Even at a time when the Left in the EU and UK is struggling, the fact that someone in US politics like Zohran Mamdani can get coded as a wild Socialist shows how far to the Right the centre of gravity of American politics has shifted
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I'd bet that if he wins Mamdani will disappoint many people on Bluesky exulting about his victory by governing New York in the pretty boring vaguely Centre Leftish style of European mayors with diaspora backgrounds like Sadiq Khan or Belit Onay
If he stations NYPD outside every public school, every private school (if they ask for it), every house of worship & every hospital with orders to refuse federal law enforcement entrance absent a judicial warrant he will have earned his office imo
But that's not the point. The important part is that Mamdani winning opens the possibility for a replacement in the democratic party. A left populist takeover. That would change a lot of things.
The best change would be if people would stop falling for populists of any variety of politics. Anyone who tells you everything you want to hear and nothing you don't want to hear is just someone who is lying to you so you'll give them power over you. Reality isn't so utopian.
He's a genuine socialist, unlike Khan. Just not the caricature of what that means. I agree that he'll govern pragmatically, but knowing very well the sort of people who support and campaign for him, I don't see that disappointing them.
Tbh people will be happy enough that he’s not a serial sexual assaulter, a criminal and not favored by the billionaires
That’s enough to make him a hero of the people, whether or not he accomplishes a whole lot or not
Important note here is that the political divide and accompanying rethoric in the US is quite extreme.
The US right is exremely right (compareable to Russia and Turkey) while the US left isn't too far from European positions.
There was the 'actually Cameron may even be to the left of Obama' stuff 15 years ago
Also the perceived wisdom, til now at least, was that the Dems needed to give the Left a performative beating on a regular basis for electoral success (see also the UK)
I don't think it is just where the political centre of gravity lies (the present dem party moderates are hardly right of their Clinton iteration) but a weird confluence of DSA branding, racism+islamophobia, long term consequences of the 2nd red scare and perpetual 2016 primary relitigation.
Bernie calling himself a Socialist and DSA member AOC becoming the model for the progressive insurgent primary -while neither are particularly radical and both have decent institutional ties post 2020 - explains most of how this happened imo.
Oh and also worth mentioning that due to the nature of NY city and state intra dem party politics the DSA label (next to WFP association) developed to have some additional roles hardly related to socialism.
It's not just the US. In several EU countries there is no relevant leftwing party at all: Poland, Czechia, Hungary, and Germany might still get there, too...
Yeah, but with the opposite valence as Mamdani, both on I/P (Die Linke went from hosting Standing Together to calling Israel genocidal and whining about free speech, Mamdani's arc was the exact opposite) and in general (Die Linke is surging as an opposition party to Merz, not as a governing party).
Not even the most left wing political parties in Europe support anything like what the US Democrats do on immigration, birthright citizenship, and several other issues. I'm kind of done with lectures over this. Congrats to those European left parties on passing healthcare in the 1950s though!
Not exactly. In France and the UK it was restricted after too many nonwhites came in, so now the rule is that a person born in the country to two non-citizens has the right to obtain citizenship if they grow up in the country, but is not a citizen by birth.
Eh, refugee admissions here are a lot higher than in the US, sometimes by multiple orders of magnitude per capita; Warren's plan in 2020 would raise US per capita humanitarian admissions to the level of Denmark, more or less the capital of nativism in Northern Europe.
My sense is that the overall immigration flows into the US would've been unfathomable to any other European country except maybe 2015 Germany re: Syria (which Merkel quickly reversed, if I recall?)
I know Biden wimped out on refugee flows, specifically.
Die Linke has some good domestic policies, but it will probably not manage to bring the left wing of SPD and Green voters together with its historical voter base. I personally would not vote for them because of their views on Russia, which mostly remain very weak. I'm not a citizen anyway though.
Die Linke can't really have federal domestic policies because it's not interested in participating in federal coalitions; in 2021, when there could be a red-red-green majority, it made no effort to dediabolize and Baerbock cited foreign policy as a reason not to do red-red-green (and was right).
(In contrast, Nordic GUE/NGL parties have made their peace with participation in NATO and dediabolized enough that they're legitimate partners for social democratic-led coalitions, especially Vas in Finland.)
Western elite r showing that they would prefer to live under far right fascism rather than left or far left way of governance. Abundant evidence how MAGA is being normalised by Western elite & media across both sides of Atlantic Ocean. Rights, equality, law etc r talking points; Deeds difficult.
I would disagree with the characterization of "shifted". The political center of gravity in the US has been at least this far right, if not more so, since the 80s.
Also, left-wing progressives already fair well in cities all over Europe. This looks good for New Yorkers, but I don't see anything for the European left to learn from this
Agree. This is as far as IMO we as European politics scholars should go with these comparisons, because dig deeper and you end up too many structural differences between EU/UK and US. Especially with diverging forms of diaspora politics
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That’s enough to make him a hero of the people, whether or not he accomplishes a whole lot or not
If he's competent and of good character that's definitely enough.
The US right is exremely right (compareable to Russia and Turkey) while the US left isn't too far from European positions.
https://bsky.app/profile/andeu.bsky.social/post/3lkngz5o5g22n
There was the 'actually Cameron may even be to the left of Obama' stuff 15 years ago
Also the perceived wisdom, til now at least, was that the Dems needed to give the Left a performative beating on a regular basis for electoral success (see also the UK)
Hence, citizenship isn't a birth right just being born on French soil.
Germany liberalized to this in the 1990s.
I know Biden wimped out on refugee flows, specifically.