Mamdani's Materialism or Oblivion: The Democratic Party in the Last Chance Saloon

The buzz surrounding Zohran Mamdani’s recent victory in the Democratic primaries for NYC Mayor has been understandably inescapable on social media. Given his meteoric rise, from previously unknown member of the New York state assembly to defeating Democratic establishment candidate Andrew Cuomo and his Super PAC billionaire buddies, it is no wonder the internet can talk of nothing else. Most significantly, much of the talk surrounding Mamdani’s incredible win has centred around what such a victory could mean for the democratic establishment, and what lessons can be learned from Mamdani’s campaign which could reverse the blue embarrassment felt at the 2024 Presidential Election. 

Even before Mamdani’s miraculous victory less than a week ago, the question of the Democratic party’s future in the face of the GOP’s growing authoritarianism was being floated by some of its most senior members. Bernie Sanders, senator for Vermont and influential fringe figure within the Democratic party, famously harangued the Democrat establishment after their loss in 2024 for ‘abandoning working people’, and choosing instead to prioritise its wealthy donors. 

Mamdani’s victory, therefore, seems to vindicate many of Sanders' critiques a year prior. His victory over Andrew Cuomo, himself an establishment candidate having served for 10 years as Democratic Governor of New York, has been interpreted by many as the victory of a fresh, popular left-wing policy over the same perfunctory promises working-class Democratic voters have gotten so used to over the past decade. 

Indeed, not only was this Mamdani’s victory over the Democratic establishment in New York, but indirectly over the threat of Trump and his republicans in the same city. We must not forget that in the 2024 election, NYC had the largest swing to Trump of any Democratic city in the US, giving him the best performance in share of the vote for a republican candidate in New York City since 1988. Despite only facing off against fellow Democrats in the primaries, Mamdani’s campaign was astute in highlighting the similarities, of which there are many, between his main opponent Cuomo, and the current President of the United States. Andrew Cuomo is funded by the same billionaires as Donald Trump, his policies benefit the same billionaire class the GOP defends, and even his racist propaganda attacks on Mamdani are eerily similar to the manner in which Republicans attacked the presumptive democratic nominee after his victory. He even has the slew of sexual harassment allegations to match.

Despite these seemingly insurmountable challenges to his campaign however, Mamdani has proven not only that a popular left-wing campaign can be fought and won against Donald Trump and his republicans, but that such an electoral strategy can similarly overpower a near-indistinguishable establishment democrat position. The question that remains therefore, is whether Democrats will embrace their new golden boy and his policies.

Firstly, it is important to analyse the specificities of Zohran Mamdani’s victory against Cuomo in New York, in order to analyse whether such a campaign could be successful on a potential presidential ticket.

The reputation of New York city is that of a progressive, liberal-left city. Historically, it has birthed countercultural movements out of its infamous Greenwich Village, such as the protest folk movement spearheaded by Bob Dylan and Joan Baez in the 1960s, and the Stonewall Uprising for gay rights at the end of the same decade. Today, the streets of NYC host popular progressive movements and demonstrations including Black Lives Matter and the largest PRIDE parades anywhere in the US. Sceptics might find it easy, therefore, to dismiss Mamdani’s progressive politics and electoral victory as a simple product of their environment, and not as a universalisable campaign strategy able to capture the imagination of the rust belt.

Although it is true that Mamdani was unwavering in his support of LGBTQ+ and immigrant New Yorkers, two groups the GOP salivates at the thought of scapegoating and demonising, this was clearly not the central position of his campaign. Fundamentally, Mamdani ran on the promise of affordability and the improvement of New York residents’ quality of life, an issue that they themselves admit was neglected by the Harris campaign, pushing them to either vote Republican or not at all. An electoral battle fought on an economic front could be immensely appealing to many voters in the key swing states across the rust belt. These communities, who saw industry flee abroad as globalised deregulated capitalism sought lower production costs, may well be swayed by the promise of universal childcare and investment in public services as equally disillusioned and struggling New Yorkers have been in the last few months.

The GOP’s propaganda mill will work hard, however, to make sure that such a core message is diluted amongst accusations of radical communism and fairy tales of transgender operations on illegal aliens. On this point, culture-war issues such as these are actually far lower down voters’ list of priorities than the typical Fox News programme might suggest. The most important issue on voters’ minds when casting their ballot is almost always the state of the economy, generally a proxy for living standards, and in 2024 its importance was the highest it had been since 2008. If a Mamdani-like candidate were to stick to the script and trust their economic agenda, I would be surprised if fearmongering about transgender people distracted voters from their core message.

Of course, such a democratic socialist approach to economic policy is anathema to the decades of capitalist propaganda American voters have been exposed to since the start of the cold war. However, once again, I believe Mamdani’s cool, calm approach to reframing his policies in a manner which does not raise the ‘red scare’ alarm has been nothing short of masterful. In a way, that makes me hopeful for a country-wide campaign focused on similar issues. If a Mamdani-like communicator were to take the social-democrat message national, I would not be surprised if people started looking past the empty rhetoric they grew up with, and come around to an economic and political project that fundamentally wants to make their lives better.

Underlying this point is a position I have written about extensively, and one I feel can be applied here; people simply want to live comfortably, and in a political system that does not listen to their needs, they will lash out in any way they can. When interviewed on Novara Media’s Downstream programme, Slavoj Žižek recounted a story that explains this phenomenon aptly. A few weeks after the presidential election last year, the Democratic congresswoman for Brooklyn Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and her team realised that many of the people that had voted for her at the local congressional level, had voted Donald Trump into office at the Federal level. Puzzled by this apparent contradiction, she reached out to such voters in search of an explanation. The justifications she received cited the authenticity of both candidates as the reasoning behind their voting choices. Whereas Kamala Harris was evidently media trained and polished, Trump and AOC’s authentic spontaneity served in their favour, endearing them to their electorates as a result of their humanity. Neither Trump or Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s political positions mattered much in each election. It is clear therefore, that a campaign such as Mamdani’s, extrapolated to the Federal level, has a large potential for success. The next question we must answer however, is whether the Democratic establishment will run with it.

To answer this question, it is important to start with an analysis of Bernie Sanders’ political successes and failures, given his policy platform and views align closest with those of Mamdani. Having run for the Democratic Presidential candidacy in the primaries twice, and having lost both those races in 2016 and 2020, Sanders effectively failed to take his democratic socialist project to the heart of the Democratic establishment. Despite attracting much attention from sections of the Democratic base in 2016 and 2020, Sanders’ ‘political revolution’ was ultimately rejected by the Democratic party, leaving him powerless to stop the USA’s corrupt democratic backsliding from his seat in the senate.

Ever since his electric 2016 run at the presidential nomination, Sanders has repeatedly failed in his political project to bring democratic socialism to the US. In 2016 like in 2020, he endorsed the establishment victors of the democratic primaries, Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden, as well as extending his endorsement to Kamala Harris eventually in August 2024 despite previous doubts. The ‘political revolution’ of Bernie Sanders that looked so promising in 2016, has now mostly been reduced to powerful but inconsequential speeches on the US Senate floor, and critiques of the Democratic establishment when it does not harm its image of political cohesion during the election cycle. 

To be clear, I do not wish to brand Bernie Sanders’ political legacy a complete failure. Despite a lack of electoral success at the highest level of US politics, Sanders remains an influential ideological figure within the Democratic establishment, much like AOC, and his impact was felt during the Biden presidency, even if these contributions remained under strict control. Sanders’ political legacy, ultimately, is that of the Democratic party’s consciousness; usually correct, almost always ignored, and powerless to reverse the USA’s descent into plutocracy.

Looking at Sanders’ track record therefore, it is easy to feel downtrodden and pessimistic about the revolutionary significance of Mamdani’s win in New York, and the potential of a similar political campaign at the federal level. Much like Mamdani, Sanders too made quite a buzz in 2015, with one of his rallies in rust-belt Wisconsin attracting 10,000 attendees, a larger crowd than could be found at any other candidate’s rallies. Despite this mass popular appeal in the swing states Democrats would have to win over to emerge victorious in the electoral college, the establishment wing of the party still sought to organise against him and smear his name with ‘red scare’ propaganda before considering he might be their ticket to electoral success.

This conclusion, that the Democratic party would rather lose an election than promote a left-wing candidate, leads us back to one of Karl Marx’s most important explorations of the capitalist social order; that there is no democracy under capitalism.

It quickly becomes apparent to anyone with an understanding of the US’s influence on the world stage during the 20th century, as well as its domestic policies, that the American state has never been too fond of democracy when it interrupts the capital accumulation of its ruling classes. From destabilising and toppling democratically-elected socialist governments in Chile (1973), Iran (1953), Guatemala (1954), and the Congo (1960-65), to supporting the South African Apartheid regime, and assassinating left-wing figures in the black revolutionary movements domestically such as Fred Hampton. Similarly, the legacy of capitalist restructuring in Eastern-European countries after the fall of the Soviet Union is one of repression and anti-democratic authoritarianism against the communist and socialist parties that remained popular in countries like Albania and Bulgaria after 1990.

The historical context of true democratic struggle under the system of capitalism will thus extinguish for many the hope that a genuine shift in the Democratic establishment will be realised through popular support and grassroots activism. It is true that Mamdani’s campaign beat Cuomo’s with only a fraction of the funds raised, and in the ‘capital of capitalism’ no less. Conversely, the hope I and many others feel for the potential future of electoral politics in America is in conflict with the understanding of the systemic barriers in place against Mamdani’s politics and its realisation.

I want to make clear that I do not intend to devalue the successes of Mamdani or Sanders in bringing the left-wing challenge to the Democratic establishment to the forefront of political discourse. Political movements throughout history had their time in the wings before breaking into the mainstream consensus in the aftermath of a significant event. Indeed, our current system of neoliberalism was once relegated to the sidelines, biding its time in the speeches of Enoch Powell, Keith Joseph, and similarly-minded American politicians under the Carter Administration, before the crises of the 1970s forced those ideas to the mainstream. To go one step further, I do believe that Mamdani’s policies, should he win in November, would have a profoundly positive material impact on New Yorker’s lives, and that is a victory worth celebrating, even if it does not bring about a complete overhaul of American politics.

This, I feel, is the fundamental point we should take from Mamdani’s victory in New York. Any progressive victory is worthy of being celebrated. It is the never-ending cycle of pessimism and alienation under oppression which removes from the oppressed the courage and resilience necessary to fight it. Mamdani’s success, much like Bernie’s popularity in 2015 is proof that their views are going nowhere. The battle against autocracy and dispossession is a long and arduous one. In its brightest moments it remains fragile, and requires the effort of millions to keep it alive. Millions who believe in its mission and who, despite all the evidence to the contrary, maintain that a better world is possible, and they have the power to engender it. 

Illustration by Will Allen/Europinion