DSA’S NEW PLATFORM SEEKS TO ‘REPLACE’ PRESIDENCY AND SUPREME COURT, NIX ELECTORAL COLLEGE

Goldman was a Democratic leader in impeaching President Donald Trump, but he was not anti-Israel enough for Mamdani, who backed his former primary opponent, Lander. Espaillat is the leader of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, but Avila Chevalier is a true believer in the radical Democratic Socialists of America agenda of eliminating police officers, immigration law, and prisons, making her a true disciple of Mamdani’s far-left agenda.

Claire Valdez, the Mamdani-backed candidate who won the primary for the open 7th District seat, is also rabidly anti-Israel and pro-open borders. The vision Mamdani has for the party, and the country, is clear.

Democratic voters and politicians are intent to remake the party in Mamdani’s image nationwide. Socialist Graham Platner, a political newbie, was chosen by Maine Democratic voters over Gov. Janet Mills to run against GOP Sen. Susan Collins. In Michigan’s Senate race, Mamdani’s political allies, including Sen. Bernie Sanders (VT), Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (NY), and livestreamer Hasan Piker, have backed Abdul el Sayed, an Islamist who sympathizes with terrorists and obsesses over Israel.

The 2028 political positioning will begin in earnest after the 2026 elections in November, but you can already see that Mamdani is going to hold sway over the decision. The evidence comes courtesy of Kamala Harris, the former vice president who lost the 2024 presidential election. Harris clearly still wants to run for president again, has a built-in argument ready to go (Joe Biden’s late dropout forced her to run a truncated campaign!), and a consistent polling lead among hypothetical candidates, including California Gov. Gavin Newsom and 2020 presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg.

But Harris made a concerted effort to bolster her position by reaching out to Mamdani for a phone call in late June, shortly after Mamdani’s New York City candidates swept to victory in their primaries. Harris has reportedly been texting with Mamdani for several months now, and she has already signaled that she would be happy to shift to Mamdani’s position of constantly accusing Israel of genocide for fighting back against Hamas terrorists.

The myth of Mamdani

All of this eagerness to get close to Mamdani is based on the mistaken notion that his victory offers Democrats some sort of national model for future elections. Democratic politicians see the fawning coverage from liberal media and the enthusiastic Mamdani supporters on social media and think he has finally vindicated their deeply held beliefs that everyone is, deep down, a Democrat who just needs an enthusiastic candidate to awaken the left-wing activist inside of them.

In reality, Mamdani’s 2025 victory is unimpressive. Mamdani defeated disgraced former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, a scandal-ridden product of nepotism who did not even run a particularly serious campaign. Despite this, Mamdani pulled just under 51% of the vote, hardly the wipeout victory that his supporters had tricked themselves into believing it to be. This, in a city that elected its last two Democratic mayors with 66% of the vote. Simply put, New York City is far more left-wing than the rest of the country, meaning that the model used to win an election in that city is not replicable in other parts of the country, especially when the win is as uninspiring as Mamdani’s was.

You can even already see this with the polling performances of Mamdani’s acolytes. Maine Democrats happily lined up behind Platner, but his polling against Collins in their general election bout was pathetic. (The reason national Democrats were content to dump Platner after the sexual assault accusations were thrown into his bucket of scandals was that they all thought he was going to lose the general election anyway). In Michigan’s Democratic primary, el Sayed’s campaign appears to have peaked, as he trails Rep. Haley Stevens. New York City voters may be happy to elect terrorist-sympathizing socialists, but general election voters (Maine) and even some Democratic primary voters (Michigan) are not.

Still, Mamdani remains among the top two influential Democratic voices in the country right now. (The other being Newsom, an inevitable 2028 presidential candidate himself — Harris has mostly stayed out of the public spotlight for the past two years). Democrats think that Mamdani has some magic formula to generate enthusiasm among voters, when that enthusiasm is limited to the far smaller activist base of the Democratic Party.

For Mamdani, it’s all about me, not NYC

The giveaway that Mamdani is going to be the shadow president for a future Democratic administration is that he cares far more about national and global issues than about his own city, and that he constantly seeks out the national spotlight.

Take, for instance, Mamdani’s insistence on inserting his opinion into an Immigration and Customs Enforcement shooting in Houston, Texas. Mamdani, despite knowing nothing about the shooting and being the mayor of a city over 1,600 miles away, demanded a full investigation while already making his conclusion of such a hypothetical investigation clear with a call to “Abolish ICE.”

Mamdani made affordability the center of his mayoral campaign, but once he won, the mask dropped. As even the editorial board of the left-wing Washington Post noted, Mamdani’s victory speech was “23 angry minutes laced with identity politics and seething with resentment,” where he “abandoned his cool disposition and made clear that his view of politics isn’t about unity.” It was all an act.

The signs were always there. Mamdani cares less about New York City and American law than he does about “international law,” which is why he has promised to arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu if he ever steps foot in the city. Mamdani obsessed over Israel during his campaign, and still is now, despite the fact that he is the mayor of a city and not someone with any role in American foreign policy, because the latter is the power he truly wishes to possess.

MAMDANI FORGOT HE’S JUST A MAYOR. THE STATE DEPARTMENT HAD TO REMIND HIM

Mamdani wants to be in front of the camera at all times, which is why he turned the New York Knicks’ NBA Championship parade into an event that was as much about him as it was about the team. The biggest sign, though, that Mamdani sees himself as a presidential figure was on the Fourth of July, when he attempted to counterprogram Trump’s national speech with a national speech of his own. If presenting himself as the Democratic counterpart to Trump isn’t enough to make it clear how much power Mamdani wants over his party (and the country), then what bigger sign do you need?

Mamdani will never officially be the president, but whatever Democrat emerges from the 2028 primary will have his number on speed dial and will watch him continue to posture as a presidential figure and kingmaker within the party. Zohran Mamdani is less the mayor of New York City and more the Democratic Party’s shadow president, and that is exactly what he wants to be.