Zohran Mamdani Is Keeping Hope Alive
The Democratic Party obsessed with the conviction remains as unpopular as ever – but there is another path.
Current American policy is a lamentable race between two flowing ships heading down the bottom of the sea. Donald Trump, never a very appreciated figure and only president because he positioned himself as the alternative to an unpopular status quo, again made an intensely despised president in record time. As Gallup reported on Thursday:
Six months after his second term, the job approval rating of President Donald Trump fell to 37%, the lowest of this mandate and just slightly higher than his worst note of 34% at the end of his first mandate. Trump’s note has dropped 10 percentage points among American adults since he started his second term in January, including a decrease of 17 points among the self -employed, at 29%, corresponding to his lowest note with this group in one or the other of his terms.
One might think that Trump’s touch near the back of the rocks in terms of popular support was going to overcome the Democrats, whose whole political strategy (at least as it is executed by party leaders such as Senator Chuck Schumer and representative Hakeem Jeffries) is based on the belief that everything they have to do is wait for Trumpism to collapse in order to reconquer power.
However, the more the public hates the public, the more hostile it becomes for the Democratic Party. As The Wall Street Journal Friday, a new survey shows that “the image of the Democratic Party was eroded at its lowest point in more than three decades”. The newspaper added “that 63% of voters have an unfavorable vision of the Democratic Party – the highest share in Newspaper The surveys dating from 1990 and 30 percentage points above the 33% which have a favorable opinion. »»
It may seem paradoxical that voters turn against Trump while becoming much more hostile to the Democratic Party. But this contradiction is easily resolved. The very fact that Trump and his policies are unpopular creates a hunger for an alternative path – that which the leaders of the Democratic Party have avoided attractive to provide, rather offering silent criticisms on subjects of the chaud button such as immigration or a budget enriching by plutocracy. If you roll and play, people who know that you are only pretending are likely to think that you are weak and despicable.
It is in this context that the emergence of Zohran Mamdani as a democratic candidate for the town hall in New York offers a new, well -necessary path. Mamdani ran on a strong message of economic populism that attracted new voters. He particularly performed well among the demographic data that moved away from the Democratic Party during the last elections: young people (including young black voters), Latinos and Americans of Asian origin. Mamdani has carried out a heavy optimistic campaign on the proposals for the processing of the affordability crisis (such as rent and buses without a price).
In a recruitment email for the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), Mamdani wrote: “I could not spread a system designed to take advantage of despair, so I joined the DSA”, of course, the “system designed to take advantage of despair” is capitalism, but the sentence also describes the existing two-part system. It is a striking fact that during the last decade, the two parties have abandoned any substantial optimistic vision of the future, rather preferring to peddle the fear (often realistic) of what the other part will do. Donald Trump’s signature expression “American carnage” (from his first inaugural) sums up the dystopian mood of the time.
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Meanwhile, the Democratic Party offered its own variation of “American carnage”. In 2016, Hillary Clinton liked to say to the voters: “I am the last thing between you and the apocalypse.” To recall a period when American politicians offered hope rather than competing allegations to repel the national disaster, we should return to the campaign of Barack Obama in 2008. The promise of Mamdani’s candidacy is a new policy of hope – but that founded in much more concrete economic egalitarianism than Obama has promised or delivered.
Of course, even if Mamdani wins the mayor in the fall, her ability to challenge the current descending spiral of American policy will be limited. New York, as large, is only a city and mayors have limited power. Fortunately, Mamdani is not a lonely figure but is part of an emerging wave of left -wing politicians who reflect urban America.
Even The New York TimesA newspaper that has often been a victim hostile to Mamdani, recognizes that its success is due not only to personal charisma but to an expansion public appetite for economic populism. As journalist Benjamin Oreskes wrote it in the Times Sunday:
The emphasis on the style of Mr. Mamdani overlooks the substance of his progressive message and how voters of the city came to adopt it, as the voters did in Boston in 2021 and Chicago two years later.
These elections, as well as recent surveys on questions such as rent control, taxes on wealth and the burden of daycares, suggest that many voters, in particular those of large democratic cities, have become more receptive to progressive agendas….
A recent national PEW Research Center survey revealed that around six out of 10 adults supported the increase in taxes on large companies and households earning more than $ 400,000.
This support has also materialized in voter referendums, even in cities where progressive candidates have stalled.
Winning the elections is part of the policy; Government, another. The mayor of Chicago, Brandon Johnson, faced a reaction for having failed to deliver his ambitious program – a problem which can be blamed not only on a media and a hostile political establishment, but also on his executive skills. However, his Boston counterpart, Michelle Wu, remains popular. If Mamdani wins and successfully governs, he will join a progressive bridgehead forming in Urban America. The DSA could continue to develop as an independent organizational power, one offering an alternative model to an establishment of the Democratic Party which has increasingly denounced rich donors. The anger that voters have towards the Democrats itself provide fertile terrain for a growing progressive challenge for the party’s elite – which could also play an important role in the primaries next year.
Despair is too easy an indulgence in the current moment. Policy requires the promise of a better future – not just a reprimand to a depressing status quo. Mamdani recalls that even if Trump and the establishment of the Democratic Party have rightly won the contempt of voters, it remains urgent and possible to live by the message of Jesse Jackson and “keep hope alive”.
