Zohran Mamdani: A Blueprint for the Future of Progressive Politics?

A key pitfall that has plagued progressives in recent years is an over-reliance on jargon, technicalities, and argumentation for the sake of it. This, of course, has been one of the great achievements of neoliberalism: peddling ‘technocracy’ with such sustained force that even its supposed opposition has come to accept its fundamental premises. Mamdani took a radical departure from this pretentiousness, adopting a communication protocol that was based on the ‘everyday’ language of New Yorkers. While detractors slated him as a ‘used car salesman’, the vast majority saw his casual strolls around the city — shaking people’s hands, looking them in the eye, and listening to their struggles — as a breath of fresh air.

A certain joy and optimism constantly animated him, and among his greatest tools were wit and humour. When someone shouts “Communist!” at him as he mounts a bike, he replies, “It’s pronounced ‘cyclist!’” In response to billionaires like Bill Ackman lobbying against him, he quips, “He’s spending more money against me than I would even tax him. Habibi, I don’t even want that much!” Here was a ‘politician’ that wasn’t an old, hackneyed opportunist beholden to the interests of big corporations and the deep state but someone ordinary folk were able to see themselves in. A central reason for it was his approachability and refusal to go into ‘lecturing from behind the podium’ mode like so many well-meaning contemporary activists unfortunately tend to. Instead, he told authentic, meaningful stories. Whether driving to Iftar in a cab with a driver from Cote D’Ivoire that he went on a 15-day hunger strike with a few years prior, interviewing street vendors on the skyrocketing cost of supplies and the legal/operational bottlenecks they face, running marathons with fellow citizens across the city, or dancing with trick-or-treaters, Mamdani embodied the ‘spirit’ of the city at every step of the way and in a manner that didn’t feel staged or forced. In one of his viral videos names his top three restaurants in the city: Kabab King, Pye Boat, and Zayara. All owned and run by immigrant families and catering to working class communities. As anyone from a big city knows, food choice is a primary indicator of the extent to which one is integrated into its culture. Mamdani didn’t disappoint.

At the same time, however, he didn’t ‘disappear’ into the crowd either, owning his identity as not just a Muslim but a Shia-Muslim of Indian origin and born in Uganda. A viral image from his campaign was of him eating rice with his hands — which right-wingers were quick to label ‘barbaric’ before being reminded of how pizza and burgers are consumed. On the ‘controversial’ issue of Gaza, Mamdani took a principled and unambiguous stance calling it a genocide and promising to arrest Netanyahu if he stepped foot in the city while he was mayor. He never caved under pressure from legacy media and the political establishment on the issue either. In one of the debates, when the candidates were asked which country they would first visit as Mayor and every one named Israel in a bizarre humiliation ritual — Mamdani stood his ground and said he would remain in New York City and attend to the needs of its citizens. Just 10 days prior to election day, he doubled down: posting a heartfelt six-minute monologue in which he delves into the harrowing history of post-9/11 Islamophobia and the consequences for Muslims of ‘carrying a stain that can never be cleaned’. He did so without any apologetic caveats or preambles. It was a 180-degree turn from the standard political strategy of Democrats for the past decade, dilly-dallying on crucial concerns so as not to ‘alienate’ anyone, and in the process transforming into a party that stood for nothing at all. The clip received 25 million views on X alone.

On policy, he kept it absolutely barebones — focusing all his attention on the issue most central to the public: rising costs of living. Rent, food, travel, and childcare are all currently far too unaffordable. There was no need to ‘convince’ anyone of this, it was — and is — a lived reality. He was the only candidate to name the beast, and do so in a matter-of-fact way. Increasing taxes on the wealthiest in the city is how he proposed to fund the construction of housing units, run grocery stores and daycare centres, and make free, high-quality buses available to all. That was the entirety of his ‘agenda’ as mayoral candidate. It was simple, relatable, and memorable. No 100-point manifesto of empty promises and platitudes about fixing every nook and cranny in the city. No elaborate charts and infographics carefully crafted by consultants to signal intellectual superiority. No mindless ideological bickering about what his democratic socialism ‘truly’ meant, and what his stances were on Mao, Lenin, and Castro. Perhaps most interestingly, Mamdani did not engage in identity politics of any sort throughout his campaign: a move that opened up a broad pathway for conservatives (9% of his voters were ex-Trumpers) to switch alliances.

Last but certainly not least was his grassroots mobilisation campaign. With an army of 50,000+ volunteers, his canvassing strategy — whether door-to-door or over the phone — was built upon a foundation of granting people the time to talk about their pains and struggles in detail rather than simply asking them to vote for him. Organic relationships were developed in this manner over the course of a year, and approximately one in four of his voters in the primaries back in October were first exposed to him through his door-to-door campaign. A coalition of citizen groups led by the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) orchestrated the operation, running a four-tiered arrangement consisting of canvassers (those who knocked doors and made phone calls), field leads (those who managed the former), field coordinators (those who coordinated schedules, oversaw publicity, and acted as liaisons with campaign staff), and the primary campaign staff who made all high-level strategic decisions. For all the seeming ‘spontaneity’ of Mamdani’s campaign, a highly structured and dedicated team led by citizen groups/communities actually did all the legwork behind the scenes — without which such a massive electoral victory would remain a pipe dream. These are the unsung heroes of the race who put sustained time and effort into the campaign and expected nothing in return other than the opportunity to live a dignified life free of predatory landlords and corporations. They got out there and fought for that opportunity.

Pakistanis celebrated Mamdani’s victory widely, but for many the main reasons were his immigrant, South Asian and Muslim roots and his status as a non-establishment figure rather than his deeply socialist ideology that many of them may not actually understand or identify with. Nevertheless, Mamdani’s victory has raised the obvious question, and even yearning, of whether someone like him could win in Pakistan. It’s important to note that someone like him was even able to win in the US, particularly in its biggest and most diverse city. So, rather than assessing the more ambitious issue of whether someone like him could win all over Pakistan or at the federal level, one must analyse a simpler possibility: can someone like him become even mayor in our largest and most cosmopolitan and literate cities like Karachi, Lahore, or Islamabad? Karachi may be the most obvious candidate as, like New York it is our largest city, our commercial hub, a city of immigrants and rife with huge civic problems that New York faces too, like crime, unaffordability, unemployment, ethnic tensions and more. Also, since the decline of MQM, no party has an iron-hold in the city, although PTI may be the most popular party at the moment. Thus, it may be more open to a rank outsider.

While many ordinary citizens may quickly and rightly blame status-quo powers as the main hurdle for a political aspiration like Mamdani in Pakistan, there is, as in New York, a secondary issue related to voters themselves: would they, even in our largest cities, be open-minded enough to elect someone from a religious minority, say a Hindu, Christian, or Ahmadi, with radical social and economic views? Very few minorities in Pakistan have experienced electoral success and most of them have historically done so on reserved seats or from minority areas like Tharparkar. Pakistani voters, even urban ones, are more risk averse and less open to voting for outsiders. They are also wary of secular and progressive politics given the systematic misinformation and hatred spread against it by the state and reactionary elements. A majority also does not see local government as highly relevant given its general disempowerment by provinces in Pakistan, which have continued to prevent genuine fiscal, political, and administrative decentralisation as outlined in Article 140A of the Constitution.

The second set of issues has to do with the hurdles created by status-quo politics against outsider politicians like Mamdani even from the majority group. The first one is partly technical in that mayors in Pakistan are generally indirectly elected. In Karachi, for instance, local government elections determine the constitution of union council committees, the chairpersons of which elect the head of the Karachi Metropolitan Corporation – also known as the mayor. Thus, a person like Mamdani would first have to get the right set of chairpersons elected which would then back him for mayorship. Secondly, the person and their panels would likely have to run on the platform of a smaller, peripheral party as none of our established parties would ever be open to sharing power with Mamdani-like radicals. The only reason Mamdani was able to run from the Democratic platform was because parties in the US, unlike in Pakistan, have primaries that determine candidates for general elections. Outright rigging, including vote tampering and harassment and even murder of candidates is an additional huge impediment that a Pakistani Mamdani would face. Money could be an additional challenge, although Mamdani faced the same and won regardless with the help of crowdsourced funds (small donations from many donors) – despite the millions rich opponents poured in against him. He showed that the way to overcome big-moneyed influence is through creative, innovative storytelling on social media and face-to-face engagement with people on the streets. In Pakistan, especially Karachi, physical insecurity would be a partial hurdle against doing that, more so for women. The absence of student and labour unions are an additional hurdle against grass-roots mobilisation.

Nevertheless, these issues must be seen as hurdles to overcome and not binding constraints. The success points of Mamdani’s campaign above do provide tips of what effective political strategy could look like for progressives in the contemporary age, particularly within major metropolitan centres – which in turn may inspire similar waves in peri-urban and rural zones.

Regardless of the extent to which Mamdani proves successful in delivering upon his campaign promises or whether someone like him can achieve political success in Pakistan, progressives around the world must understand that the era of academic-activism is over. Daily life issues matter most, and the gloom and doom of nihilistic worldviews is no longer appealing. Conservatives figured this out a decade ago, when they replaced carefully crafted political gamesmanship with raw authenticity based on commonsense. In the age of social media, keeping it real (as the kids say) and telling a compelling story that resonates with the many wins the day.

Oddly, the mayors of the two most cosmopolitan cities globally and the world's two biggest financial hubs-New York and London – will soon be immigrant socialist Muslims with South Asian roots. Why? The cities' cosmopolitanism obviously explains the mayors' cosmopolitan roots. But the cities' status as global financial hubs ironically explains the mayors' socialism. For even in these global financial hubs and the bellies of the beasts of capitalism, the majority are excluded from financial capitalism's benefits and hence yearn for an egalitarian system. Thus, the demand for economic justice is likely to only grow stronger as capitalism’s internal contradictions create more and more suffering for more and more people around the world. Socialism is the ideology that truly prioritises equal opportunity for prosperity to the vast majority. No system that does so can be a negative, irrespective of the propaganda the small minority that loses out in the process may peddle.

Long live the resistance.

Abbas Moosvi is a researcher, social activist, and development practitioner. He is a former managing editor of Discourse, a public policy magazine. He tweets at @AbbasMoosvi

Dr Niaz Murtaza is a development expert with a PhD from the University of California, Berkeley in Political Economy. He is on X @NiazMurtaza2