Why Mamdani Won

Socialism is absolutely back on the menu

Three days ago, I placed a bet on Kalshi with 26% odds that Zohran Mamdani would win the democratic nomination for Mayor of NYC. Last night, Mamdani demolished Andrew Cuomo in what Democratic strategists are already calling “the biggest political upset in NYC history.”¹

Zohran Mamdani had zero city-wide name recognition just six months ago, is a card-carrying member of the Democratic Socialists of America and is only 33 years old. The NYT essentially endorsed anyone but Zohran for Mayor. Normally any one of these stats should have immediately disqualified him as a serious contender for the Mayor of NYC.

Should he go on to win, he would become the first openly socialist mayor in NYC’s history and the first socialist mayor elected to any U.S. major city since Frank Zeidler (Socialist Party of America) was elected as the mayor of Milwaukee in 1948, as well as becoming the youngest Mayor of NYC in over 135 years².

Though the fact that I am even writing this as a non-resident of NYC proves I have way too much time on my hands this summer, whoever becomes Mayor of NYC is objectively a significant political figure in the U.S. Not only does this individual take on the role of running the country’s largest and arguably the most important city in the world, but the Mayor of NYC also controls a larger budget than 46 of the 50 states!³

Oh, a few more points. Mamdani is openly behind the Pro-Palestine movement and in an interview even said he would have Benjamin Netanyahu arrested should he decide to travel to NYC while he is mayor⁴. This should have been an immediate three strikes in the most Jewish city in the world. So why did he win? And how did I know he would?

First off, he did not win because 50% of New Yorkers are antisemitic and wanted to “shove” a Pro-Palestinian Muslim candidate in the faces of the 1 million Jewish residents of NYC⁵.

A lot of what has informed my understanding of the future of the Democratic party and this race in particular has come from listening to the podcast of

Joshua Citarella

, who I highly recommend you follow⁶.

An extremely short overview goes something like this; after Obama the Democratic party was completely blindsided by the populist victory of Trump I. Biden represented the last gasp of identity politics in the U.S. Trump II came back even stronger, wiping the floor with an identitarian candidate. For the first time in a long time, the Democratic party has no central vision of the future.⁷

One way to move forward is with a return to Classical Leftism. I think we see a serious resurgence of Socialism in the United States of America.

1904 poster for the socialist ticket

As absurd as it may sound, I think this is the most fertile ground for socialist leaning candidates in 100 years. The wealth gap which has always been quite bad in the U.S is reaching levels close to that of the “gilded age” of the 1920s⁸. If Trump’s economic policy fails, I could imagine the large groups of low-income voters who voted for him only for economic reasons⁹ to switch easily to someone promising More Free Stuff™. Then of course we have the black swan of superintelligence eliminating vast swaths of the job market¹⁰. Fun times ahead!

If there is a silver lining here, it might be that we get to produce more sick Yiddish socialist posters :)

Credit to

Shmuel Lome

for sending me the above poster from NYC.

1. Andrew Cuomo conceded the race before even the first-choice rankings was tabulated.

2. Second to only Hugh J. Grant, who was elected in 1889 at the age of 31.

3. I was shocked too but only California, New York State, Florida, and Texas have larger budgets than the city of New York.

4. Important to note, he purposefully did not make Israel-Palestine central to his race.

5. If you do believe this theory, there is probably not much for us to talk about.

6. I assume most people who see this post will disagree with a lot of what he says and that is exactly why you should listen to him.

7. Happy to go much, much deeper on this.

8. Top 1% own a quarter of all wealth, Top 10% own 70%, Bottom 50% holds less than a quarter.

9. Trump’s huge Latino/Black gains certainly weren’t because of “traditional values”.

10. Easiest example here would be the ~10% of our workforce that is employed in some sort of a driving capacity, gone.