The Election’s Big Winner: Socialism

Democratic candidates and causes won resounding victories across the board in Tuesday’s elections. California’s Proposition 50 to redistrict the Golden State in favor of Democrats overwhelmingly won, while Democratic contenders were catapulted into the governorships of New Jersey and Virginia. In the latter, the Democrats also picked up at least 10 seats in the House of Delegates, which was part of the nationwide trend of Democrats winning on the local, as well as statewide level.

This is largely because under our two-party electoral system, Americans have extremely limited choices, and voters mostly express themselves by voting against. Deranged, deluded President Trump may have contended on social media that the Republicans lost because he “wasn’t on the ballot,” but while this is literally true, the fact is, he was figuratively all over the 2025 elections, which was a referendum on the wannabe king and his disastrous reign. The electoral results are a total repudiation, rejection, and rebuke of Trump and his policies, as well as of the GOP at large, showing that the people really hate Trump and what he’s wreaking as he wrecks America (and the East Wing of the White House).

The exception to the notion that citizens mainly “vote against” in U.S. elections is the race for New York City’s mayor. Decisively winning with more than half the ballots in a three-way race in a high turnout contest, Zohran Mamdani’s campaign triumphed with the enthusiastic support of tens of thousands of door-knocking, phone calling, envelope stuffing volunteers who wore out their shoe leather pounding the pavements, in order to get their candidate elected. In Zohran’s case, ballot casters were voting for the state assemblyman to send him to City Hall.

Much has been made of Zohran’s ascendancy and popularity, which pundits have ascribed to his personal charisma, wit, TikTok panache, social media savvy, and so on. It’s true, that as the son of a noted movie director, Mira Nair, Zohran displayed an agile flair with 21^st century mass communications. The 34-year-old’s youthfulness also inspired young urban voters, while being a Muslim also stimulated the support of New York’s rising South Asian population. The Uganda-born contender of Indian ancestry also generated hope for the city’s hundreds of thousands of beleaguered immigrants, especially at a time when they are besieged by the tyrannical tactics of Trump’s “ICE-tapo” jackbooted goon squad.

All of the above is true, but there’s one more important, overriding reason why the masses turned out and voted for him: Zohran is an unabashed socialist, who articulated some of the key components of a socialist program in order to solve and/or mitigate New York’s affordability crisis for most residents. In addition to advocating peace for Palestine, Zohran ran on an easy to understand, practical platform of freezing the rent for rent-controlled apartments, free buses, city-owned grocery stores, no-cost childcare, and other pro-working class measures. To pay for this, Zohran proposes to raise the taxes of the wealthiest New Yorkers and corporations in the world’s financial center.

A card-carrying, dues paying member of Democratic Socialists of America, Zohran’s candidacy was fueled by the DSA’s dynamic, dedicated organizing. At the top of his acceptance speech Tuesday night, Zohran quoted none other than Eugene V. Debs, proclaiming he can “see the dawn of a better day for humanity.” By quoting Debs, co-founder of the Industrial Workers of the World (the Wobblies) and the Socialist Party’s five-time presidential candidate, Zohran was clearly identifying himself as being in the socialist tradition and putting the ruling class on notice that a new sheriff was in town, even as he fired verbal shots at his fellow New Yorker, Queens-born and raised The Donald. Much to the consternation of the oligarchs and their apologists in the chattering class, Zohran was throwing down the gauntlet to the billionaires, declaring that the other side in the class war was now fighting back. “Turn up the volume!” he thundered.

Brooklyn-born Bernie Sanders, who more than anyone else has dusted off the word “socialism” and restored it to its rightful place in the contemporary lexicon of U.S. politics, understands the world historical importance of Zohran’s victory. “I consider the New York City mayor’s race enormously important, not just for New York City but as a very profound statement in terms of what’s happening all over this country,” the independent senator from Vermont told John Nichols in an interview for The Nation (https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/bernie-sanders-zohran-mamdani-interview-2/). “I think there is profound disgust at the political establishment. People want real change, and a strong victory on the part of Mamdani, I think, will inspire people all across our country to fight for that change… And that they can go beyond the old establishment politics.”

At the core of Mamdani’s mandate is socialism, which fights for the rights of the many against the privilege and power of the few by demanding a sweeping redistribution of wealth to reduce, if not end, inequality. Although taking a page from his despicable mentor Roy Cohn, Trump redbaited Zohran, labeling him a “communist,” the mayor-elect is not a revolutionary. Indeed, historically speaking, Mamdani is more of a “Menshevik” than he is a “Bolshevik.” He’s a reformer working within the electoral system who ran as the Democratic Party’s nominee. Zohran is basically a social democrat, advocating a welfare state similar to the system that existed during the heyday of Scandinavian socialism. (BTW, ever wonder why the Nordic nations are often rated among the world’s happiest countries? It’s largely because of their features of socialism that guarantee people free/affordable essential services and a decent standard of living.)

The real victor of the Nov. 4 election is socialism, which mayor-to-be Zohran Kwame Mamdani’s election has put back on the table of U.S. politics. And if his campaign woke up the city that never sleeps and has electrified the nation, as the midterm elections loom, get ready for the congressional campaign former Seattle City Council member, Kshama Sawant, who is now running for the House of Representatives as a self-described “revolutionary socialist” and “Marxist.”

The increasingly unpopular, autocratic, elitist Trump is a modern-day Marie Antoinette who – as federal workers go without paychecks; the destitute, including children, are deprived of food assistance; and immigrants face arrest and deportation – says to suffering people: “Let them eat ballrooms.” Buckle up your seatbelts, America, socialism is making a comeback and is aiming to be in the driver’s seat. Billionaires beware: It’s going to be a bumpy ride.

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