People here are either in the optimistic group, thinking he is a genuine left guy and people in the other group are condemning him because he does not pass the ML purity test.

First of all, this is bourgeois politics in the city that hosts most of the global financial institutions in the world. So expecting him to win a seat with the Democrats with a very radical language in a country where there’s not a single leftist party in years able to win a single municipal government is a bit delusional. However, I am glad he is talking about socialism and is a mild defender of the Palestine cause. A symptom that socialism is gaining traction in society is when all kinds of opportunists start using socialist language, meaning they know these ideas are gaining traction.

And now the second point, this man is not even a mayor yet. We in the socialist side need to judge people over their actions, not their speech. It’s a common thing people to use partially radical language in the electoral campaign before giving a 180 degrees turn around as soon as they get to office. In Brazil we in the left like to say that during electoral campaign, when the Workers’ Party is in the opposition, it behaves as a radical Marxist party, but throws Marxism into the trash bin as soon as they get into office.

The third thing is not to be swayed by electoralism. This kind of tactic has been used for generations by people on the demsoc or socdem side, turning potential militants into domesticated voters. So even if Mamdani is half what he says, we still need to understand that votes don’t give us power, organizing does. It is better to have an opportunistic demsoc than a reactionary in the seat, however we should not have any illusions regarding this.