this post was submitted on 26 Jun 2025
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Mamdani, a proudly socialist 33-year-old, holds a 44-36 percent lead over over former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo – who was hoping that New Yorkers had short memories, and were ready to re-elect the textbook centrist Democrat.

However, after the disaster of Trump’s first year back in the White House – with everyday American life interrupted by protests, immigration raids, corruption allegations and the unshakebale feeling that the nation is about to enter World War 3… It seems the pendulum is swinging back towards left-wing politics.

It appears that the success of Mamdani isn’t so much a vote against Trumpian politics, but more a vote against the stale nothingness of the Democrats top brass – who, while pitching themselves as the progressive option in America’s political system, very seldom action – or even – offer – left-wing policies.

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[–] Gates9@sh.itjust.works 6 points 3 hours ago

They’re not shocked, they’re alarmed that the left has gained such a clear and dramatic groundswell of support and that they found a flaw in a mechanism they have traditionally used to tilt the scales in favor of machine incumbents.

They are taking steps to mitigate this, I would absolutely expect them to even overtly rig the general, and everyone should be paying attention to who owns the voting machines, whether the software is audited, and how the votes are tabulated.

[–] Gammelfisch@lemmy.world 5 points 4 hours ago

If Mamdani pulls it off, I hope he can keep his promises or at least give a good fight for common sense. For the moment, the USA is fucked up.

[–] BlameTheAntifa@lemmy.world 33 points 14 hours ago* (last edited 14 hours ago)

I don’t consider any of Mamdani’s proposals especially left-wing, either. They’re all bare-minimum, common-sense social programs that pay dividends. The fact that people are going mad over this tells you exactly how far gone the US has become.

[–] TaeKwonDoh@lemmy.world 41 points 15 hours ago (1 children)

Wait, so if candidates actually run on what voters want, they can succeed?

Amazing

[–] smeenz@lemmy.nz 1 points 2 hours ago* (last edited 1 hour ago)

Yes, because the new normal expectation is that common sense is far from common, and that no matter who you vote for, the results will be more of everything that's wrong with the world

[–] VoidJuiceConcentrate@midwest.social 18 points 14 hours ago (1 children)

absolutely disappointing that the Democrats would rather have a sex pest mayor than someone just a LITTLE more left than them.

[–] DancingBear@midwest.social 2 points 2 hours ago

I don’t think they care so much if you are left of them…. It’s left of center right that they are worried about….

[–] TankovayaDiviziya@lemmy.world 12 points 14 hours ago (1 children)

It appears that the success of Mamdani isn’t so much a vote against Trumpian politics, but more a vote against the stale nothingness of the Democrats top brass

People worth their salt, especially academics, mentioned this multiple times, neoliberal politics is no longer working. People want anything away from the forty-year old, outdated policies. Populism is getting a bad rap (either unintentionally or deliberately) but it is simply democracy. When surveyed, many voters who'd be open to vote right are also willing to vote left provided that bread and butter issues that affect day-to-day lives are addressed. Mamdani won the primary because he ran on providing common sense policies that the duopoly parties and oligarchs have brainwashed many Americans to fear. It seems that Americans are gradually waking up from establishment conditioning.

If American progressives continue with running on addressing bread and butter issues, and take away the narrative from the right, then the country could be saved from fascism. There may not need be a civil war to oust the Trump administration, but only time will tell.

[–] MutilationWave@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

I have met a shocking number of Trump voters who really like or liked Bernie Sanders. That number is four, but it's still shocking and I don't go out much. Obviously they aren't paying much attention to policy or reality, but I wonder how common this is? My father-in-law is one.

[–] Angry_Autist@lemmy.world 3 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

If you look at it in the way that both people promise to shake up the system

Sometimes the direction is less important than the action

I mean, fuck trump and the only thing he wants to shake is the pockets of everyone else, but there is a commonality that can't be ignored

[–] dubyakay@lemmy.ca 2 points 2 hours ago

I have you tagged as a whacky RP account in my client, but your posts have been markedly sane as of late.

Is it the meds?

[–] Katana314@lemmy.world 28 points 17 hours ago (2 children)

There’s also kind of an answer here to why people voted for Trump.

People are angry. They don’t necessarily know the best policies to resolve the country’s poor direction, but it’s clear to so many people that what we have isn’t working.

Many of us have had a conversation over drinks with a confident person at a party who maybe has a job you don’t understand well, and who just speaks confidently about all the things that are fucked up, and what they’d do in charge. As long as they don’t make claims of “Things are mostly okay”, they can make up any target: Immigrants, trans people, government overspending on overseas programs. The key is, they have to match the voter’s anger. The rest follows naturally.

I’d also say that’s how Obama got elected. He had a message of hope and change.

[–] mfed1122@discuss.tchncs.de 10 points 16 hours ago (1 children)

I know people who voted for Trump specifically because they thought the best way to make things better in the long run was to elect someone who would make things drastically worse first. That it was necessary for him to win to teach a lesson to various dysfunctional parts of the system that would otherwise be complicit in a decline to the same destination, differing only in speed.

[–] Uruanna@lemmy.world 10 points 15 hours ago* (last edited 14 hours ago) (1 children)

It's unfortunate that fascists don't give back power. I have a coworker who was getting fed up with people like Macron succeeding over here, and he was saying "sometimes I wonder about Le Pen getting elected, maybe it'll work to show how bad they really are at doing anything and people will finally vote left" (he's from Algeria, he absolutely 150% isn't a far right voter or even heavily religious himself) and when he saw Trump the first time, on Jan. 6, it finally registered in his head that you really can't give fascists a single step in the door, ever, even if they're shit at doing anything, you have to erase them everywhere because they're not shit at keeping and abusing power.

What's even more unfortunate is that the other people who are in power most of the time ("center right") don't actually want to keep fascists out of power if doing anything costs them power.

[–] Ensign_Crab@lemmy.world 2 points 4 hours ago

What’s even more unfortunate is that the other people who are in power most of the time (“center right”) don’t actually want to keep fascists out of power if doing anything costs them power.

Like you said, fascists don't give back power.

[–] VetOfTheSeas@discuss.online 13 points 17 hours ago* (last edited 17 hours ago)

I have two points to add to this:

1 - As a liberal, there was nothing more frustrating than having to vote for Kamala, a candidate who was aggressively "pro-cop", especially as many in the country were protesting for defunding cops. Youre not going to energize most people with an angle like "You want us to vote to stop Trump?"

2 - As a person who is part of the black/immigrant community, the government has a history of ignoring us for decades. It's not the federal government, but the local government too. Systematic racism has always kept us down. And I hate to say it, Trump got a wall going. Trump has ICE harassing immigrants. These are newsworthy events, even if they're in the wrong fucking direction. But a Democrat has a history of never wanting to create a ripple as they appeal to all sides.

[–] fodor@lemmy.zip 27 points 19 hours ago (2 children)

I don't think anyone is actually shocked. It's quite obvious that if you push policies that benefit large numbers of people, you might get support from large numbers of people. Of course that's not a guarantee, but it doesn't need to be.

But many Democrat politicians have been keen on appeasing their corporate backers by pretending otherwise, even though they knew it, we knew it, Bernie was saying it The cat has been out of the bag for a long time.

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[–] Critical_Thinker@lemm.ee 13 points 17 hours ago

Come on, look at the alternative that the PARTY chose. Cuomo was meant to be handed that position.

The parties don't give a shit about what the public wants. They have an agenda and they're working towards it. Any time a candidate comes along and tries to really help people with policy changes they are stabbed in the front by the other party, and stabbed in the back by their own.

[–] OmegaLemmy@discuss.online 8 points 17 hours ago (1 children)

I can only hope, and I hope mamdani inspired a new decade of socialist resurgence in elections, not just here but in LATAM, Africa, Europe and Asia

[–] emergencyfood@sh.itjust.works 9 points 16 hours ago (1 children)

You need to understand how politically backward the US is compared to Lat Am, Africa or Asia. My country is currently led by the most right-wing Prime Minister in our history. Even he will not talk shit about socialism, or try to stop our system of heavily subsidized healthcare (free for the poor) and university. There are communists in our Parliament, and they are seen as serious politicians, not some radical outfit.

The idea that Mr Mamdani's policies are somehow novel to us is laughable.

[–] FreakinSteve@lemmy.world 4 points 15 hours ago (1 children)
[–] emergencyfood@sh.itjust.works 5 points 14 hours ago (1 children)
[–] FreakinSteve@lemmy.world 3 points 14 hours ago

Yes, India and the US are wildly disparate cultures

[–] jj4211@lemmy.world 23 points 20 hours ago (1 children)

Frankly I don't know what folks should have otherwise expected. The "standard" candidate was a former governor who left the office in disgrace after misconduct.

Even if people were for whatever reason skeptical of a progressive candidate, the business as usual candidate was such a bad idea that people would rather go for it than vote for Cuomo.

Now we watch as Cuomo probably ruins everything by running in the general anyway. The same reason why people say the progressives that can't win Democrat primaries should bow out for general elections without RCV applies to "centrists" in the same boat. A progressive candidate won fair and square, stay out of his way.

[–] driving_crooner@lemmy.eco.br 6 points 17 hours ago* (last edited 17 hours ago)

With Adams and Cuomo running as independents, I think they are going to split the vote of the people that weren't voting for Mamdami anyway, and is going to actually help him.

[–] ThatsTheSpirit@lemmy.dbzer0.com 8 points 19 hours ago

Liberals in shock at effective policy choice 🙄

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