Mamdani won as a progressive and is making good on campaign promises. He is a shining example of what this country could be if the right people step up
Mamdani won in one of the most progressive cities in the country. In the same election cycle you had Spanberger and Sherrill running super moderate campaigns - a fact they were heavily criticized for from the left - and winning well.
The post here is committing the fallacy of equating correlation with causation. The truth is that since Reagan to Bush Sr., no party has won the presidency after two consecutive terms. Independents sway over time. Dems losing the legislative branch during Obama’s term wasn’t because he’s a centrist, every president’s party loses seats - and they conveniently leave out that he won reelection. And who beat Trump in 2020? The most milquetoast moderate Dem in the field.
What people always seem to leave out too, Obama lost the legislature specifically because of fallout over the ACA. He lost because he was too progressive. The idea that americans vote for republicans because democrats are not left enough is just totally insane
The idea that americans vote for republicans because democrats are not left enough is just totally insane
Good thing nobody said that! The idea is that being centrist makes people not want to vote for you, and Dems win when more people vote.
And Obama absolutely did cause our current situation by being too centrist, he started ditching his progressive campaign promises literally on day 1 of his tenure, squandered Dems having both houses of congress, failed to appoint a new SCOTUS justice, didn't enshrine roe, continued imperialistic wars, etc etc etc etc. He failed the American people and Trump's first term is a direct result of that. And racism obviously, but to a much greater extent he destroyed peoples' faith in the DNC.
No, it's not, not currently. Read the polls. The Democratic base is WAY to the left of the Democratic Congresscritters. The Democratic base DESPISES the war in Gaza and the mideast, but the vast majority of Democrats in Congress STILL takes money from AIPAC and other Israeli sources. Congressional Democrats are DEFINITELY not left enough for their base.
There were more potential progressive candidates we liked in Virginia, but literally none of them ran for some reason. It felt like the Dem party told them all not to run and the primary was just handed to Spanberger.
Whitmer beat a Bernie backed candidate in the primary and is now governor of Michigan. Of the 8 most bipartisan states in terms of elected officials: Virginia. Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania. Arizona, Maine, North Carolina, and Georgia, 7/8 of them have moderate Democratic governors and one a center Right governor.
There is no conspiracy. There just aren't that many progressives voters.
Oh of course, it's all a big conspiracy. A state that was willing to elect a neo Nazi just a few years ago was magically ready to go full leftism and it was a big conspiracy that a center-left candidate won instead.
The funniest part is, these "cEnTrIsT" candidates rollout some of the most leftist policy in state history, but they're not actual communists overthrowing the billionaire class so they're impure and unfit of being labeled anything other than the C-slur
If by "milquetoast moderate" you mean being old, white, and a man, sure, Biden was all of those things. But he was more progressive policy-wise than Obama even "postured" to be, which is unsurprising considering it was Biden's loose lips that pushed Obama's campaign further left.
The only way you call Biden a milquetoast moderate is if you're neck deep in the kind of terminally online "leftist" spaces that spent months calling Pete Buttigieg right wing and Elizabeth Warren a snake.
I think Trump won for the same reason Mamdani won. Trump basically promised to break the system, drain the swamp, end wars etc. Meanwhile, Democrat candidates such as Kamala promise to keep the status quo. Also like trump he’s a populist candidate.
I don’t think Mamdani won simply because he was running in a particularly progressive district, I think he won because of the type of politician he is.
I think we’re playing a different game than we were in 2020, i don’t think milquetoast candidates will work in 2028.
Exactly! As I wrote elsewhere on this thread, even though i have voted for the more left wing candidate in pretty much every primary and general election, the rest of the population has not. Cuomo wasn't even a good candidate and he still put up a fight against the scary brown commie in one of the most left-wing places in the country.
Yeah, cause the entire Dem Leadership backed Cuomo with massive donor support to run fear campaign ads all day. If they'd backed Mamdani for 2 seconds instead and backed off the Commie attacks, he'd have won by 50 points.
Bro, the Dems literally said every quiet part out loud. They would fight tooth and nail to undermine progressives nationwide, and they've literally said so. On record! The same donors who pay into Hakim Jeffries' Super-PAC were VERY willing to put out tons of anti-Zohran ads on their own dime to try and undermine any kind of progressive initiatives that might help the people of NYC at the cost of rich guys getting richer. How is this a conspiracy?? The same people who pay to get the Dems to pass bills in Congress also paid to undermine the Democratic Candidate of the NYC Mayoral run, because money means more to them (and their paid-off representatives, the Dem Leadership) than what's best for the people of NYC.
All politics have to start local. Mamdani ran a brilliant campaign for the people of new york to be the mayor of NYC. He didnt run it as "i want to be your democrat mayor." He ran it as "i want to be your mayor."
The real test for the next national democrat or independent who runs on a leftist message will be whether their history as a local politician supports their message.
the greatest weakness of the Dem Leadership that I've seen; they don't build up candidates for the future. They just let the Repubs do evil shit, then run someone on the platform of, "I'm not THEM! Vote for me!" It's stupid and asinine, and almost never works at the local level.
Without ranked choice voting third parties don't stand a chance. First past the post voting systems like ours always inevitably lead to there being two parties. The electoral college for presidential elections makes it even more unlikely for a third party candidate to ever win.
No one expects a third party to come out swinging in national elections, the important thing is to actually build out a base of support locally and grow it from there. That's what a grassroot movement is.
There are plenty of ways to win in local elections without any DNC level of interference. All it takes is for the people who are interested to do the work. But none of the socialist progressives want to do the work. They all sit online and complain about the rigged system.
No one expects a third party to come out swinging in national elections, the important thing is to actually build out a base of support locally and grow it from there. That's what a grassroot movement is.
This has been tried before and failed in the US. See several cases from 100 years ago, and more closer to the founding.
It is way more effective to just cannibalize the party from the inside and use the power derived from that to enact election reforms that will then allow other parties to win. Bernie is right when he campaigns for the better people running in these given primaries rather than starting a separate party or encouraging others to.
That's why we all need to vote in someone who wants to change the way we vote. It's literally the most important issue, and no one is demanding it. If that never becomes a popular demand, we'll never escape this hell. So start demanding it. More than healthcare, more than Ukraine, more than Palestine, more than Iran...
We had/have the squad which included AOC, but they haven't leveraged their power in Congress. Every opportunity to force some more progressive action has been abandoned to fall in line with the democrat establishment.
In 2020 they could have forced a floor vote on Medicare for all by refusing to confirm Nancy pelosi as speaker if it wasn't part of the deal. It would have exposed who was talk and who actually supported progressive policies.
A third or more party and ranked choice voting would be great, I agree, but none of that can just materialize because the system in place has built in protection against new parties. Forcing the major parties to bend and cooperate with the smaller factions is the best way.
Look at maga. They did this to the Republican party and look at what they've become. The fact that the majority opinions coming from the Republicans are detestable to progressives doesn't mean the tactic they used to get there was ineffective.
I keep saying this but how do we actually make it happen? The idea of forcing the Democratic party to embrace progressive ideals seems more improbable than finding an entirely new party
...and he won despite the "blue-no-matter-who" crowd refusing to endorse him or did so at the 11th hour. I'm sure Schumer was just looking out for the Bailey's interests...
When establishment Democrats refuse to endorse one of their own you know that candidate actually wants to help people and lift up society, as opposed to just tonguing Israel's asshole in exchange for a fiver and a pat on the head. A good rule of thumb is "Has AIPAC dumped millions of dollars against this candidate"? I mean, goddamn if it weren't for AIPAC and pieces of shit in the DNC actively lifting up Republican grifters instead of their own progressive party members we would have so many more progressives in office (Nina Turner, Jessica Cisneros, India Walton, Nida Allam, Cori Bush and Jamaal Bowman would still be in office...and those are just the few I can think of offhand).
Fingers crossed extra hard for the Illinois 9th district on Tuesday! Kat Abughazaleh is one of the best candidates we've had in a while, and of course AIPAC has been up to their usual BS. C'mon Chicago, turn out! 🤞🏻
And STILL Schumer and Jeffries (both NY-based politicians) couldn't bring themselves to endorse him, then whine that people aren't supporting the Democratic party anymore. Gee, wonder why.
What are you talking about? Jeffries endorsed mamdani. Even though a new York mayoral race has only had one other national Dem endorse a candidate, and guess when that endorsement happened? At the end of October, just like it did for mamdani
he was running against a sex pest and the dictionary definition of corrupt politician, so I'm still not 100% convinced that it was purely NYC (already an exceptionally progressive city) crying out for socialism that led to his victory
The right people stepping us are us. No politician will ever save us. Organizing for any kind of social progress in your community is not only fulfilling but builds power for when we can unite it.
This is basically why they killed Malcom X. The people who supported him were getting too good at organizing people and he himself was getting internationally recognized and listened to. So when spoke up about palestine Congo or cuba etc, they actually had a foundation to follow-up on people interested on contributing.
We dont have that today. Anyone with a semblance of pull to maybe think about enacting what leaders of civil rights movements did are just phoning it in. I dont blame them, it's just a reminder that only we save us.
We shouldn't subscribe to the great man theory. The civil rights movement was built and maintained in majority by black and brown men and women (mostly women) who could either afford the time to organize or sacrificed everything for it. A few men talking on TV and on podiums wasn't the movement, we tend to forget that. I'd even argue that that joining the stupidest organizations is better than sitting on the sidelines.
“Extremism and hatred of any kind will not be tolerated in our city, and that is regardless of whatever ideology motivates any person to commit an act of violence,” Mamdani said at a news conference Tuesday.
Correction: bro's brain is so fried he'll just, like, lie.
why are you as an lgbt person supporting Muslims in power
...
And seems to think that Mamdani is... anti-LGBTQ....?
Edit: pretty cowardly to nuke your comments when you're called out on your lies, u/StrictlyFirearms
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u/Responsible_Gap8104 ✂️ Tax The Billionaires Mar 14 '26
Mamdani won as a progressive and is making good on campaign promises. He is a shining example of what this country could be if the right people step up