Mayors such as New York’s Zohran Mamdani show leftwing ideology can go hand-in-hand with effective governance
A trio of Democratic socialist victories in mayoral contests in three of the largest cities in the US has unleashed a new wave of hope on the left of the party. Zohran Mamdani and Katie Wilson took office in New York and Seattle, respectively, this year. Janeese Lewis George is set to follow in Washington DC.
As momentum around leftwing candidates appears to build, focus will turn to Los Angeles over the coming months, where another member of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) will attempt to continue this winning streak.
The common criticism of democratic socialism is that its proponents put their ideological interests before matters of effective governance. But after a string of high-profile wins, supporters are hopeful that Mamdani and others will prove the two can go hand-in-hand.
The has nothing to do with these local races and the reason why it hasn’t happened more often is exactly what happened during mamdani’s run; dems undermined him at every turn and republicans pushed support for his opponents. The uniparty threw everything they had at him, and normally that works.
Like with the Platner controversies, it sort of seems like people are wising up to the bullshit and voting for the candidate anyways, against the wishes and efforts of the party. Normally that amount of coordinated repression has a significant effect. The ad money alone is normally enough to bury a campaign; sprinkle a hint of scandal and most up-and-coming campaigns fail. For some reason, now, it’s just not working
Yeah I guess they figure that the scandals don’t matter for Trump so they may as well not matter for the guy that’s gonna do good stuff for them