Michael Doyle argues that whilst the UK Left should welcome Zohran Mamdani’s primary victory, there are questions that need to be answered, one of which is why has a collectivist politics so readily adopted the ‘great leader’ model of politics?
Zohran Mamdani’s stunning victory over Andrew Cuomo is a welcome tonic for both the US and UK left. Perhaps no one other than the Clintons personifies the rot, arrogance, insatiable appetite for wealth and power for its own sake and stultifying ‘third way politics’ of the Democratic establishment more than Andrew Cuomo. Despite having to resign the New York Governorship over serious allegations of sexual harassment, the Democrats thought that Cuomo would be the ideal candidate to be the next Mayor of New York. What makes Mamdani’s victory so impressive is that he beat a political machine financed by the donor class – even Trump’s donors decided to aid Cuomo’s beleaguered campaign. Mamdani relied on social media – particularly TikTok – and a savvy retail policy offer that speaks to the material needs of New Yorkers.
If Mamdani, a thirty-three-year-old Muslim who self-identifies as a democratic socialist, wins the leadership of the most influential city in the world, then it would be a seismic moment. It would demonstrate that in Trump’s America, it is possible to offer a social democratic policy platform which can resonate with working class voters who voted for Trump in 2024, whilst refusing to follow the disastrous Corbynite strategy of repeatedly indulging a baseless antisemitism smear campaign whilst Israel continues its ongoing genocide in Gaza.
The left should welcome Mamdani’s victory – but should not get carried away by a rare success. Given the course of the last forty-five years, it is easy to get carried away when the left achieves a victory, however minor. Yet Mamdani is not mayor, and he will face an even bigger onslaught from the political establishment he has so utterly embarrassed. He faced a scurrilous and dirty campaign in the primary. Now that he is going into the general election, expect more smears and innuendo about his faith coming in from the darker corners of social media. Despite his loss, Cuomo is planning to run as an independent which could potentially wreck Mamdani’s mayoral bid.
Then there is what happens if Mamdani wins the mayoralty. It would be an incredible achievement and whilst it is too early to make the comparison, I cannot help but think of Ken Livingstone’s mayoralty of London. Elected as a radical breath of fresh air amidst the staleness of the third way centrism of Blairism, Livingstone quickly watered down his more radical pledges and adopted a posture of working within the system to extract tiny concessions.
Also, one has to understand the politics of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) to know why caution about Mamdani’s victory is not ‘ultraleftism looking for betrayal’. The DSA is committed to the Democratic Party. It believes that in order to advance ‘socialist policies’ (the policies of Mamdani and other leading DSA figures is really a harkening back to the New Deal Democrats of the 1930s), it must push the Democrats to the left. This thesis goes all the way back to 1960 when Michael Harrington wrote that ‘political realignment is a precondition of a meaningful socialist politics in America and create a real second party by uniting the civil rights movement with organised labour and driving out the Dixiecrats’.
However, the Democrats’ class character is a capitalist one. It is big business, whether in its Silicon Valley or Wall Street guise that sets the party’s agenda, not the folks who flocked to the Mamdani campaign. It is no coincidence that in the UK, Momentum – the organisation that emerged out of the Corbyn leadership campaign in 2015 – models itself on the DSA strategy of ‘inside-outside the party’. However, despite Corbyn’s endless promises to launch a new party, Momentum remains wedded to Labour. Others who were in the Corbyn milieu have now focused on a new messiah: Zack Polanski.
One certainty of recent years that has reasserted itself in recent weeks is the latest mania on the left around a new talisman. Already articles and tweets are being posted praising Mamdani for his communication skills and his ability to connect. However, one feels Corbyn vibes again around Mamdani. My generation – the millennials – have spent the last 15 years experimenting with types of political organising, ranging from decentralised autonomism to the cult of the leader. Corbynism was sustained from devotion to Corbyn and his strong moral core that underpinned his politics. Next it was Mick Lynch who jumped the very low bar of actually treating the UK media with the contempt it deserves.
Now it is Zack Polanski. Polanski has recanted his previous statements supporting the antisemitism smear campaign against Corbyn and he has accurately called Israel’s actions in Gaza what they are: a genocide. However, the Greens are a pro-NATO party, their leaders put out fawning tweets praising Joe Biden, their politics are fundamentally liberal. Moreover, the Greens have always tended to seek establishment respectability, lest we forget their participation in the People Vote campaign. Furthermore, the Greens are not a socialist party. The Greens are a complex hybrid of liberals, socialists and even small-c conservatives. If socialists wish to spend time – which is scarce given the multiple social crises capitalism is generating – trying to turn the Greens into a socialist party, they risk spending years being bogged down in procedural meetings that mean little to the wider public.
I do not have the answer to the organisational dilemma and there is no single answer to it. However, my preference would be for cadres engaged in shifting trade unions away from the New Realism disposition that still guides them and away from an economism that will only yield fewer and fewer rewards in this age of low growth. However, as the Corbyn project conclusively proved and the dashed hopes invested in Mick Lynch, it is clear that the great man of history approach will not work.
