On the latest episode of Breaking History, Eli Lake dives into the background of American socialism—a movement poised to win its biggest victory next week if, as everyone expects, Zohran Mamdani wins the New York mayor’s race. Click here to listen to the episode and learn how the Democratic Socialists of America went from “beautiful losers” to the kings of New York. And be sure to subscribe to Breaking History wherever you get your podcasts.
Zohran Mamdani’s near certain victory in New York’s mayoral election next week will be a triumph for American socialism. Assuming the 34-year-old state assemblymember wins, it would represent the highest achievement for a political movement that began in 1901, when a former railroad man and union organizer named Eugene Debs helped found the American Socialist Party.
There have been a few bright spots, to be sure. Bernie Sanders nearly won the Democratic presidential primary in 2016. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has emerged as a national star since winning her House seat in 2018. Between 1910 and 1960, Milwaukee elected three socialist mayors who served a combined 38 years. Schenectady, New York and Reading, Pennsylvania also voted in socialist top executives. But for the most part, American socialism was a punchline: an aging New Yorker with food stains on his sweater lecturing an audience of seven people at a public library in Brooklyn about Reaganomics.
Now Mamdani is about to move into Gracie Mansion. And while it’s technically true that former New York mayor David Dinkins was nominally a member of Mamdani’s party, the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), Dinkins built his political career through New York’s Democratic machine. Mamdani, on the other hand, ran openly as a “democratic socialist” when he won the Democratic primary in June.