“Leave them,” Mamdani replied without hesitation. “We don’t have to ask ourselves what life would be like if a socialist won. I won last November, and for the past six months, what we have given working people are the same things we were told were impossible.”
– YouTube
“We provided free care for two-year-olds for the first time in New York City’s history,” Mamdani continued. “We’ve returned tens of millions of dollars to tenants exploited by bad landlords. We’ve paved 165,000 potholes. And we’ve done all of these things while also achieving the lowest recorded crime rate in our city’s history. This is what democratic socialism looks like.”
Mamdani also pointed to the slate of three Democratic Socialists running for U.S. Congress — Brad Lander, Claire Valdez, and Darialisa Avila Chevalier — who last week swept the Democratic primaries in districts representing the city’s voters.
“What you see is New Yorkers experienced this for six months and made the decision that they wanted to see more of it on the national stage as well,” Mamdani said of the primary victories.
“I think we’re seeing a hunger that’s felt not just by New Yorkers, but frankly by Americans from coast to coast, for a new kind of politics, politics that puts the working class at its heart.” – Mayor Zahran Mamdani
He also said that this type of politics should not be isolated to major cities like New York. “A democratic socialist can be elected anywhere across this country to any office,” Mamdani said. “I think we’re seeing a hunger that’s felt not just by New Yorkers, but frankly by Americans from coast to coast, for a new kind of politics, politics that puts the working class at its heart.”
The victories of Avila Chevalier, Valdez and Lander sparked a broader debate across the US political world, with members of the party’s more pro-corporate establishment issuing dire warnings that the progressive candidates pose a threat, not a boon, to Democratic strength heading into the midterms and beyond.
In a satirical swipe at such thinking, USA Today columnist Rex Hopke on Sunday blasted the mythical “center” (whatever that is) by calling it “a vague, bubble-like thing that exists only in the minds of Democratic strategists whose brains stopped working in the 1990s.”
In the column titled “I’m a centrist Democrat and I’m afraid of success“- Hopke writes:
Hey, I’m a centrist Democrat and I’m horrified that progressive liberal candidates keep winning primaries. I’m also terrified of my shadow, but this is somehow worse.
Suddenly, voters are being won over by liberal candidates – even a few democratic socialists! – Who are not afraid to align themselves with populist messages with passion and a clear drive to do things that will make people’s lives better.
What is all this? Since when did the things voters want become so important?
“Ugh!” The tongue-in-cheek column continues. “What kind of radical Democrat would talk about taxing billionaires in a heartbeat Income inequality is a top priority for voters Are people struggling to provide food? This strays too far from the center, which is the safe place where I reside and where I insist all other Democrats should reside. It’s nice here. There are comfy pillows that a corporate lobbyist gave me, and we sit and furrow our brows from time to time.”
Progressives inspired by Mamamdani and the political inroads led by Sen. Bernie Sanders (R-Va.) in recent years say it’s time to stop listening to the berating of corporate Democrats like Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-N.J.), former Obama White House adviser Rahm Emanuel, and other Blue Dog Party and Third Way interlopers.
On Saturday, a group of right-wing Democrats — including Reps. Tom Suozzi of New York, Janelle Bynum of Oregon, Susie Lee of Nevada, and Gottheimer —put out An open letter declaring their hostility to democratic socialism which categorically states “We are capitalists, not socialists.”
Mamdani spoke about this effort during his interview with Karl.
Speaking at an event Saturday for Dr. Abdul El-Sayed, who is running as a progressive champion of Medicare for All and a corporate power player in the race for a U.S. Senate seat in Michigan, Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), who served as national co-chair of Sanders’ 2020 campaign, said he doesn’t want to hear from members of the party establishment fear-mongering about candidates who win support — let alone primaries and elections — with strong working-class agendas.
“The last people who have the right to lecture us about electability are the establishment that lost to Donald Trump twice,” Khanna said. “I don’t want to hear that. If you have anything to do with these campaigns, please sit down or get off the left platform.”
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