Gathering Mass (ZOH-MENTUM edition)
Sign up for a mass zoom call about Mamdani's campaign on Monday at 4 pm PT - open to all!
by Shauna McKenna
I appreciate all kinds of ways to advance the working class, but this is a week where I’m going to shout my organization from the rooftops. My organization being the Democratic Socialists of America, also the organization of Zohran Mamdani, a core member for the last eight years. And now the candidate with a massive advantage in the election for Mayor of New York City, following his decisive victory over Andrew Cuomo in the Democratic Party primary. It is a HUGE deal.
This is not the first time a DSA member has shocked the nation in this particular way. In 2018, Alexandria Ocasío-Cortez beat longtime party insider Joe Crowley in the congressional primary in Queens. Her campaign’s communication strategy was genius, with a video of her pulling taps as a bartender racking up views before online campaign ads became a cottage industry of their own. It made her larger coalition partner, Justice Democrats, something of a kingmaker in progressive politics, and delivered my organization its biggest bump ever. Until this week.
What’s different about Zohran is that he’s not just a DSA member; he began his political career expressly to extend DSA New York City’s collectively decided electoral strategy. Of the several members who became DSA’s notable New York Socialists in Office bloc, Mamdani was one of those most closely involved in organizational deliberations. I saw him speak live a few years ago at our biennial national convention, and there was no question he had both the talent and conviction to be our standard bearer.
His campaign kicked off with the chapter’s endorsement last October, and this is what makes truly coherent party politics distinct from transactional arrangements for data, vendors and cash – there would not have been a campaign without the support of his fellow members. We do not aspire to consensus, but we do make decisions together, because it is in collective decision-making that solidarity finds expression.
Rather than going on and on about the campaign, I’ll direct you to my friend Ben Davis’ contribution in The Guardian, which does a spectacular job debunking myths about Mamdani’s bases of popularity rooted in the only polling that matters: election day results. But I felt it worthwhile to speak up from all the way in the opposite corner of the country as a reminder that we too have our Zoh-mentum, and we too have the power to be free and fed, if only we organize for our moment. San Diego, let’s go.
P.S. Want to learn more from New York City DSA organizers about the Mamdani campaign? Sign up here for a mass zoom call about the campaign on Monday at 4 pm PT - open to all!
Shauna McKenna is currently cochair of the San Diego chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), and has served prior roles in national leadership with a variety of political objectives. While the views here are her own, she encourages you to check out dsasandiego.org to learn more about the chapter.