Mayors such as New York’s Zohran Mamdani show leftwing ideology can go hand-in-hand with effective governance
A trio of Democratic socialist victories in mayoral contests in three of the largest cities in the US has unleashed a new wave of hope on the left of the party. Zohran Mamdani and Katie Wilson took office in New York and Seattle, respectively, this year. Janeese Lewis George is set to follow in Washington DC.
As momentum around leftwing candidates appears to build, focus will turn to Los Angeles over the coming months, where another member of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) will attempt to continue this winning streak.
The common criticism of democratic socialism is that its proponents put their ideological interests before matters of effective governance. But after a string of high-profile wins, supporters are hopeful that Mamdani and others will prove the two can go hand-in-hand.
It’s because most Primaries are carefully controlled by the party leaders. Yes, there are requirements that are open and technically anyone with the correct paperwork/signatures/whatever else can run. But the people who control the two major parties locally have a lot of influence, and can make the job easier for theor preferred candidates.
Combine this with a dynamic where most general elections are already decided for one party or another, and this means the general election is basically a formality. In Congressional elections, you have gerrymandering that ensures that districts are drawn to drive certain results. But even in these Mayoral elections, you have the same problem because Republicans have abandoned the cities, and most cities here lean Democratic.
You might ask about third parties, but our FPTP system screws them over, too. There is just enough influence from the minority party to mean that a third-party bid that takes 25% of the vote might just hand the election to the minority major party, making all that effort on the part of the 3rd party counterproductive.
Our 2 party system is not formalized in any document. It is a result of how our electoral systems are structured. But that makes it even harder to reform, because we have to reform lots of little things (and a few big things) all at once.
The Republicans didn’t abandon cities so much as living in cities require living with rules that are made to make things better for everyone. This requires governing. The Republicans didn’t abandon cities, they abandoned governing.