Not long ago, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani was demonized by leaders of both political parties. On Thursday night, the 34-year-old democratic socialist was celebrated as a political force, the face of the region’s sports renaissance, even the leader of “Mamdanistan.”

In a rally with Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., that drew thousands to a Brooklyn theater, the emboldened mayor delivered a fiery message to Democratic leaders in Washington — and even those considering 2028 presidential bids — as he worked to elevate a slate of likeminded candidates in Tuesday’s New York primaries.

“People often ask me what I think of the state of the Democratic Party. This slate here today is our answer,” Mamdani declared. “The Democratic Party must change.”

“The party of the past will not be what leads us into the future. We need a Democratic Party with backbone.”

He shared the stage with three congressional candidates, including two running against Democratic incumbents. All three identify, or have identified, as democratic socialists. They promised to “abolish ICE,” condemned the “genocide” in Israel and vowed to “tax the rich” if elected.

Mamdani endorsed political organizer Darializa Avila Chevalier over Rep. Adriano Espaillat, the chairman of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, in New York’s 13th District, which includes parts of upper Manhattan and the Bronx.

Mamdani is also backing former New York City Comptroller Brad Lander, who is running against incumbent Rep. Dan Goldman in New York’s 10th District. And in New York’s 7th, he’s supporting democratic socialist state Assembly Member Claire Valdez against outgoing Rep. Nydia Velazquez’s handpicked successor.

Archived at https://web.archive.org/web/20260620173014/https://wtop.com/national/2026/06/mamdani-tests-his-political-clout-in-new-yorks-primary-as-he-looks-to-reshape-the-democratic-party/

  • BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today
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    24 hours ago

    [The Democratic Party] has seen its job as explaining why we cannot instead of showing how we can

    This here is the entire problem in a nutshell. The Democratic Party always has excuses, even when they have total control of government. Fucking losers.

    We’ve been through Clinton, Obama, and Biden, and not one of them tried to give us a decent health care plan. Obama came closest, but that was a REPUBLICAN plan, and it sucked. The only time they tried to throw us a bone, and it was a Republican bone.

    After the Midterms, there better be a new attitude at the DNC, or they’re all going to the guillotines, too. They don’t have to worry though, we’ll do the MAGAs first.

    • madcaesar@lemmy.world
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      5 hours ago

      Democrats always pull the it’s time to come together card when they get into power.

      I used to naively think that is because they wanted to be adults and lead by example, but I’ve come to realize they do it because they are paid by the same donor class that doesn’t want them to push populist ideas.

      They’ll throw us bones from time to time like literarily just letting gays get equal rights, but actually fighting for the working class, they almost never do.

      We need to get rid of corporate Democrats, fuck they are basically Republicans from 2005, and replace them with leftist.

    • MinnesotaGoddam@lemmy.world
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      14 hours ago

      there was one good component of the healthcare law they offered: if you offer healthcare insurance, you have to offer the same plans at the same price to everyone. I used to have to pay COBRA pricing just to get insurance. it’s slightly higher than paying annual premiums every month. one of the joys of being extraordinarily disabled.

  • BillyClark@piefed.social
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    1 day ago

    As far as I can tell, American politics can only be fixed by the supreme court. You need to flood it with justices who are willing to rule that campaign donations from corporations are not free speech. And then, to rule that the very concept of democracy is incompatible with campaign contributions from corporations and other organizations like PACs. And by that logic, contributions coming from anywhere except registered voter constituents is fundamentally unconstitutional.

    Congress under the existing rules will never pass a campaign contribution law because the owners of our congresspeople don’t want those laws passed. We will never elect enough people to congress who are not financially backed by large organizations. We’re stuck as a country. And I think only SCOTUS has any possibility of fixing it.

    But if SCOTUS did fix it, I think few in Congress would have a problem with it. They personally seek power, so this would actually give them more power. The problem is that if they seriously support campaign finance reform today, most of those would lose their next election and lose all of their power.

      • rockSlayer@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        1 day ago

        Democratic Socialists of America. They’re a radlib progressive organization that supports progressive democrats

        • wpb@lemmy.world
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          11 hours ago

          Radlib is a term for someone who holds socially progressive views and adopts leftist and radical esthetics, but supports free market capitalism. The picture I have in my head is someone wearing a pussy hat and blue hair celebrating Meloni was elected because she’s a woman. Is this how you mean it?

          EDIT: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/radlib If you disagree with me and have a wiktionary account, you might want to edit this page.

          • huey_m@reddthat.com
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            9 minutes ago

            I do agree that DSA, as a whole, aren’t generally socialists, but I also think it’s a little disingenuous to say they’re they same as the Hilary cadre which is more what you went on the describe. They’re certainly to the left of them. If the entire Democratic party was aligned with DSA vs the more staunch neoliberals in the mainstream, what a wonderful problem we’d be faced with compared to where we are now…

        • SpikesOtherDog@ani.social
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          23 hours ago

          A cursory glance says that this is radical in the idea that infrastructure should be owned by the people instead of sold to them at the highest cost they can afford. This does not appear to be an org that uses threats and violence to persuade people.

          So, radical like different, not radical like guns and bombs.

    • SatansMaggotyCumFart@piefed.world
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      1 day ago

      DSA has a hundred thousand members which is about 0.0333% of the US population.

      A snowball has a higher chance of surviving in hell then that party becoming relevant in the next hundred years.

      • halcyoncmdr@piefed.social
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        17 hours ago

        DSA has a hundred thousand members which is about 0.0333% of the US population.

        Membership was only ~6,000 members in 2015 compared ~100,000 now. Almost all of that gained in recently direct response to Donald Trump. But you can dismiss a massive and sudden grassroots change if you want. That’s what the DNC has done for the last 30+ years to instead just do whatever their donors want, and dangle various social issues as their sole differentiator, unless those conflict with corporate donors.

        • MinnesotaGoddam@lemmy.world
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          14 hours ago

          the democrat party is made of many subgroups that people affiliate with officially and unofficially. that ~100k is definitely underrepresented. of any accepted group, the DSA represents my interests the best. I ain’t never seen any enrollment paperwork for it.

      • Schmoo@slrpnk.net
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        22 hours ago

        They’re already relevant. That party of a hundred thousand has become a household name among the Democratic voting base because of the insurgent campaigns they’ve been running and winning against the DNC establishment.

      • Goodeye8@piefed.social
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        1 day ago

        All you’re saying is that they should get even more support than they currently have because despite being small they’ve had a noticeable (and good) impact on American politics.

  • FiniteBanjo@feddit.online
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    11 hours ago

    They promised to “abolish ICE,” condemned the “genocide” in Israel and vowed to “tax the rich” if elected.

    I mean… The DNC already do two of those things regularly and already beat the GOP on the other, but uh…

    Why didn’t he say all this before the primaries were held in most states? Or after the General Elections?

    EDIT: Because this is specifically about the NYC election and not any broader “democratic leadership” which is weird because Mamdani is among the ranks of democratic leadership in NYC.

    • grue@lemmy.world
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      21 hours ago

      Why didn’t he say all this before the primaries were held in most states? Or after the General Elections?

      Because you have to build political capital before you can spend it. If he had said it in December, corporatist Dems would’ve been able to use the excuse “why should we care what he has to say? All he did was get elected; he hasn’t done anything yet.”

      • FiniteBanjo@feddit.online
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        13 hours ago

        I think more accurately the whole event was Mamdani prepping for the NYC primaries which have not occured yet, and the article being a bogus inflammatory hit piece trying to shame his party.

  • panthera_@lemmy.today
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    1 day ago

    Mamdani is too far to the left to represent the Democratic party. Most Americans will not be in favor of abolishing ICE. Andy Beshear and Jon Ossoff would be better.

        • Zaktor@sopuli.xyz
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          8 hours ago

          Setting aside that you’re just pretending your poll is right and mine is wrong, what do you think this poll says that supports “people won’t support abolish”? Because giving a third option with reforms doesn’t change that outright abolish is more popular than not. It’s not an electoral loser. Especially in the demographics that vote for Democrats.

          • panthera_@lemmy.today
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            5 hours ago

            It shows that it’s better for Democrats to favor reforming ICE rather than abolishing it. Democrats have to also win in red states.

            • Zaktor@sopuli.xyz
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              47 minutes ago

              So having been just wrong about whether abolish was a minority position and claiming Mamdani can’t represent the Democratic party, now you’ve moved the goalposts to “the person who represents the Democratic party, should appeal to Republicans”.

              If only we’d had multiple examples of mealy-mouthed centrists losing to an extremist representing his party’s base. Maybe being successful at politics isn’t actually about trying to tack as hard to the center as possible with watered down positions.

              • panthera_@lemmy.today
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                16 minutes ago

                Democrats should appeal to independents and some Republicans. If Democrats just win in deep blue areas, they’re not getting anywhere.

    • FiniteBanjo@feddit.online
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      22 hours ago

      The DNC had effectively cut all funding for the ICE and related departments from February until last week when a GOP-only reconciliation bill changed that.

      • panthera_@lemmy.today
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        16 hours ago

        Any Democrat who supports abolishing ICE would end up the same as those who support defunding the police. Republicans would argue that Democrats want open borders permitting criminals to enter.