Zohran Mamdani

Do the Republicans have a secret weapon they can deploy in the midterms? In fact, I think they have two weapons, one sort-of-secret, the other out in the open but somehow not quite recognized.  “That’s good,” you say, if (faute de mieux) you want the Republicans to win. Midterms, we’ve been told ad nauseam, almost always favor the party out of power. I believe that the last time the incumbent party won in the midterms was in 2002 when George W. Bush, riding the tailwind of public sentiment following the September 11 attacks by our Muslim friends, picked up eight House seats. Many of the most noteworthy Democrat candidates hail from la-la land At the moment, all the polls have the Dems leading by a comfortable margin.

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani campaigned on freezing rents for rent-stabilized tenants. Since taking office earlier this year, he has done just that. How? By appointing two-thirds of the supposedly independent Rent Guidelines Board. Last month, the board voted to freeze rents on one and two year leases, affecting a million properties. It’s the biggest NYC rent freeze in living memory.  Right-wing populists have long been accused of attacking independent institutions and undermining their credibility. Their left-wing counterparts appear to have developed a subtler, more insidious approach. Instead of attacking institutions, they capture them. In doing so, they predetermine outcomes and present the result as an independent judgment.

Somewhere in a Republican advertising agency, a young man is enjoying a cigar, ordering pizza and assembling the following TV ad. It begins with a Democratic congressman from a competitive district looking reasonable in a manly lumberjack shirt. “The Democratic party is a Big Tent,” he says. The screen goes dark. The announcer says, “A Big Tent? Big enough for what?

When asked on The Root whether he'd support cash reparations for black New Yorkers, Mayor Mamdani said he wouldn't rule it out: "Here in New York City, we were very complicit." The mayor promised an answer once the city's Commission on Racial Equity reports back in 2027. Slightly inflammatory and highly performative, his answer hit his sweet spot perfectly. He is teasing his supporters with a radical, racialized policy that has no price tag and no implementation plan, just outrage. Zohran Mamdani is a better content creator than mayor. He knows exactly which topics will generate clicks, articles and outrage. That's a valuable skill for an influencer or a campaigner – earned media is the best priced media, but less so for a mayor who actually has to govern a major American city.

Tuesday 4 August could prove to be a turning point in American political history. If Democratic primary voters in Michigan choose Haley Stevens, a moderate, as their Senate nominee, the party establishment should stagger on, perhaps up to and beyond the presidential election of 2028. It’s more likely, however, that the Democrats will elect Dr Abdul El-Sayed, a pro-Palestine radical who supports Medicare for All and the abolition of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. El-Sayed’s victory would confirm that the hard left is the coming force in national politics, and suggest that the long-anticipated socialist takeover of the oldest party in the US – the party of Andrew Jackson, Harry Truman and Bill Clinton – is finally under way.

Mayor Zohran Mamdani endorsed three fellow socialists in the New York City Democratic Congressional primaries and all three won last night. Democratic incumbent Dan Goldman lost to Brad Lander, who was a member of the Democratic Socialists of America until 2023. DSA Member Claire Valdez won nomination for a Brooklyn House seat. But the eyepopper is the victory of Darializa Avila Chevalier, a 32-year-old DSA member and PhD graduate student, in East Harlem and the Bronx. She defeated Adriano Espaillat, the chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, and will easily become the most radical House member since Vito Marcantonio of the American Labor Party represented the same area in the 1940s.

Eight months after New York handed City Hall to a democratic socialist, Washington, DC appears ready to follow suit. Janeese Lewis George, a former prosecutor, leads the field, preaching the same message of affordability that carried Zohran Mamdani to power. DC residents head to the polls today to vote in the mayoral primary after Muriel Bowser decided not to stand for reelection. In the deepest of blue areas, the winner of the Democratic primary race is almost certain to be its next mayor. The primary has become an ideological tug-of-war between the Democratic party's socialist wing and its business-aligned establishment. Lewis George runs as the candidate of the progressive coalition.

Zohran Mamdani is discovering how much more difficult seizing the means of production is than posting about seizing it on social media. To date he has delivered just one of the many radical campaign promises he algorithmized to become New York City mayor. And when he took to social media to crow about that partial win on taxing the rich, he may have inadvertently ripped a new financial blackhole in the city’s budget. Nevertheless, the Democratic party establishment, that pointedly refused to back the radical’s mayoral bid, is being seduced by his social media socialism. Barack Obama recently visited New York to be photographed with him, and Governor Kathy Hochul caved to some of his tax and spending plans. Unsurprisingly, when she gave an inch, he took a mile.

Mayor Zohran Mamdani of New York has faced what others might consider awkward moments in office, as when two Islamists, inspired by ISIS, tried to immolate anti-Muslim protesters outside Gracie Mansion. He passed it off with aplomb by saying the two bomb-carrying individuals were “suspected of coming here to commit an act of terrorism.” In a later statement he acknowledged that the two men had proclaimed “their allegiance to ISIS.”  That counts for boldness on Mamdani’s part. He is considerably more comfortable denouncing Israel, defending the “globalize the intifada” slogan and lamenting anti-Muslim bigotry, than he is in acknowledging New York’s history of terror attacks by Islamists.

“First and foremost, I think Zohran and I are two good-looking guys in our thirties.” James Fishback, the controversial Republican running for governor of Florida, tells me that it is “not politically wise” to acknowledge his similarities with New York’s new mayor – but he can’t help himself. Both he and Zohran Mamdani are from privileged families, have taken on their own parties, have harnessed youth activism, are big on social media and have courted the same voters on the same issue: the rising cost of living. And, like 34-year-old Mamdani, at this stage of his campaign, Fishback, 31, needs a boost in the polls. Currently he is polling between 5 and 23 percent, while congressman Byron Donalds leads the Republican primary pack at 37 to 47 percent.

Mayor Zohran Mamdani made a hospital visit to comfort the victim of a knife attack on a police officer, who was forced to fire his weapon to defend himself. Of course, the bed Mamdani visited was that of the schizophrenic man, Jabez Chakraborty, who charged at police and was shot as a result. It almost goes without saying that New York’s new mayor did not check in on the officer.Face and voice full of strained emotion, Mamdani said after the visit: “No family should have to endure this kind of pain,” referring to the family of the knife-wielder. He made no remarks about the strains on families of police officers whose incredibly difficult, and increasingly thankless job, puts them face-to-face with knife wielding assailants for a starting salary of $60,000.

New York’s new mayor is woke. The Ugandan-born Muslim leftist Zohran Mamdani imperils the city as we know it, some people grumble. In a recent letter to supporters, Republican Representative Nancy Mace warned that Mamdani was “a man who’s bringing SHARIA LAW to America.” Of course, Sharia and woke are not the same thing. Mamdani’s program, brimming with paeans to trans and gay rights, might not thrill a Wahhabi cleric. Still, he has brought a Middle Eastern flavor, and not in the good sense. During the campaign Mamdani promised to arrest Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu should he decide to visit the United Nations. That hair-raising prospect would expose Mamdani to federal kidnapping charges. He has already done his share of scolding about the Middle East.