In 1973, I was part of the leadership of the New American Movement, a socialist group that would later merge with Michael Harrington’s Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee to form the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA). Our San Francisco chapter decided to run candidates for the Board of Supervisors under the rubric of the San Francisco Socialist Coalition. Our leading candidate, a veteran community organizer, finished 16th, only 465 votes ahead of Jesus Christ Satan, who listed his occupation as “metaphysician.”
Flash forward half a century. In New York, the center of American finance, the leading mayoral candidate is DSA-backed Zohran Mamdani — who is not shy about his commitment to socialism. “Zohran Kwame Mamdani,” his website states bluntly, “is a New York State Assemblymember and democratic socialist running for Mayor.” His embrace of socialism has put off some New Yorkers, but not, it seems, enough to deny him a likely victory next week.
And for some critical mass of voters, it may actually be part of his appeal. A son of one of my friends, a young Brooklynite who works for an Amazon subsidiary, recently told me that New York City “has become unlivable for people who are not in a certain tax bracket. And so, I think democratic socialists speak to working-class New Yorkers in a way that I don’t feel other politicians are doing. And yeah, that has certainly resonated with me.” When I interviewed marchers at a recent “No Kings” rally in Queens, I heard, again and again, that people either approved of Mamdani’s democratic socialism or were not put off by it.