sure we don’t get fired.

The socialist argument against capitalism isn’t that it makes us poor. It’s that it makes us unfree. When my well-being depends upon your whim, when the basic needs of life compel submission to the market and subjugation at work, we live not in freedom but in domination. Socialists want to end that domination: to establish freedom from rule by the boss, from the need to smile for the sake of a sale, from the obligation to sell for the sake of survival.

Listen to today’s socialists, and you’ll hear less the language of poverty than of power. Mr. Sanders invokes the 1 percent. Ms. Ocasio-Cortez speaks to and for the “working class” — not “working people” or “working families,” homey phrases meant to soften and soothe. The 1 percent and the working class are not economic descriptors. They’re political accusations. They split society in two, declaring one side the illegitimate ruler of the other; one side the taker of the other’s freedom, power and promise.

When Mamdani offered New Yorkers a choice between the candidate the boss liked versus a self-proclaimed Democratic Socialist, they chose the latter. In fact, one of his most compelling ads echoed Mother Jones with him proclaiming of Trump, “There are no kings in America!”

Racism, Islamophobia, and anti-immigration sentiment will also be a big factor in attacking Mamdani in the general election. In addition to attacks on socialism, we can also count on overt racism and Islamophobia as the despicable racist and xenophobic attacks coming from sitting congressmembers and Senators attests to. But neo-McCarthyism and overt racism are stinky colognes, and they are unlikely to prevail in New York.

If Democrats want to get young people off the couch in 2026, they should be taking notes. As Doug Porter observed, Mamdani won with a smile, a handshake, and hope. He was open and made appeals to everyone. Perhaps if we give younger voters something to vote FOR rather than the embarrassingly weak handwringing and equivocation we are seeing from the Democratic establishment, they might just show up.

Economic populism was the key: Mamdani’s message was simple and clear: make New York affordable for all. He had policy measures to bring to the table to help do this. His appeal was wide-reaching and inlcusive, not sectarian nor solely focused on a particular group. He created a new coalition that spanned from the working class to the middle class and even some upper middle class liberal voters. It worked.

Democrats don’t necessarily need to be Democratic Socialists to learn from this, but they should get over their phobia of progressive candidates. At present, all the action against Trump is being driven by the base rather than the party. Their old script is a dead loser.

What will the moneyed interests do? As the Guardian observed of Wall Street’s response to “hot commie summer”:

Millions will now be spent attacking Mamdani. But he has seen off one well-funded attempt to derail his campaign. Whether or not his campaign has the momentum to last until November, remains to be seen. But Wall Streeters have been put on notice that New York, and the changing nature of the Democratic party, may no longer be as amenable to their interests, or their vision for New York.

Mamdani knew how to campaign in poetry and translate anger over the cost of living into transformative collective action. His closing campaign walk across the city to talk to voters along with his soaring victory speech evoked the ghost of Tom Joad as he spoke with poetic detail about the work that ordinary New Yorkers do on a daily basis. He has a Whitmanesque flair for painting a picture of what makes collective life beautiful and good along with a razor-sharp critique of injustice. But don’t believe me. Listen to him.

For his closing argument go here.

For his victory speech go here.

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Originally posted at The Jumping Off Place. (I’ve been out of town for a few days and am just catching up.)