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What is the meaning of Zohran Mamdani, the Democratic socialist who might become New York City’s next mayor? I’ve been pondering this question since Mamdani bested the well-connected and deep-pocketed (albeit scandal-tainted) establishment Democrat Andrew Cuomo to become the party’s nominee for the November mayoral election.
My answer is that Mamdani is both a wake-up call for Democrats and a warning about what they should not do in the midterms and 2028 presidential elections. There are three key lessons to be learnt here.
First, don’t underestimate the power of good marketing. The attention economy doesn’t sort for nuance but rather for sizzle. Mamdani had plenty of that, with his snazzy social media campaign and spirited mien.
We already know from Donald Trump’s ascendancy that both these things matter hugely in politics today. But Democrats have yet to pick candidates who are as good at politics as they are at policy, let alone to create the sort of grassroots network of political influencers that Republicans leverage so well. Doing both will be crucial to victory in the congressional midterm elections, as well as the next presidential election.
That said, lesson number two is that the left shouldn’t veer too far left when it comes to policy. Mamdani’s campaign promises — rent freezes, free buses, and a minimum wage of $30 — are never going to come to fruition. (Good luck getting centrist governor Kathy Hochul, who controls key budget and policy issues for the city, on board, let alone key business interests.)
This could create cynicism, which will play into the hands of Republicans at both the local and the national level. You can already imagine the jokes about New York becoming Venezuela, where socialist Hugo Chávez only made the economy and social problems worse.
That said, lesson number three — and this is the most important one — is that Mamdani has landed on the single biggest political issue in the US for the next several years, which is affordability.
America, like many nations, has been experiencing a cost of living crisis for several years now, as inflation in areas such as housing, education, and healthcare outpaced wage increases. Trump was able to use the issue of inflation to take down Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, but the economy is now his to defend. His policies, including tariff uncertainties, political pressure on the Federal Reserve, and a new budget bill that creates huge fiscal deficits, will drive inflation up.
This is all that Democrats should be talking about between now and 2028. Their message must explain how Trump’s Medicaid cuts funded tax breaks for billionaires and will create costly healthcare emergencies and bankruptcies for working people. They should hammer home that food assistance programmes have been cut even as private equity barons are encouraged to rack up debt via carried interest tax deductions. They should lay out how the unsustainable deficits created by the president’s “big beautiful bill” will probably require cuts to other popular programmes — such as Medicare or even Social Security — in the future.
But Democrats must do more than bash Trump. They also need to come up with honest answers for the cost of living crisis.
Let’s start with New York. Free buses remind me of the two hours of free state nursery services I enjoyed when I had a new baby in London years ago. It afforded me a nap, and I was grateful, but it wasn’t a childcare solution for a working mother. Mamdani’s free bus proposal is a response to the fact that people are struggling to afford basics like transportation to their jobs, but it won’t fix the city’s subway, which carries more than double the number of people riding on buses every day.
Making New York affordable requires more than slogans. On housing, rather than a market-distorting rent freeze, Mamdani would do better to run a comprehensive study on outdated laws that keep good living space off the market (here, I agree with the take of the “abundance” crowd).
I have personal experience with this as a former New York City landlord. A trivial code violation — the ground floor windows in my Brooklyn townhouse were six inches too short — means that the beautifully renovated garden apartment that I once rented out for half its market value to offset some of my own mortgage had to be ripped apart and turned back into a basement. It’s now my personal Pilates studio, which I’m sure would infuriate, but not help, the average Mamdani voter looking for living space.
What’s true in New York is also true at the national level. Democrats need sharp candidates with honest, doable ways to reduce the cost of living in America, something that is a worry even for those who are solidly middle class. Mamdani’s support was highest among people making between $60,000 and $150,000 a year. While cost of living issues in the city are extreme enough to support populism, more moderate and progressive candidates in other states are also running on affordability.
This argues for flipping the Biden playbook. The next Democratic presidential candidate will have to talk less about manufacturing, more about inflation (and Trump’s contribution to it), and come up with solid ideas about how to make America affordable again.
rana.foroohar@ft.com
