The Mamdani Moment and the Crisis of the “Left”

On June 24, 2025, Zohran Mamdani won the Democratic primary for mayor of New York City. His defeat of the Democratic Party old guard Andrew Cuomo has been hailed as a victory for socialism in America. Social media has been flooded with celebration. DSA apparatchiks are gloating. The only real victory was for the illusion that the system can be reformed.

Mamdani is a gifted politician. He has spoken courageously on Palestine, organized tenants and workers into his voting base, and has roots in the popular sectors. However, he is still a part of the machinery of the Democratic Party: a party of landlords, war profiteers, billionaires, the ruling capitalist class. 

Want Democracy? Then You Need a People's Dictatorship

 By Charles Andrews.

A mob was permitted, even helped, to take over the United States Capitol building on January 6, 2021. No government can allow that sort of thing and survive.

Officials and public figures ranging from social-democrats like Congressional Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez through a broad range of conventional politicians and even continuing into the right wing condemned the action as a threat to democracy.

Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) votes in favor of Trump's war budget

The much-celebrated star of U.S. social democracy, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez  (AOC) recently endorsed the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2019 which is actually a deal between the Trump administration and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. 

By a bipartisan vote of 284-149, the House approved the bill, sending it to the Senate, which is expected to debate it next week. Among other issues, the bill adds billions of dollars to military spending thus including about $738 billion for fiscal 2020 which is a 3 percent increase from current year levels.