Election of Mamdani, others a huge setback for Trump: American scholar
Noted American economist and public intellectual Richard D. Wolff says that the outcomes of the recent elections in the US, the first since US President Donald Trump returned to the White House in January this year, in which all candidates he endorsed lost, is an early referendum for the Republican leader and his policies. The election losses come amidst his efforts to reduce the size of the federal government, which has resulted in a massive shutdown of government services.
Among the major political setbacks for Trump is the historic win of Zohran Mamdani as New York City Mayor, notwithstanding opposition from the billionaire class and Trump himself. Mayor-elect Mamdani, who describes himself as a democratic socialist, is the first Muslim to ever hold the position and the youngest mayor in over a century. Mamdani is the son of Indian-origin filmmaker Mira Nair and Ugandan academic Mahmood Mamdani, who is of Indian descent and was born in Bombay in 1946.
Wolff argues that Trump is now significantly weaker than he was before the election results. “All the candidates he opposed won; all those he endorsed lost, and mostly by large margins. Voter participation was much higher, signifying that many saw a reason to vote in this election against Trump and Trumpism,” points out Wolff, who is the founder of the media platform Democracy at Work. He is also Professor of Economics Emeritus at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and a Visiting Professor in the Graduate Program in International Affairs at the New School. He has earlier taught economics at Yale University and the City University of New York and is an alumnus of Harvard College, Stanford University, and Yale University.
He goes on to say that domestic critics will feel stronger and speak more loudly. “Inside Mr. Trump’s coalition, divisive strains will intensify. His donors now have reason to worry more about a post-Trump backlash that could hurt them more than Trump helped them (as his tax cuts did). Trump may well intensify his anti-left domestic attack politics to provoke a split inside the Democratic coalition as its centrist donors and leaders seek to distance the Democratic Party left to blunt Trump’s attack,” avers Wolff, who adds that, to distract from deteriorating internal economic and political conditions, Trump may look for more foreign military adventures to mobilise nationalism.
“Mamdani’s big win (an absolute majority of the 2 million votes cast) mobilises NYC against Trump with special meaning for immigrant communities. Coming after the electoral showings of fellow socialists Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Mamdani establishes socialism as a serious, fast-growing new component of domestic US politics (after 75 years of anti-left hegemony under the Cold War and its aftermath). It is a moderate socialism but will open the way for other kinds and tendencies within socialism to merge and build followings in the US,” states Wolff.
Trump has called Mamdani a communist — a pejorative term in the US.
In the elections held this week, Democrat Abigail Spanberger won as Virginia Governor, defeating a Republican rival. In New Jersey, Democrat Mikie Sherrill defeated Republican Jack Ciattarelli to become Governor. In Cincinnati, Democratic Mayor Aftab Pureval overwhelmingly defeated Republican Cory Bowman in the race.
As Wolff predicts, the wins have emboldened critics, and have even energised younger Democrat politicians to step up efforts. Bushra Amiwala, a 27-year-old Democrat of South Asian Muslim origin who is currently an elected member on the Board of Education in Skokie, Illinois, said in an email after Mamdani’s win, “A new, better politics is emerging, one rooted in community and determined to find bold, uncompromising solutions for the real struggles working-class Americans face.” Amiwala, who has the distinction of being the first Gen Z elected official in the United States and is now running to represent her district in Congress, added, “Mamdani’s opponent, Andrew Cuomo, lost because he represented everything that the American people hate about the old politics: narcissism, nepotism, corruption, and billionaire backroom deals.”
Meanwhile, the Kampala, Uganda-born Mamdani quoted India’s first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, generously in his victory speech. “A moment comes but rarely in history when we step out from the old to the new,” Mamdani told a jubilant crowd in New York on Wednesday. He quoted from Nehru’s historic midnight-hour speech as India became free in 1947.