Warned That Republicans Will Make Him 'Poster Child of Democratic Party,' Mamdani Says: 'Let Them'

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani is not afraid to be seen as the future of the Democratic Party, even as Republicans and members of his own party's establishment wing—with a bit of help from corporate media journalists and pundits—try to paint the wave of democratic socialist victories as somehow a scary prospect.

"Republicans are going to make you the poster child for the Democratic Party," said Jonathan Karl of ABC News in an interview with Mamdani that aired Saturday.

"Let them," Mamdani responded without hesitation. "We don’t have to ask ourselves what life looks like if a socialist wins. I won last November, and over the course of these last six months, what we’ve delivered for working people are the very things we were told were impossible."

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"We’ve delivered free child care for two-year-olds for the first time in New York City history," Mamdani continued. "We’ve delivered tens of millions of dollars back to tenants who were taken advantage of by bad landlords. We’ve delivered 165,000 potholes being paved. And we’ve done all of these things while also delivering the lowest recorded crime in our city’s history. That’s what it looks like to have democratic socialism."

Mamdani also referenced the slate of three democratic socialists candidates running for US Congress—Brad Lander, Claire Valdez, and Darializa Avila Chevalier—who last week swept the Democratic primary in districts representing city voters.

"What you’re seeing," said Mamdani of the primary wins, "is that New Yorkers experienced this for six months and made the decision that they wanted to see more of it on the national stage as well."

"I think we are seeing a hunger that is not just felt by New Yorkers, but frankly by Americans from coast to coast, for a new kind of politics, one that puts working people at the heart of it." —Mayor Zohran Mamdani

He also said that this kind of politics need not be isolated to large cities like New York. "A democratic socialist can get elected anywhere across this country for any position," Mamdani argued. "I think we are seeing a hunger that is not just felt by New Yorkers, but frankly by Americans from coast to coast, for a new kind of politics, one that puts working people at the heart of it."

The victories of Avila Chevalier, Valdez, and Lander sparked a broader conversation across the political world in the US as members of the party's more pro-corporate establishment issued blistering warnings that progressive candidates are a threat, not a boon, to Democratic strength heading into the midterms and beyond.

In a satirical takedown of such thinking, USA Today columnist Rex Huppke on Sunday ripped into the mythical "center" (whatever that is) by calling it an "ambiguous blob-like thing that exists only in the minds of Democratic strategists whose brains stopped working in the 1990s."

In the column—titled "I am centrist Democrat and I am terrified of success"—Huppke writes:

Hello, I am a centrist Democrat who is terrified that progressive liberal candidates keep winning primary elections. I am also terrified of my own shadow, but this is somehow worse.

Suddenly, voters are being won over by liberal candidates—even a few who are democratic socialists!—who aren’t afraid to lean into populist messages with passion and an apparent drive to actually do things that will make people’s lives better.

What is that all about? Since when did the things voters want become so important?

"AUGH!" the tongue-in-cheek column continues. "What kind of radical Democrat would talk about taxing billionaires in a moment when income inequality is at the top of voters’ minds and people are struggling to afford food? That’s edging too far away from the center, which is the safe place where I reside and insist all other Democrats must reside. It’s nice here. There are comfy pillows a corporate lobbyist once gave me, and we just sit and occasionally furrow our brows."

Progressives inspired by Mamdani and the political breakthrough spearheaded by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) over recent years, say it is time to stop listening to corporate Democrat scolds like Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ), former Obama White House advisor Rahm Emanuel, and other Blue Dog and Third Way hangers-on.

Speaking at a Saturday event for Dr. Abdul El-Sayed, running as a progressive champion of Medicare for All and taking on corporate power in the race for a US Senate seat in Michigan, Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), who served as national co-chair of the 2020 Sanders campaign, said that he doesn't want to hear from members of the party establishment fearmongering over candidates who are winning support—not to mention primaries and elections—with strong working-class agendas.

“The last people who have any right to lecture us about electability are the establishment who lost to Donald Trump twice," said Khanna. "I don’t want to hear it. If you had anything to do with those campaigns, please sit down or exit stage left.”