Hope Is Not a Strategy: Mamdani’s Win, the Democratic War Machine, and the Work Still Left

I. THE VICTORY

Zoran Mamdani, a 33-year-old Democratic Socialist, has just won the New York Democratic primary, defeating Andrew Cuomo in a race that reeked of establishment panic. This is an extraordinary upset. Cuomo had $35.6 million at his disposal, backed by a constellation of super PACs, real estate donors, and the pro-Israel lobby. Mamdani, with just $9.1 million in campaign and public funds, ran a grassroots campaign.

This victory is about a politician making affordable housing, child care, free and fast transit his platform. And for a generation of young voters radicalized by Palestine, Mamdani’s win is also a referendum on American complicity in genocide. It is a rejection of war, of imperial consensus, of politicians who speak of building the most lethal fighting machine, while gutting out social safety nets, and bankrolling apartheid. More importantly, it reflects an increasing recognition that our failing public infrastructure and anti-people policies here at home are inextricably linked to our war economy, and policies that annihilate people abroad.

And behind Mamdani’s win is his campaign, built by hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers who canvassed, organized, made phone calls, and showed up in the dead heat of summer to fight for the idea of a livable city. They believe a decent political future is still possible. That belief — collective, disciplined, unapologetically hopeful — is the single most threatening act to the establishment.

II. THE MACHINE

As Zoran Mamdani mounted this campaign, what became clear was that the entire “liberal” establishment stepped in to smear him. The Atlantic ran a series of increasingly unhinged essays asking, at one point, whether New York was even a democracy. Journalist Sana Saeed, in a take that was both funny and far too close to home, quipped that now that Mamdani had a real shot, they were calling for “regime change” in New York. Jonathan Chait, never one to miss a chance to dig his racist fangs in, demanded to know why Mamdani wouldn’t denounce ‘Dangerous slogans”. This essay was accompanied, of course, with a photograph of Mamdani looking like the villain from Aladdin. From Matthew Yglesias to Charlie Kirk to Stephen Colbert, they all asked the same questions, variations of the same hollow refrain. 

But this is only the beginning. This is a primary, not a coronation. The fight ahead will be brutal, well-funded, and unforgiving. As CNN’s Chief Data Analyst Harry Enten put it, “The people who hate this result the most are the Democratic establishment. We’ve seen poll after poll after poll showing Democratic voters fed up with their leaders in Washington, fed up with their leaders in government.”

And that’s because the Democratic Party, bloated with billionaire cash and consultant rot, is often the fiercest enemy a democratic socialist or anyone with a spine on the left has to face. The establishment isn’t just nasty, it’s surgical. It co-opts what it can, smears what it can’t, and crushes what refuses to kneel. The problem with the Democrats isn’t ideology, it’s who they are, a large corporation that happens to contest elections in regular intervals. Unlike the Republicans, they don’t even fake respect for their base. They despise and chide them, openly and often.

III. THE ROAD AHEAD

Still, for a moment, New York is filled with hope and its electoral map has been remade. We hold on to this: the idea that insurgent politics can still rattle the foundations of a rigged democracy.

Yet: I’m just old enough to remember the giddy euphoria of Obama’s win that brief moment when the American empire put on a fresh face and a crisp tan suit. Hope was everywhere and we projected our most radical dreams onto a man already preparing drone kill lists by Tuesday afternoons. Obama went on to preside over one of the most violent presidencies of our time.

And it didn’t stop there. We saw it again. Bernie’s refusal to name what’s happening in Gaza, never quite willing to break from the systems he knows don’t work anymore. AOC’s foreign policy page on Palestine disappeared quietly after her win and since then, she has rubber-stamped Democratic war-making again and again. She even lied that Kamala Harris fought for a ceasefire. The pattern is clear. And so, knowing everything I know, I tread cautiously.

As we head toward the mayoral election, we still don’t know how the map will shift. Adams is still in the race. Cuomo might come back as an independent. Let’s say Mamdani wins, not just the primary, but the whole damn thing. He still has to govern a city, he will inherit an NYPD with drones, facial recognition systems, predictive policing software, and an international outpost in Tel Aviv.

What happens when the next wave of student uprisings hits the campuses? How will he respond? What happens when the sabotage begins ? The question isn’t whether Mamdani can win. It’s whether we are ready for what comes after he does.

That doesn’t mean we dim the joy. It means we hold both truths in our hands: the possibility of principled resistance as the only path forward, and the fact that power, once attained, must be held accountable. Always.

But the terrain ahead is brutal. A genocide is still unfolding in Gaza. We have as of today failed to break the siege. We are watching mass starvation in real time and doing nothing. Now, as the mayoral election looms, the Democratic war machine will regroup. The money will flood in. And we must ask ourselves not just what we are voting for, but how we will organize when the vote is over. Tonight is not the end.

Hope is radical, and necessary. But it is not a strategy. Strategy is how we survive the moment when hope feels betrayed. Still, this moment, this one matters. Not because we are naïve, but because we remember.