Zohran Mamdani Won but Not for the Reasons You Think

Mamdani  knows who he is and what he stands for--the people who voted for him know neither

And in a year when Democrats have largely been floundering, there is no shortage of pontifications about why the young NY Assemblyman fared so well: affordability tops the list; his message was consistent; experience didn’t matter; he flooded the zone; Mamdani harnessed the energy on the left.

While some of these “reasons” may have played a role in Mamdani’s victory, it is something much more fundamental operating at a deeper level that provided the intellectual impetus behind his defeat of the New York establishment--especially the Democratic party’s version of that moiety. The new mayor-elect of New York knows who he is and what he stands for--the people who voted for him know neither.

Zohran Mamdani, 34, is a self-professed democratic Socialist. He was elected with just over 50% of the vote in a 3-way race with former Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Republican Curtis Sliwa.

How did New York City, arguably an archetypical metaphor for capitalism, elect a democratic Socialist--some have employed the term Communist--mayor? If one takes issue with the word Communist, consider Mamdani’s comment during the campaign that democratic Socialism must “seize the means of production.”

Mamdani ran on a platform which included free childcare, a rent freeze on NY City’s more than 1 million rent-controlled apartments, free bus service, and government-run grocery stores.

When you break the race down by income groups, the results are both surprising and instructive. The numbers reveal that Mamdani won decisively among all but the lowest and highest income groups.

When broken down by age groups, Mamdani won 18-29-year-olds 77 percent to Cuomo’s 20 percent and among the 30-44 age group, 70 percent to 27 percent

The failure of public education in America

At the same time, when broken down by ethnicity, Mamdani secured the black vote 55 percent to Cuomo’s 40 percent, carrying the Hispanic/Latino and Asian vote 52 percent and 60 percent, respectfully.

In a city overwhelmingly comprised of Democrats, Mamdani won every group except the poorest and the richest and won by a considerable margin among young people under 45.

So, why did Mamdani do so well with young people (roughly 75 percent of voters under age 45)? One reason could be that America’s youth have been taught neither in school nor in the broader culture about socialism--democratic or otherwise--and how it functions or fails to function in a democratic society.

Consider the democratic Socialism experience of the United Kingdom; it is less than exemplary regarding the economic well-being of its people. Britain’s post-World War II stagnation (with a brief respite under Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher) is a poignant reminder. But as Winston Churchill once famously observed, “The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings. The inherent virtue of socialism is the equal division of misery.”

Public education in the US has failed to accurately teach generations of students about socialism and communism. Moreover, a new movement is afoot in middle schools and high schools in which youth are being indoctrinated with pro-socialist and neo-Marxist rhetoric (DEI, critical race theory, etc.). The Trump administration is attempting to curb the problem by withholding funding for public schools and taking elite institutions to task.

Young Americans’ ignorance of and positive views towards socialism

But the infiltration of academia by socialist advocates has an extensive history. After Nazi officials closed what had become colloquially known as “The Frankfurt School” at Goethe University in 1933, this neo-Marxist movement found a new home at Columbia University in New York City, and rapidly gained influence in other top universities across the US.

Prominent Frankfurt School ideologues quickly gained national attention for their development of “critical theory.” Unlike classic Marxism, which focused primarily on economics (proletariat vs. bourgeoise), critical theory applies the Marxist lens of victim and oppressor to virtually all elements of society, especially cultural institutions such as the public-school system. Eventually, critical theory spawned a litany of new movements, some of the most notorious of which include “critical race theory” and, more recently, “critical queer theory.” Eventually, by the late 20^th century, the Marxist ideology began to seep into high schools and middle school curricula.

Neo-Marxists’ deliberate efforts to indoctrinate America’s youth for the past several years has paid dividends. The advent of social media, which most young people use to gather information and “news,” has had a major influence on young peoples’ opinions about socialism.

A 2019 Gallup poll found nearly half (49 percent) of Gen Y and Gen Z have a positive view of socialism, which remained relatively unchanged from 2010 levels, though positive views towards capitalism dipped precipitously (from 66 to 51 percent).

Judging capitalism by its works and socialism by its literature

A poll commissioned by the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation in 2020 found that 49 percent of Gen Z and 47 percent of Gen Y have a favorable opinion of the term “socialism.” On top of this, an Axios poll found that a massive 70 percent of Gen Y and 64 percent of Gen Z would vote for a socialist candidate.

A 2022 poll by the Pew Research Center corroborates this trend. Forty-four percent of those aged 18-29 said they have a positive view of socialism, compared to 40 percent who had a positive view of capitalism.

A final point: one critical factor in explaining Mamdani’s win was actually identified years ago by Sidney Hook, a New York University philosophy professor. Hook had been a Marxist in his youth, but subsequently became a prominent critic. In his 1987 autobiography Out of Step: An Unquiet Life in the 20th Century, Hook pointed out that, like many others, he judged “capitalism by its operations and socialism by its hopes and aspirations; capitalism by its works and socialism by its literature.”

This writer’s concern over the recent mayoral election in New York isn’t that the new mayor-elect is a 34-year-old, self-professed democratic Socialist; rather, it is that the people who elected him have no idea what they actually voted for, who they actually elected, what his views really stand for, or what that could mean for their future, for that of their children or New York City, itself.