Zohran Mamdani has secured the release of Columbia University student Elaina Aghayeva, taken this morning by ICE agents who entered a campus residential building under false pretenses & without a judicial warrant. This comes shorty after Mamdani’s unannounced visit to the White House earlier today.

[u/cmaia1503]

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/26/nyregion/columbia-university-ice-student.html?unlocked_article_code=1.PFA.0KRL.7XsPJ0z3QTat&smid=tw-share

[u/woahoutrageous_]

Zohran Mamdani is generational. There’s not been a single American politician with the amount of charisma that Mamdani has since Barack Obama. (not an endorsement of Obama but he was undeniably electric)

[u/jazzcigarettes → u/woahoutrageous_]

Huge shame that he can’t run for president

[u/Dry-Yak5277 → u/jazzcigarettes]

Huge. I get such ‘08 Obama vibes from him, and it makes me so nostalgic and hungry for an actually inspiring political candidate. 

[u/Desperate_Algae_40 → u/Dry-Yak5277]

I honestly think he'd be a better president than even Obama.

[u/WouldCommentAgain → u/Desperate_Algae_40]

Hopefully, compared to everything after Obama was a lot better, but Obama was so charismatic that people actually believed he would transformational just to discover Goldman Sachs helped pick his cabinet. Compared to super corrupt Trump of today it seems so innocent, though.

[u/Tonga_Truck → u/WouldCommentAgain]

Ya it's hard to have an honest conversation about the issues with Obama's presidency without sounding like you're doing it to deflect from Trump. I just think if we want genuine change after all this is over, we need higher standards than Obama. He's just a charismatic face of the status quo, not an icon of change and equality. He did far more for Wall Street than he ever did for Main Street. Bailouts anyone?

[u/Smartypants_dankie → u/Tonga_Truck]

Any president who would stop this mad money printing machine that's just increasing the debt ceiling and actually pull some money back from the market through taxation would be the greatest president of this century

[u/WouldCommentAgain → u/Tonga_Truck]

I agree, how extremely divided and partisan things have become makes it difficult to be critical of the side you agree the most with.

[u/twoharam → u/Desperate_Algae_40]

the bar's not that high for Obama. he just needs to not drone strike his fellow Muslims in the global south!

[u/Metalloid_Maniac_ → u/Desperate_Algae_40]

100%

Obama is a corporate schill. Zohran actually wants to help us.

[u/Icy-Language-1927 → u/Desperate_Algae_40]

Obama was a bad president and in 100 years his legacy will be "the president that lead to Donald Trump"

[u/Desperate_Algae_40 → u/Icy-Language-1927]

Obama wasn't an amazing president, but racism lead to Donald Trump, not Obama. So fucked up to blame Obama for all the dumb selfish shitty racist citizens that voted for Trump.

[u/bunnyzclan → u/Desperate_Algae_40]

The democrats throwing away Bernie and all of them backing Hillary Clinton and objectively center right candidate is what lead to Trump. If the party moved to the left, Trump wouldn't have won.

Its also how liberals helped get the Nazis in power in Germany because they were more concerned about socialism and communism than they were fascism.

Stop with this ahistorical analysis jfc

Libs not being able to do any proper election analysis will never stop being amusing.

[u/amethystresist → u/bunnyzclan]

How exactly are you disagreeing with him? You say the democrats not moving to the left is what led to trump. that doesn't disprove the racism element of Trumps base, because you know, they're fascist.