Zohran Mamdani gave his 100 days in office rally yesterday, and it was like most 100 day rallies- he told you about his victories, and how much better things were, and why his critics were wrong. It was pretty standard boiler plate, but for one part- his vocal defense of “Democratic Socialism.” Two things stood out openly and clearly that I think need to be discussed.
- What he described was in no way really socialism. To be clear, government action is not in any way socialism. The government subsidizing daycare is not socialism if the daycare is provided by private companies, for instance. Much of what Mamdani described would be known in Europe as a “Social Democratic Party,” In no way is he describing “seizing the means of production” in New York City. This is big government liberalism.
- What he described sounded a lot like the Biden Administration. New, environmentally friendly infrastructure? Defense of trans people? I mean, this was the guy who forgave student loans and increased Social Security benefits as President. About the only area where it would seem Mamdani is taking a different path than Biden would be foreign policy, which he didn’t mention here, I’m just adding.
So “Democratic Socialism” is, to Mamdani, just essentially FDR-esque big government. It’s also not a lot different than Bidenomics and Biden’s “Build Back Better” Agenda. Look, I’m fine with saying that the Biden Democratic Party and the more “aggressive” left in America are very similar, other than nuance. Two things though that I’d say about that. First off, we had an expensive 20 something way primary over how big those differences were, and this flies in the face of that. What the hell was that fight about then? Second, Biden left office unpopular. If Biden governed to the left of where the median voter thought he ran in 2020, and left office unpopular, doesn’t that beg the question of why we would want to go any further left in 2026 or 2028? This would seem to be a strategic blunder.
I’ll take a slightly darker read on this though, to close. If the domestic agenda is really about shades of grey at this point, with all the different elements of the Democratic Party essentially embracing European-styled Social Democracy, and yet we’re having major in house fights, they’re obviously about something else. So what are we fighting about? One thing is foreign policy, and an element of the left that wants to see the United States unilaterally surrender their superpower status, re-think some of our alliances, and largely embrace “spheres of influence” theory thought out of Russia, ending our period of military supremacy in much of the world. They literally may get this from Trump ending our alliances and screwing up at war. The other area of disagreement causing internal Democratic battles then is more obvious, and it is the centering of Civil Rights and diversity. Mamdani did mention trans people, which my guess is because it polls very well with the Democratic die-hard voters, but he speaks mostly in class terms and less in identity terms. You hear this echoed in Hasan Piker, Krystal Ball, and of course, Bernie Sanders. They think Biden’s open embrace of DEI and robust Civil Rights were a big part of his problems. They didn’t like these issues at the center of the Clinton or Biden campaigns, and they think it’s a problem now.
Obviously I disagree with this whole world view.
Apocalypse Vibes 