How Mamdani's Epic Win Created a Crossroads for the Democratic Party
The result of the New York City mayoral Democratic primary was only a shock to those who continue to not see the movement and the changing tides of what the Democratic Party should become moving forward.
Bernie Sanders had been all century long ringing the alarm about the country’s ongoing downward spiral towards autocracy and extreme capitalism that is extremely top-heavy and unsustainable for the vast majority of Americans living in the country. He nearly challenged Obama in 2012 but had to be talked out of it, he got screwed out of a fair primary race in 2016, and then in 2020 became a political victim of intense collusion against him when it was becoming clear that without drastic action Bernie was going to cruise towards clinching the nomination to run for president. The 2020 primaries case was so bad that the Democratic Party lost support among virtually every single demographic in the general election, and it got even worse in 2024 when Trump shockingly won again. Statistically speaking, even today, Bernie Sanders remains arguably the most-popular politician in the White House right now, even if he could never get out of the wretched primary system.
The vast majority of Americans are demanding major changes to the way things are operating in this country, from economy to health care to education to taxation. Bernie Sanders and the Squad had created the blueprint of what it takes to defeat Big Money, defeat fascism, and unite people from all corners to seek a better future for a country that has the riches and resources to provide the necessary improvements. But the Old Guards of the Democratic Party continues to obstruct, whether it be Joe Biden and his arrogant team, Nancy Pelosi, AIPAC (easily the biggest culprit with their ability to remove Squad members from the House), Chuck Schumer, the Clintons, and sadly even Barack Obama. Trump’s 2024 win had significantly more to do with what the Dems did wrong and less to do with what the Republicans and Trump did correctly, as they had an infamously wild campaign as well. Their vision of a better America post-Trump is a return to the way things mostly were in the Obama era when Barack had won twice and was able to help the economy mostly recover post-crash.
But most Americans, especially Democrats, don’t want to return to the Obama Era. They don’t want to go back to the Clinton Era.
We want progress, we want extensions and enhancements of these economically-decent eras, we want a combination of what we had seen in the 1940s and 1950s mixed with 21st century social progressivism. Make America Great Again is inherently racist because the last time America truly did provide for most Americans, it came at the complete cost of minorities, especially Black Americans and Mexican-Americans. Returning to the Clinton Era means not recognizing the LGBTQ community and not confronting everything that led to the AIDS epidemic and the Drug Wars. Returning to the Obama Era means not punishing all the banks and companies that helped create the crash that wrecked millions of lives in the first place.
It has been time to take Bernie’s approach to move forward with drastic ideas. And this is where our hero of the story, Zohran Mamdani, comes into play.
Mamdani’s campaign was a younger, more energetic, more complex version of Bernie Sanders’ campaigning style of populism combined with hopeful vibes, wild ideas, and a refusal to deviate from the main message. Mamdani never ever faltered or changed his beliefs, even when some of the policies were more controversial, especially the sensitive topic of the current Israeli governments and the chaos it has created throughout the world. He stayed true to his message, maintained a consistency that we never saw from Kamala Harris last year, refrained from us vs. them rhetoric, and kept it grassroots and classic, with door-knocking and speaking directly to potential voters (and in multiple languages).
The campaign of Zohran Mamdani was definitely more culturally focused on the region he’s trying to represent, as he went on all the local and statewide independent media possible, made his way to the Breakfast Club, reached out to local New Yorker content creators, and the result was a strategy that never looked like it was trying to reach non-native New Yorkers, it was trying to speak solely to New Yorkers and heed solely to their needs. That being said, Mamdani definitely knows that his battle was one that was going to behave like a consensus of where the party should be going.
His primary opponent isn’t a Republican (yet), or a former Democrat (yet), his main opponent is a still-somewhat popular brand of the centrist Democratic Party. Say what you will, Andrew Cuomo was popular and mildly successful at his brand of gubernatorial politics before resigning in disgrace. This race was once again putting the so-called Bernie Bro movement to the test, it was once again a challenge to see if The Squad’s policies, ideas, and style of politics was strong enough to defeat the Obama wing of the party in a so-called Blue City. And he crushed it, without big money help, without big name help up until the final weeks, without any dirty DNC tactics boosting him (it was actually quite the opposite).
The Democratic Party has ignored all the warning signs unveiled in the last 20 years, with 2011’s Operation Wall Street being the accelerant that led to the Bernie Bro movement which ultimately led to the emergence of The Squad and the civil war that has brewed within the Blue Team ever since. It has become clear as day that the current leaders of the party have to go, they don’t have the pulse of the party anymore, they don’t know or don’t care about what the voters actually want. The most successful liberal city in the entire United States voted for a proud Muslim democratic socialist, and it wasn’t a close result either. The candidate who was backed by Bill Clinton and James Carville was defeated by the man who was endorsed by Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. This has to be the wake-up call of allllllllllll wake-up calls, there’s no way the Democratic Party talking heads can continue ignoring the shifting tides.
Ultimately, what happens next in the mayoral race of New York City once it becomes a general election will determine just how much the old heads want to cling into power. Will the DNC finally embrace Mamdani and provide him with political support as the election expands and he takes on Adams, whoever the Republican nominee is, and perhaps even the defeated Cuomo? Or will the DNC remain stubborn, and will continue backing Andrew Cuomo because that’s the guy Clinton, Carville, and Pelosi wants?
The ball is now in the court of the Democratic Party leadership, as Mamdani has survived, thrived, and dominated without them, but will likely need all the help he can get as New York billionaires will begin backing the competition and the attack ads will greatly increase. This will easily become the most expensive and brutal mayoral battle in the modern history of New York City politics.
Will the DNC finally accept the shifting tides? Or will they continue stubbornly battle the political headwinds? These next few months will become very telling, and will indeed set the stage for who the Democratic Party wants representing them throughout the incoming midterms. Failing Bernie Sanders a dozen times cost them multiple elections and sunk them to the worst approval ratings in the entire history of the party. It would be absolutely asinine to deny his political team once again.
Embrace the future, or continue stupidly losing winnable elections against the scummiest people you’ll ever meet.