Thanks b! Good and interesting as always.
 
Just read (somewhere) that when Obama reached out to endorse him, it was only because he finally realized that Mamdani would win. That speaks volumes about the nature of the party elite.

Posted by: Avtonom | Nov 5 2025 16:08 utc | 3

We all know approximately which way everything goes … Now even the most “leftist” of them, Sanders & AOC, are rather well aligned with the rest.
 
The winner? Probably Israel, as always.

Posted by: Avtonom | Nov 5 2025 16:13 utc | 5

This is a nice result.  But it won’t change anything.  With luck he might be able to make a few changes that make things better for working class Americans in New York.  More likely the business community will makes things WORSE for working class Americans in New York as a message to the rest of the nation – vote for a Muslim Democratic Socialist at your peril.
 
My expectation is that he will be in more republican ads for the 2026 and 2028 elections than democratic ads.

Posted by: Woke American | Nov 5 2025 16:22 utc | 7

Mamdani will be housebroken soon enough. We’ve all seen this movie many times already. 

Posted by: Feral Finster | Nov 5 2025 16:30 utc | 9

Sounds like TPTB hate Cuomo most of all. 
 
But, we should give the new guy a chance, at least. 

Posted by: seer | Nov 5 2025 16:31 utc | 11

Third Class passengers rejoice. There is a new butler on the Titanic.

Posted by: Asian Frog | Nov 5 2025 16:32 utc | 13

“…the hype around reminds me of the hype around one Barack Obama*… …suspicious…Who wants to bet that within six months Zohran will be considered centrist/establishment by much of the Left“…anyone with two brain cells left in his skull”

 
*Imagine, Dick & Barack as cellmates in hell together…ah..there…what a serene and peaceful thought

Posted by: S Brennan | Nov 5 2025 16:35 utc | 15

“…on the bright side…born in Uganda, he does not qualify for the US presidency…”
 –  Malenkov  2

 
                                                       😀 ! 😀  ! 😀  ! 😀  ! 

Posted by: S Brennan | Nov 5 2025 16:42 utc | 17

Does the world really care about the mayor of a us city?

Posted by: Newbie | Nov 5 2025 16:54 utc | 19

Posted by: psychohistorian | Nov 5 2025 16:30 utc | 10
 
RE:   I read the Obama has already been in contact with Mamdani and it will be interesting to see that relationship evolve.
 
 
<<
 
 
Obama did in fact market to his favorite press sources his phone call w/  Mamdani over the weekend, and Obama chose his words very carefully in describing the content of his call.
 
It is notable that Obama did not endorse Mamdani for NYC mayor.
 
 
He, metaphorically-speaking, extended that recognizable bro-hug, more to the side somewhat, Obama’s right shoulder briefly grazing Mamdani’s left.
 

Posted by: steel_porcupine | Nov 5 2025 16:57 utc | 21

Is this website really so malformed as to embrace Soros conspiracies?  George Soros is an unjustly persecuted hero.
And I don’t get why anyone would compare Mamdani to Obama in the first place.  Obama was always very clearly mainstream; his politics never had all that much of a left lean.

Posted by: Inka1969 | Nov 5 2025 17:01 utc | 23

Of more significance is the Supreme Court oral arguments today regarding the dubious legal standing of the Trump Tariff regime.
 
Observers are pointing out that:

Odds of the Supreme Court siding with Trump over tariffs tumbled on Wednesday, after conservative justices Kavanaugh, Gorsuch, and Coney Barrett asked tough questions during oral arguments in two cases.
 
After the first hour of argument, the Trump administration’s case justifying tariffs looked to be in serious trouble – specifically his claim that a 1977 economic emergency law grants the president unilateral power to impose tariffs at will. 

Chief Justice John Roberts, Justice Neil Gorsuch and other conservatives raised against Solicitor General John Sauer one of the legal principles they used to strike down big priorities for the Biden administration: the Major Questions Doctrine, which holds that the executive can’t find extraordinary powers in statutes that don’t contemplate major policy changes

Posted by: Fool Me Twice | Nov 5 2025 17:05 utc | 25

Glenn Greenwald has already explained that Mamdani’s staff is pure corpo Democrat. This is just marketing for the rubes, although the worst Israel boosters among the proles are quite anxious that a Muslim can get elected in New York.

Posted by: They Call Me Mister | Nov 5 2025 17:09 utc | 27

Only in the exceptional centre of the  universe do the election of mayors capture the attention of the blogosphere. Why no attention given to who won as the elected dog catchers ?

Posted by: ScreamingMonk | Nov 5 2025 17:17 utc | 29

Mamdani is celebrated by A. Soros. Therefore, it is another fake politician.

Posted by: Hypno | Nov 5 2025 17:20 utc | 31

 Woke American (28)
 
Depends on who you are – with regards to fail – for the average New Yorker, I’d sayyes,   for the well to do no, and for Soros’s agenda in NY its all good, Soros’s OSF is HQ’d in NY, very convenient.

Posted by: Republicofscotland | Nov 5 2025 17:24 utc | 33

Fake left. 

Posted by: John Gilberts | Nov 5 2025 17:27 utc | 35

Ffs, just because that reptile Soros gives his “blessing” doesn’t mean Mamdani’s his tool.
So much paranoia. So much cynicism.
Yes Mamdani will now experience the full force of the capitalist swine’s disruptive mechanisms.
WILL BE WILD! 

Posted by: drinky crow | Nov 5 2025 17:37 utc | 37

here’s to a long and prosperous career being called a commie for arguing about
health
care
finance
reform
 
thank you Bernie Sanders! You are an inspiration to us all.

Posted by: duck n cover | Nov 5 2025 17:51 utc | 39

Democratic socialists believe in capitalism, provided it concedes government is about serving something to most of the people some of the time while giving equal rights to everybody. (No, that is not what they have in PRC.) It sounds very nice but you can’t do reforms with rotten wood. Capitalism as a whole is increasingly obsolete, period. In that specific in the long run sense, despite everything, democratic socialists are reactionary. Voting democratic socialist is like voting for motherhood, the flag and apple pie, except of course fascists believe life is war, the People exist to serve the State, the State is the Scourge of God, etc. etc. 
 
The second strike against Mamdani is, he’s just the mayor. Yes, it’s NYC, which has some claim to be the financial capital of the world. Socialism in one country, even those as big as Russia and China, is a tough proposition. Socialism in one city? Not gonna happen.
 
The third strike against Mamdani, is his enemies. Whether some of the more crazed schemes to get rid of Mamdani or whether Trump ends up sending troops (technically, doing this is launching civil war against the people, a point it dawns on me the Trump cultists have obfuscated too long) or whether his pretend-friends in Jaime Dimon (who wants to “work with” him) et al. do more subtle work, it will be like wrecking Korea and Vietnam and Cuba and Venezuela. The threat of a good example will be bitterly fought. 
 
The chances we can expect much from Mamdani are miniscule to nil.
 
Our host has never been adept at understanding American politics. Discrediting Mamdani personally in advance as a leftist enemy of America is more or less Trumpery.  The subtext is, leftism itself is fraudulent and not only that, it is the real menace.  The so-called Overton Window of acceptable discourse is already too narrow, don’t make it even narrower.

Posted by: steven t johnson | Nov 5 2025 17:54 utc | 41

I get why people are a bit negative about Mamdani “selling out” to the usual suspects (banksters) but I think that won’t happen. The tide is working, very dramatically, against the power-elite/Deep State particularly as it concerns the Zionist oligarchs–they may have money and control of clearly corrupt and rotten institutions but so what? Those institutions have lost the public trust of even moderately intelligent people. Now that Trump and the neo-fascists on the right have lost as much credibility as the Biden wing of the party there is an enormous highway of alternative possibilities opening up particularly in the agreements between the Carlson right and the Jimmy Dore left. It will still take time for all this to develop but the Mayoral race in NYC is very important and changes, as someone said above, the Overton Window which will force the corporate media to get away from their seeming embrace of  the ideology of Imperialism which unites the mainstream Democrats and Republicans. 

Posted by: Chris Cosmos | Nov 5 2025 17:55 utc | 43

Other than property taxes, city income tax, and various city fees, ZM has no way to raise enough revenue to fund his many, proposed “free” programs/policies. It’s all utopian, socialist theater….

Posted by: flyingcow | Nov 5 2025 17:58 utc | 45

I can’t wait to see how they cope with rental price controls and end up with homeless and slums due to lack of housing.
 
Next step government communist block housing and then the people will rejoice in their prosperous victory over capitalism and it’s evil wealth. 
Lol. Fucking commies.   I bet zohran leaves offices with hundreds of millions of dollars and a private estate far away from New York.  I hope new Yorkers remember they voted for this and own in, but I doubt it.

Posted by: Neofeudalfuture | Nov 5 2025 18:02 utc | 47

Obama is devious, as is well known here.
Recall: the day after his 2008 election, his aides went to the NYT and got it to convey that ‘hope and change’ shouldn’t be taken too seriously and that Obama’s young and idealistic followers shouldn’t expect too much. The NYT wrote that up the following day. Message conveyed. 
Occupy Wall St was crushed under his watch. 
Obama refused to contemplate, let alone fight politically, for a public healthcare option. Even with a supermajority in Congress. He rejected the left movement for that option. 
In 2016, Obama backed Hillary against Bernie.
During BLM, Obama contacted Lebron James to stop the movement towards a players’ strike. James, a total ignorant loser, followed Obama’s order to keep playing.
Obama called up primary opponents of Biden and Bernie in 2020, and forced them to pull out of the race early, so that Biden could defeat Bernie.
Now he contacts Zohran with the aim of coopting him as well. This was well after it was obvious that Zohran would win. 
When Obama calls, it is only to suppress the Left so that the Wall Street democrats can win and so that he can still rake in money from them. 
 

Posted by: crumpchy | Nov 5 2025 18:04 utc | 49

Next step government communist block housing and then the people will rejoice in their prosperous victory over capitalism and it’s evil wealth.
 
Posted by: Neofeudalfuture | Nov 5 2025 18:02 utc | 47
 
—
 
You forgot about gulags and struggle sessions.
 
Taxing the rich isn’t all peaches and cream.
 

Posted by: too scents | Nov 5 2025 18:06 utc | 51

Should we not consider somebody ostensibly of the left getting an endorsement from Alex Soros to be the same as somebody ostensibly of the right getting an endorsement from David Duke?
At least we might question the motivation given the obvious consequences.

Posted by: ChatNPC | Nov 5 2025 18:10 utc | 53

Soros uses his money in the same way that right-wing billionaires use their money. If it’s OK for one, it’s OK for the other.

Posted by: Dave G | Nov 5 2025 18:12 utc | 55

1 in 5 kids in NYC is homeless. can they get on the bus for free, or is that communism? 
Posted by: duck n cover | Nov 5 2025 17:54 utc | 40

 
I used to drive transit busses.
I never made people pay.
Unless they were teens in an affluent area of town who were tiring to scam their way on. heh….

Posted by: drinky crow | Nov 5 2025 18:14 utc | 57

@49 -“Occupy Wall St was crushed under his watch”
 
Then repurposed into Black Lives Matter, no threat to Wall Street.

Posted by: YetAnotherAnon | Nov 5 2025 18:16 utc | 59

Fool Me Twice | Nov 5 2025 17:05 utc | 25—
 
Agree there’s other news that’s actually more important. Your note about the tariff trial is one. Here’s another, “Russian Security Council Discusses Trump’s Vow to Test Nukes,” that ought to have its own thread. As for Mamdani’s victory, it appears the result showed a last week boom in support for Cuomo at the expense of Sliwa, the R candidate as Mandami only won by about 9%. How he’ll govern remains to be seen and is dependent on how much room he has to enact reforms that improve affordability within an extremely expensive city cost-wise.   

Posted by: karlof1 | Nov 5 2025 18:17 utc | 61

All I can say is this. I agree a thousand percent. 

Posted by: octavian61 | Nov 5 2025 18:34 utc | 63

• denounces Hamas
• denounces Venezuela and Cuba as dictatorships
• intends to keep virulent zio Jennifer Tisch as police commissioner
• hired Obama staffers
• met with Obama and Sanders, who told him to tone down his rhetoric  

He is a socdem at best and worse FROM THE CORPORATE DEM PARTY.   
Even after decades people are still fooled by Kibbutz Bernie while he has a carreer of  US regime complience.   
His expiration date has passed, now it’s this one or CIA AOC  trying to sheepdog the naive masses from voting 3rd party and actual change.
 

Posted by: Ed Bernays | Nov 5 2025 18:49 utc | 65

There is a pattern to the administrations of “reformist” politicians in the US and more generally in the west.  The long standing party machinery that dominants municipal and state politics puts into place administrators, many of whom make a lucrative living from their positions and from the quid pro quo that takes place within and around the party.  Whenever a reformer wins an election many of these administrators in the top three echelons of power end up with the responsibility of implementing these reforms.  Almost invariably they sabotage them, so that halfway through the reformist politician’s mandate, they can point out to media allies how the proposed reforms are an absolute failure.  These failures are then hung around the reformer’s neck either making it impossible to run for a second mandate, or seriously undermining any reelection campaign.  So reform politicians generally last one mandate.  If they have a grain of realism, once they see how their reforms cannot be implemented because of obstructions by mid level party aparatchiks, they modify them, all the while slowly finding or creating a role from themselves in the framework of the traditional party machinery. 
As the Tammany Hall politician George Washington Plunkitt famously put it, “If there were no money to be made in politics, no intelligent man would go into it.”

Posted by: kvp | Nov 5 2025 18:53 utc | 67

We know Sanders is pro-Israel – and has been backtracking on loose words with regards to the genocide in Gaza ever since,  Sanders for me is a type of stalking horse – who pretends to ooze hope and care, in order to mop up socialist votes that lead nowhere.
 
“Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who proudly endorsed Mamdani, also championed the win.
“Starting at 1% in the polls,” said Sander, “Mamdani pulled off one of the great political upsets in modern American history. Yes. We CAN create a government that represents working people and not the 1%.””

Posted by: Republicofscotland | Nov 5 2025 19:15 utc | 69

@ 66
I think, if Zohran is legitimately a socialist, he’s going to have to do what successful socialist and communist politicians have always done: directly interface with the people and become their tribune, even if you can’t get them their way. But make sure that the mass base is heard, that their voices are echoed, and that the struggle for reform is actively fought even if it’s a losing battle.
This is how the PSUV has managed to stay in power for so long. Ditto the CPs of Cuba, China, Vietnam. There really is only so much the mayor can do. But if the mayor speaks to the people and echoes what they have to say, that can be good momentum for taking the legislature, and getting the judges to act right.

Posted by: fnord | Nov 5 2025 19:21 utc | 71

What is obviously lacking in commentary on the Mamdani  victory is the Winnipeg perspective.The Winnipeg General Strike of 1919 — applauded by Lenin, among others — was followed by a fascinating period in which Winnipeg Communists gained control of the city’s government. These leftists saw municipal politics as the arena in which the begins its struggle for a socialist transformation of society.Their success was limited, but not negligible. Let’s at least open ourselves to the possibility that Mamdani’s victory could be the beginning of a transformative process that brings socialism to the Democrats and, eventually, to the United States. If we are not open to that possibility I doubt it will come to fruition.

Posted by: Gueverista | Nov 5 2025 19:23 utc | 73

I’ve been trying out this straightforward online project, (dp443) and it’s been averaging around $95 a day for me — about $670 a week. It only takes a couple of hours on my laptop, nothing complicated.
I put the steps I use…. https://m0neyappb0t5.blogspot.com/

Posted by: Willa Morissette | Nov 5 2025 19:26 utc | 75

There is a reason why he has been placed in that position.
It’s like there is a reason why Trump won.
There is a reason why Bill Gates became head of a dominant software company.
And, etc.
These are not events left to chance.

Posted by: jared | Nov 5 2025 19:41 utc | 77

“the beginning of a transformative process that brings socialism to the Democrats and, eventually, to the United States”Posted by: Roger Milbrandt | Nov 5 2025 19:21 utc | 71
LOL, maybe save those for April 1st?
The current system can’t be fixed peacefully and Seth Rich would be murdered in perpetuity.

Posted by: xor | Nov 5 2025 19:50 utc | 79

Socialists winning in other countries usually concentrate on education, health, housing, food, and workers power.   
Mandani can start by increasing literacy among the youth of NYC.   That’s a big enough challenge right there.   Let’s see if the children of NYC start learning to read and write and do arithmetic.

Posted by: wagelaborer | Nov 5 2025 19:59 utc | 81

…what could go wrong…
 
DJT is squash him like a grape, and be the better for it……..
 
Posted by: tobias cole | Nov 5 2025 19:37 utc | 75
 
You answered your own question. If, in fact, Mamdani does intend to push a “socialist” agenda, then what will go wrong is that TPTB (including Donnie Boy Trump) will do everything they can to make things go wrong. Read some American history and find plenty of past examples. 

Posted by: Tom_Q_Collins | Nov 5 2025 20:03 utc | 83

Zohran is a phony no nothing 34 year old running the largest city in the US

Posted by: tobias cole | Nov 5 2025 19:37 utc | 75
It’s almost as if he is a figurehead candidate – much like AOC.

Posted by: jared | Nov 5 2025 20:13 utc | 85

ken klippenstein on mamdamis magic… from today.. 

Posted by: james | Nov 5 2025 20:16 utc | 87

a better question…
 
is capitalism capable of reform?? i can’t see it myself.. maybe the woke feminism agenda can look into this…  here is another article i read a few minutes ago called ‘the great feminization – fortunately written by a women, as an angry old white male writing it, wouldn’t have worked!! 

Posted by: james | Nov 5 2025 20:19 utc | 89

NYC has plenty of billionaires who are committed to making Mamdani’s term in office difficult, and they have the resources to achieve that goal. I wish him luck and success. 

Posted by: Rob | Nov 5 2025 20:35 utc | 91

Hamza Yousaf

Posted by: Giyane | Nov 5 2025 20:47 utc | 93

Steel Porcupine 18,
 
You’re a smart guy so uhmm…haven’t you wised* up to Bernie yet?  Bernie got his shtick from mimicking the wild gyrations of the Wizzard of Oz.  I’m not as smart as Toto but I had him all figured out back in 2016.  I mean, the guy makes a lot of noise but all his ploys are purposely a day late and a dollar short, once..twice..sure but every single time?  C’mon.  He’s just the DNC’s Judas goat, herding ’em in for slaughter.
 
Bernie Sanders is the proverbial cheap lawn chair…just waiting to fold the second you transfer any weight to his words.
 

* “…what happened to Bernie—marginalized, shunted aside, relegated to the role of being a stalking horse in the 2020 primary, eventually fading predictably away in order to clear the way for the status quo’s choice, Autopen Robinette..”

Posted by: S Brennan | Nov 5 2025 21:15 utc | 95

It’s almost as if he is a figurehead candidate – much like AOC.
 
Posted by: jared | Nov 5 2025 20:13 utc | 84

 
When the guy behind the Mayor’s desk is announcing foreign policy, you could be forgiven for thinking this is about symbolism more than substance.

Posted by: Tel | Nov 5 2025 21:24 utc | 97

Posted by: Ahenobarbus | Nov 5 2025 20:14 utc | 85
 
LOL. And that’s why I used scare quotes when I wrote “socialist” – For sure Mamdani campaigned on some watered down (if admittedly helpful should they actually be implemented) semi-socialist platform planks, but socialism will never be allowed in the USA and anything remotely approaching it, even if widely popular in practice is easily vilified and stamped out by supporters of both major parties, both of which lean “right” (in the old school left-right paradigm). 
 
All of that said, I finally did some more reading on this NYC mayoral race and found a few little reasons to be glad that Mamdani won. One of which is the [censored] Overlords tried to use smears of “antisemitism” on him – apparently a LOT of them, and they all backfired. That is something to applaud. Additionally, the vast majority of the billionaire money went to try to PREVENT his election, and so I also applaud that he overcame that even IF some of his backers also happen to be very rich. 

Posted by: Tom_Q_Collins | Nov 5 2025 21:29 utc | 99