Zohran Mamdani's entire campaign was indeed about what he called affordability. But it was specifically in three areas identified by his constituents-to-be as their biggest problems: rent, bus fare, child care. I think that's a useful approach, and his victory, hopefully, a portent of things to come, even if he did not identify wages, benefits, and jobs, -- and wealth inequality -- as the fundamental problem.
However, I would also note that he began his victory speech with a quote from Eugene Debs, and filled it with references to work and working people, unions, and bosses, -- and their relative access to power. Not as direct as I would like either, but a vast improvement over the sort of would-be inspiration, scare tactics, shallow identity politics, and nauseating patriotic pablum Dems have been serving up for twenty or thirty years.
I also wonder what people made of his reference to the conditions that made possible a despot's rise to power.
We perhaps didn't realize how desperate we were for the commitment to economic justice and class solidarity that permeated the speech, even if they weren't named as such. And as some have noted: we may have gotten to where "socialism" is no longer a dirty word.
I wouldn't dream of criticizing Mamdani. He got the job done, end of story. My interest is advancing messaging outside of campaigns run by people who know what they're doing.
Zohran Mamdani's entire campaign was indeed about what he called affordability. But it was specifically in three areas identified by his constituents-to-be as their biggest problems: rent, bus fare, child care. I think that's a useful approach, and his victory, hopefully, a portent of things to come, even if he did not identify wages, benefits, and jobs, -- and wealth inequality -- as the fundamental problem.
However, I would also note that he began his victory speech with a quote from Eugene Debs, and filled it with references to work and working people, unions, and bosses, -- and their relative access to power. Not as direct as I would like either, but a vast improvement over the sort of would-be inspiration, scare tactics, shallow identity politics, and nauseating patriotic pablum Dems have been serving up for twenty or thirty years.
I also wonder what people made of his reference to the conditions that made possible a despot's rise to power.
We perhaps didn't realize how desperate we were for the commitment to economic justice and class solidarity that permeated the speech, even if they weren't named as such. And as some have noted: we may have gotten to where "socialism" is no longer a dirty word.
I wouldn't dream of criticizing Mamdani. He got the job done, end of story. My interest is advancing messaging outside of campaigns run by people who know what they're doing.