Of all the democratic socialists who piled into a Manhattan church on Wednesday evening, none had the cachet of the man handed a microphone toward the meeting’s close.
Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani offered some pleasantries — “Hello friends, Zohran, he/him, Queens D.S.A.” — before launching into his mission: torpedoing the candidacy of a left-leaning ally, Councilman Chi Ossé, who is attempting to unseat Representative Hakeem Jeffries, the top House Democrat.
The remarkable scene was both a reflection of the tricky political calculuses Mr. Mamdani confronts as he prepares to take office next year and the egalitarian nature of a group that served as the grass-roots organizing machine of his political success.
Mr. Mamdani urged the New York chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America not to endorse Mr. Ossé, making public what the mayor-elect had argued in private for months. He believes that if Mr. Jeffries faces a strenuous challenge from the left, it might weaken his ability to secure mainstream Democratic support for his proposals.
The problem with his logic here is he thinks he can secure mainstream Democratic support by going through Jeffries. That’s never going to work. You get mainstream support by going to the people. Because the mainstream already supports his ideas. Jeffries does not. He never will. He’s wasting his time. And he’s wasting his political momentum by trusting someone like Jeffries to be governed by anything but greed and graft.
yup. i know usians are not used to demsoc types but well, he’s a demsoc type. of course he thinks he can negotiate and compromise his way into socialism. or he knows, no practical difference. i heard somewhere that he is the new aoc and that’s truth.
by all means vote for people like him if you can, but the real progress is made in the streets by the masses. don’t get swindled by people who tell you they can change the system from the inside without any real resistance or the masses involved.
He really is the new and improved Millennial Bernie. Even AOC was pretending not to be a DNC stooge for like a year and this dude is speedrunning it before he’s even sworn in. Young enough to become the socdem class traitor GOAT if he can pace himself.
Do you know what his reasons for not backing Osse are?
Tear the whole rotten system down. Let’s be done with politicians forever.
Fuck Mamdani already a traitor to the cause. Guess we know why Trump didn’t have issues with him.
