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.
There is no screening to join the DSA. As long as you pay the membership dues, you’re a member. I think it’s fair that they solicit all the monetary contributions they can in the Citizens United climate that is US campaigning. IIRC, in the US you cannot expel someone’s party registration, only deny them from the ballot line. Though “DSA is not a political party, but a non-profit activist organization.”, this seems emblematic of how in general party discipline is lax in the United States, perhaps due to the shadow of Tammany Hall.
I definitely agree on Osse having a good track record, though. He
is a friend of Mamdani anddoes not seem like an opportunist even if the timing is indeed suspect. Still, I feel like any replacement for Jeffries as Minority Leader would be much worse than he is.Edit: I swear I saw somewhere that he was a friend of Mamdani. I can’t find that info anymore.
I’m not entirely against his campaign but he is most definitely an opportunist. He was elected into city council from the profile he built from BLM protests where he used social media to broadcast videos.
A lot of change happened under BLM.