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.
It doesn’t even have to be that fancy. It could just be that Ossé is kind of an idiot or something, and this specific challenge is unlikely to succeed and likely to produce a bunch of heat and friction while it is failing.
I have no idea. I do kind of agree with the idea that if Mamdani and AOC are both weighing in publicly on this issue, then maybe they know something about it that I don’t, as opposed to the “the ONLY explanation is that they’re both compromised by the DNC and Ossé is obviously wonderful and we already know that and he’s exempt from all the nail biting scrutiny which we aim at certain other socialist politicians” theory.
For the Ossé supporters: Who is this guy? Why do you like him? I don’t like Jeffries either, I think he’s a bum for sure. Primarying him in general sounds great, to me.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chi_Ossé