Former President Barack Obama told Zohran Mamdani “your campaign has been impressive to watch,” and suggested that he was invested in Mr. Mamdani’s success beyond the election.
Former President Barack Obama called New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani on Saturday, praising his campaign and offering to be a “sounding board” into the future.
The private, roughly 30-minute phone call, which has not previously been reported, was described by two people who participated or were briefed immediately on what had been said. They spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe the private conversation.
Mr. Obama said that he was invested in Mr. Mamdani’s success beyond the election on Tuesday. They talked about the challenges of staffing a new administration and building an apparatus capable of delivering on Mr. Mamdani’s agenda of affordability in the city, the people said.
I don’t think I’ll ever really get over Obama letting the banks off with zero repercussions in causing the 2008 meltdown. He proved himself a true corporate Democrat at that point and even though he did many other good things, it’s a truth that sticks in the back of my mind forevermore.
For me Obama will always be the US President that did the drone killings.
Bush bailed out the banks. Obama handled the auto industry, who had to give up some control of their companies and pay us back with interest, and they did so.
I couldn’t find the one in the rose garden (that is burned into my brain), but this is how they sold it at the time. I understands they were “worried about making things worse,” but those banks got away with complete bullshit. It wasn’t Bush.
He’s a war criminal
Obama had the kind of mandate Trump thinks he has and he did nothing with it because he didn’t want to ruffle feathers.
And they still called him an anti Christ money.
So, he did absolutely nothing radical, and he energized the moron redneck as though he was Satan himself.
Leaving is us with the worst of both worlds. No change, and Magats foaming at the mouth.
similar thing with the Canadian Liberals and electoral reform
honestly the cons and liberals are virtually the exact same party of corpo teet suckers with a few slight personality differences.
they both use identity politics to mask their corporate agendas.
Im tremendously disappointed in carney for his anti privacy bills, and expansion of a surveillance/ police state in canada. while also sharing our private data with the US.
the liberals and cons are corporate sellouts, they dont give a shit about our rights or well being. just the “economy”.
edit: for those who cant see this, and are disturbed about me making this comparison. do what i did for the last twenty years. pour over voting records, policy changes, proposed policy changes, and foreign investment trends between cabinets. economic trends in general around housing, oil and gas, grocery chains, telecom, vehicles, lack of proper funding to public healthcare, deliberate underfunding, proposed private alternatives, lack of action to undo damage caused by these antics. why the overwhelming majority of representatives on both sides are landlords, or are invested in realestate funds.
the reason parliment is so crazy and fun to watch is because it is political THEATER. its meant to distract and entertain. both parties are constantly auditioning for corporations, to see who would better keep us docile and productive.
the cons and the libs are pepsi and coke. both distinct in flavour, yet both owned by the same company who manufactures their rivalry, and they make a profit no matter which side you pick. because they will always support the status quo, and protect investment. doing the bare minimum to improve our lives. they wouldnt be allowed to get to that level of government if they werent groomed and prepped for their positions. virtually guaranteed to not rock the boat.
neo liberalism loves consistent returns on investment. regardless of the drawbacks to the public.
They’re pretty different still
Today they are. Back then? Not so much. In the primary where Obama beat Hillary, Hillary’s campaign did some pretty horrendous race baiting - as did Biden. Obama in turn voted for the defense of marriage act. Bill Clinton shredded federal safety net programs, exported jobs, betrayed unions, and deregulated Wall Street. He was getting ready to go after Social Security with Newt Gingrich too, before they fell out over the Monica Lewinsky scandal.
The Democratic establishment is exactly as progressive as the base is able to force them to be. Everything else is gaslighting.
That is a very selective list. You can argue that they’re neoliberals with this, and that’s true, but you can’t argue they’re the same as GWB, lmao, the dumbest president we had had at the point. Anyone who tells you they were the same as Dubya has memory issues or is lying.
You let me know where they defunded the schools or got us into trillion dollar wars, just unbelievable that people think they’re the same and forget ol’ fucking Dubya and his mission accomplished, “God told me” bullshit.
Well no, I can’t say any Democrat can compete with W on pure IQ deficit, but I’ll put Bill Clinton toe to toe with almost any Republican on spending cuts. “The era of big government is over” was Clinton, not a Republican.
I think he disenchanted an entire generation. People have lowered expectations from government here because of him and it sucks.
I’m not trying to defend Obama, especially I abhor his drone warfare, but politics is known to be cut throat, and politicians are beholden to campaign donations. Election campaigning is an expensive endeavour, and those who could throw more money have increased likelihood of winning. There are exceptions to the rule of course, and sometimes those who spent less still wins, but the candidate increases his/her chances of winning by having more campaign funds.
With all that said, this means playing ball with the campaign donors and their lackeys, or else they will gang up on you. Obama is all too aware of this. Consider that Lena Khan’s aggressive FTC investigations under Biden on tech giants pissed off the oligarchs. Musk, Zuckerberg and Bezos threw their weights on supporting Trump and now we are here. Apparently, Obama told Bernie in 2016 that he “can’t be the president and be the good guy”.
What is required is someone who is not afraid dip their hands into the mud and throw some, without being in the mud pit itself. People villainise Machiavellianism for good reasons, but evil don’t play by the rules and evil never sleeps. Why still be nice if they already stabbed you? You definitely need to be Machiavellian when the situation requires it. We had that with the Roosevelts, and the fact that they were already wealthy insulated them from being beholden to the whims of campaign donations of the oligarchs and their attack dogs, made them have more free reign to pursue actually more progressive policies. Some people say JB Pritzker has those qualities-- an already wealthy politician willing to be Machiavellian to pursue progressive policies, although I don’t know much about the man to warrant the observation.
Edit: JB not Joseph Pritzker
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Iceland didn’t. But Bush put us on the bailout path, and Obama reversing course would have cause serious economic turmoil.
I think we should have regardless, but that’s neither here nor there.
Iceland has the luxury of not being able to eliminate the global economic landscape with one big mistake. No one here is happy with the bank bailout, but it was the only realistic option available.
There were many different ways that it could have been implemented, though. Giving the banks that fucked the economy free money with no strings was not it.
On one hand, Obama is a capable person with the right connections. On the other, he is still a neoliberal democrat, who likely wants to be a ‘steady’ hand on Mamdani’s policies.
I don’t want to trust the future to Obama, he has already proven himself to not be a supporter of “Hope and Change”. The opposite, really.
I suspect Obama sees a lot of himself in Mamdani. A brown kid with big dreams and a funny name, with Republicans calling him a Muslim socialist and frothing at the mouth to “prove” he’s not a real American? It’s like the 2000s all over again.
Also internment camps, and extraordinary rendition, and drastically expanded government surveillance, and the FBI going after Muslims and leftists, and manufacturing an excuse for regime change in an oil-rich country, EDIT: two oil-rich countries… Yeah, maybe it’s a little too much like the 2000s.
As opposed to letting the idiot masses hand the future over to a crybaby manchild being manipulated by proto-Nazi racists?
Trump is a symptom of First Past the Post voting. So long as American politics continue to be inbred, things will always become worse. Given enough time, Trump’s stupidity and malice will be the norm in our candidates for both parties.
This is slightly misleading. The issue isn’t voting for the two parties, it’s that we only have the two parties. Adding a third party never works. We need to figure something else out.
American Exceptionalism - ‘a third party never works’ is nonsense.
Trying to figure something else out means you will do nothing except entryism and be co-opted into the Democratic Party for your aesthetics.
That meme also applies to tankies that discourage voting and forming a third party.
Exactly. Obama is probably the best stump speakers America has ever seen and he’d be of great value to any campaign by doing more of that… but he really should not be shaping policy.
The American working class really does want ‘Hope and Change’, but Obama ain’t that
Idk. I feel like he really gave it an earnest shot.
We are all thinking and talking about health insurance and what that means in regards to the American dream. I think that’s good for people to think about.
In my view, one of the better Republican presidents that we’ve had in my life.
I didn’t see eye to eye with him, but that first midterm brought a lot of opportunists that may not have had the good of the nation as their goal.
Plus the economy was absolutely trashed and the poison pills inserted with the wall street bailout.
I can see a way to cut him some slack.
No flinch, calling Obama a Republican, i’m gonna think about this one.
Good recent video on the topic from Unfuck The Republic.
Obama isn’t a politician
Yes he is.
No. He was.
Mamdani is what we need to get on the right track. That and dems that have a spine. Hell we probably need a new party for progressives. The 2 party system is messed up
Getting rid of the 2 party system would require a crisis of such magnitude I cannot in good conscience wish for it.
Losing world war 3. A pandemic 10X deadlier than covid, hostile Aliens, something at that level.
Nothing less will do it.
you are probably right… I cannot wish for it either
As someone who doesn’t want to spend the rest of my life being terrorized by MAGA, I prefer an divided American crisis over a fascist certainty.
Nothing is certain.
I don’t think the issue is that kind of crisis. It would take some type of crisis for one of these parties to fail though.
The great recession didn’t touch it. Covid didn’t touch it. Jan 6 didn’t touch it.
Ending the two party system would require changing the way national elections work. That would require a constitutional amendment.
That would require one party taking full control of Congress and more importantly 2 thirds of state legislatures. The most plausible path to that I see currently is trump taking his coup to the next level, interfering in elections nationwide and placing maga in control all over the country.
Then they start passing constitutional amendments changing what it means to be a citizen and who can vote.
“Wait, not like that” you are probably thinking.
That’s why I think there would have to be mass death. The pandemic is probably the next most likely, Democrats seek safety in distance and Republicans cheerfully host parties and deny the threat. The administration blocks efforts by the CDC and other researchers to study the disease. but it’s somehow both deadlier than covid and slower, so by the time hospitals and morgues fill up, way more people are infected than with covid. 120 million Americans die before the crisis stabilizes, 2 thirds of them right leaning and one 3rd left leaning or apolitical.
The next election sweeps democrats into power nationwide, a 50 point swing as so many more right leaning voters have passed and the living turn on the party that refused to address the crisis.
That scenario makes constitutional amendments possible. Maybe not plausible though, they would be rushing to address the crisis, the mass graves, the shattered economy. If the plague somehow hit the billionaire class hard, maybe then.
Things get less likely from there. The US arbitrarily declaring war on the rest of the world, alien invasion, etc.
That’s the end for Mamdani. Prepare for disappointment.
Mr. Mamdani thanked the former president for the call, the people said, and told him that he had drawn inspiration for his own recent speech on Islamophobiafrom Mr. Obama’s speech on race during his first presidential run.
This is literally the only reaction from Mamdani cited in the entire article. It seems like the kind of thing you would say if a powerful person in your industry endorsed you. He even pivoted to Islamophobia.
Seriously, your take is so braindead. You’re editorializing like crazy and you just sound like some kind of establishment dem bad actor.
It was obvious that he derived that speech from Obama. It was the first thing I thought of.
Campaign Obama rocked. I really wish we could have gotten him as president.
Am I missing a joke here?
But Obama hasn’t done and said every single thing exactly as I would have for the past ten years so I’ve decided he’s exactly as bad as the fascists and I will badmouth him no matter what he does for the rest of eternity because I am pure left, unlike literally all the people on the left who are in a position to do anything about the fascists!
Better edit and add the /s, because there are people who feel that way.
And those people are morons who shouldn’t be taken seriously because they don’t vote anyway.
The problem is more that people conflate liberal and left through Obama. Like you are doing in this very comment. If you know what left politics is it’s obvious that Obama isn’t part of this.
If Obama is good or bad, whether he carried some better than conservative policy, or got something done really doesn’t matter because he isn’t a left politician, so placing him as one will generate resistance not because everyone on the left sees him as evil, but because he is obviously not left to people who understand what ‘left’ and or ‘liberal’ means.
It’s an error in categorization on the part of the one conflating Obama and left, not a failure of “left purity” on Obamas part, he never was left to anyone paying attention, at best he used left messaging and heritage to promote a liberal campaign. Which might be the second reason many are sometimes angry with him, he used left aesthetics and talking points, while in retrospect not caring all that deeply about them, which to someone starting out naively optimistic about the prospect of an Obama White house, feels like betrayal, not because Obama really betrayed them as such, more because over time they came to realize he was never really fighting for them to begin with.
I concede that one possibility is that I’m really dumb and can’t understand what political terms mean and can’t understand what people’s true intentions are even though smart people can easily see.
But I maintain that another possibility is that failure to pass an arbitrary purity test does not preclude one from being on the left side of the political divide and that our refusal to unite against fascism is a moral failing and the authoritarians’ wildest dream come true.
on the left side of the political divide
There is no such political divide, at the minimum there are a couple of axis on which to place peoples and groups political position. There can be such a thing as three or more fundamentally opposed political positions(liberal, left, fascist, monarchist,…) and there can be a united opposition of two or more of these opposed to another. As would from some point of view ideally be the case with left and liberal politics being united against fascist politics. This does not make left and liberal politics the same or part of the same thing. They are fundamentally opposed in a way where the underlying assumption of the philosophy that defines them are incompatible so that accepting one of these assumptions makes accepting the other impossible.
refusal to unite against fascism
it’s not productive as you said but I think there can be much said about the concept of accepting that one can fight fascism without outwardly doing it towing a liberal party line. Said another way if liberals will not join leftists in their way of fighting fascism, why should the reverse be generally true.
In all honesty it just feels like a case of US brained political understanding or just like not well read. It’s the kinda environment where someone will call out Mamdani, sanders, obama, and bill gates for not uniting under one flag to fight orange hitler. Maybe they will but it should be obvious that it’s gonna be a temporary and strenuous marriage at best.
From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Left-wing_politics paragraph 3 and 4 it should illustrate why Obama is not considered part of the Left even though part of his campaign and probably governance could be considered center-left
Ideologies considered to be left-wing vary greatly depending on the placement along the political spectrum in a given time and place. At the end of the 18th century, upon the founding of the first liberal democracies, the term Left was used to describe liberalism in the United States and republicanism in France, supporting a lesser degree of hierarchical decision-making than the right-wing politics of the traditional conservatives and monarchists. In modern politics, the term Left typically applies to ideologies and movements to the left of classical liberalism, supporting some degree of democracy in the economic sphere.
Today, ideologies such as social liberalism and social democracy are considered to be centre-left, while the Left is typically reserved for movements more critical of capitalism ,[9] including the labour movement, socialism, anarchism, communism, Marxism, and syndicalism, each of which rose to prominence in the 19th and 20th centuries.[10] In addition, the term left-wing has also been applied to a broad range of culturally liberal and progressive social movements,[11] including the civil rights movement, feminist movement, LGBTQ rights movement, abortion-rights movements, multiculturalism, anti-war movement, and environmental movement,[12][13] as well as a wide range of political parties.[14][15][16]
This is semantics and I’m not interested. Good day.
Calling the plurality of political conflict from 45 to 90, and like several fields of study, semantics is kinda crazy work but you’ve got the spirit in general I guess. Good day as well.
I understand where you’re coming from, but Obama is not left, at all.
Calm down buddy. No one is saying that and you are obsessed, get some help.
People here definitely do say shit like that. It’s literally the very next comment I read
Edit: of look, here’s a post I just came across. Not even on ml or anything.
https://sh.itjust.works/post/49034330
Tell me that people here don’t talk about Obama like that.
Really? People saying Obama is “as bad as the fascists”? Can you point me to one.
Did I say that someone here said exactly that?
I know you think you “got me” or something, but maybe go back and read my comment.
And just to add to this, it’s something interesting about the right vs left I’ve noticed, at least in the US:
-
The “left” seems to expect ideological purity within their sect, but not political loyalty. They aren’t loyal to idols (with a few exceptions), but claws come out with the adjacent.
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The “right” is the opposite; an agnostic great replacement theory fanatic will rub shoulders with evangelicals and immigrant tech bro, with no conflict. But absolute loyalty is expected, like the idea of being part of a “tribe” is explicit.
This has been a problem in leftist circles since the existence of said circles, unfortunately.
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It’s hyperbole, but the sentiment isn’t wrong.
People here definitely do say shit like that. It’s literally the very next comment I read.
I read that as you saw a comment on here that said that?
shit like that
There is a connect literally adjacent to yours that says “Obama isn’t left at all” with more upvotes than this one. Let’s not pretend the purity circle jerking on Lemmy isn’t a problem.
https://lemmyverse.link/sh.itjust.works/post/49034330
The do say stuff like that. Every time Obama’s name comes up.
If Obama wanted to give a fuck about the future of the party, it was in 09 or 13 when he could name literally anyone he wanted as DNC chair…
The first time he just flat out didn’t give a name, 13 he just went with the neoliberal because he had basically ran all his stuff himself out of spite of the DNC siding with Hillary.
Because he didn’t understand how fucking powerful naming a chair is.
Because of those two (non) picks, the DNC was “broke” for the 2016 primary and took Hillary’s deal stopping Bernie and setting up trump as the Republican candidate so voters would hate both and Hillary might win.
Like …
Sure, second best time to plant a shade tree is today, but the entire country rallied together to get Obama and he let his ego hand the party back to neoliberal.
This is relevant because if people fuck around and let a neoliberal name the next chair, we’ll never get it back. We need to be cognizant that we’re not just picking a presidential candidate, we’re picking the future of the party if they win the general.
Between this and another comment on the same topic in another thread, I get the impression you think Obama is progressive and failed to appoint a progressive DNC chair out of ignorance. Have you considered the possibility that he’s actually neoliberal and refused power to progressives on purpose?
His political career up to that point, considered alongside his campaign and the absolute din of his first two years in office, to me paints a picture of a sincere but outspoken dreamer whose tropical personality was much better at whistling up a storm than steering his ship into it.
I think it’s fair to describe many aspects of his platform as “progressive” but ultimately he took no for an answer too often to actually be one in hindsight. I won’t diminish the good work he did, and respect the many firsts he achieved, but his lingering imposter syndrome kept him from using the mandate we gave him while he had the chance.
He could have fought to seat a judge instead of letting Mitch McTurtle shit all over him
This is basically an endorsement
Obama needs to fuck off. Democrats will do everything they can to co-opt what he’s created, ride his coattails through the midterms, then neuter the entire thing.
I assure you, Mamdani’s campaign team does not idolize Obama and isn’t going to campaign with him. But what’s wrong with building coalitions and sharing ideas with other camps?
Democrats don’t share ideas they take over movements for their own gain then toss them aside when they are done
The DSA will outlive Mamdani. Even if he fails and the ideas he campaigned on are half-heartedly implemented by neo-liberals, the movement behind Mamdani and the hundreds of candidates under him across the country won’t just disappear.
It will be interesting to see who the democratic nominee in 2028 will be.
If mamdani doesn’t let himself get neutered by the advice, it is very much a good thing to have a former president throwing support behind him. And it would be his choice.
Look you guys! I found the time cop!
This very special hour of the year has revealed you.
Posted on the 8th December 2025 if my maths is correct
I think it’s good that Obama, and in effect the establishment that he represents, is standing up to the tidal wave of threats against mamdani, kind of calling their bluff. It also helps to normalize his legitimacy as a politician on the national level.
What?
The current DNC chair has a better progressive track record than Obama.
And Martin didn’t wait to hype up Mamdani either. He won’t endorse before a primary is settled, but within days he was saying Mamdani is what the party should be because that’s what Dem voters want.
Obama’s big progressive claim to fame, is a more progressive version of a health are bill than Mitt Roment was gonna pass.
And what is this about?
to co-opt what he’s created
Obama abandoned the DNC rather than put someone who would run it how he wanted at the helm, which led to a bankrupt but neoliberal DNC who took Hillary’s offer of funding for control of the DNC during the primary.
Which blocked Bernie.
And led to Hillary losing in the general to trump.
For fucks sake “co-opt what he created”…
Do you know how much better we would be if Obama had just named anyone who wasn’t a neoliberal as chair of the DNC in 09 or 13? We’d be coming off two Bernie terms and probably in AOCs first right now.
Covid would have been handled rationally, healthcare actually sorted. Climate change and wealth inequality addressed, even police abuses.
It ain’t simple cause/effect but it’s not rube Goldberg either, people should be able to put this together
