I'm glad that Zohran Mamdani won the New York City mayoral election, but as usual I'm uneasy with the premature triumphalism a lot of progressives and leftists have indulged in. He's not even mayor yet: he won't be sworn in until January 1. I remember similar exultation among Obama fans when he was first elected in 2008. Admittedly, the right is equally confused, as in the rumor that his swearing-in was canceled because he refused to swear on the U.S. Constitution. Congratulations, comrades, you're on the same page as the Right! I did enjoy this satirical swipe at the foolishness, though.
It's certainly satisfying and encouraging that Mamdani defeated a well-funded, viciously defamatory campaign by a corrupt establishment, including Democratic Party leaders who developed a sudden amnesia about their own "Vote Blue No Matter Who" slogan. When he'd won they then exhibited similar amnesia about their refusal to endorse him. Bill Clinton, for example, endorsed sex-pest Andrew Cuomo, like his co-Epstein buddy Donald Trump, but flipped when it was all over. Hillary Clinton protested that she had no connection to New York, so why should she have an opinion? (Because she's a prominent Democratic politician who still feels free to comment on national politics the rest of the time, that's why.) The abrupt change of stance is classic doublethink. Even Barack Obama only praised Mamdani's campaign on November 3 (a day before the election); he stopped short of a formal endorsement, but offered to be a "sounding board" later on.
What I find more encouraging is that Mamdani's wasn't the only Democratic victory this month. It was an off-off-year election, and numerous Republican candidates went down in defeat. California voters passed Proposition 50 to redistrict in favor of Democrats. I'm ambivalent about that, but with MAGA Republicans in several states pushing redistricting to favor themselves, it shows that the move can backfire. Corporate media have tried to minimize the outcomes by declaring the Democratic winners "pragmatic" or "more pragmatic" than the "radical" Mamdani, but I call that damage control. Those media usually favor right-wing outcomes; remember their determined anticipation of a Red Wave in the 2022 midterms that didn't materialize? A lot can happen in the next year, but I doubt Trump will be able to buck the traditional midterm losses that Biden evaded.
At the same time, it's important to remember that Mamdani won his election with a 50.4 percent majority. That's not a mandate, though the media have assigned mandates to winners with smaller or no majorities. (Trump got only a plurality in 2024, and he lost the popular vote in 2016.) That doesn't diminish Mamdani's success, since he came out of almost nowhere to defeat a favored (if unpopular) party choice in the primary. Cuomo only got 41 percent of the vote in the election itself; even if Curtis Sliwa had withdrawn from the race, the votes he got weren't enough to defeat Mamdani, not even if all who voted for him had switched to Cuomo. Mamdani has his work cut out for him, and many observers have noticed that. He's already moderated his positions on some matters, such as the police, and his worthy "affordability" promises can't be fulfilled by edict. I want him to succeed, but winning the election was just the beginning. His enemies know this even if some of his fans don't: the smear campaign against him is still going on.
