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ARE ZOHRAN MAMDANI AND KATIE WILSON DEMOCRATIC SOCIALISTS OR FDR
DEMOCRATS?  
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Peter Dreier
November 21, 2025
Talking Points Memo
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_ They Are Both _

, Getty Images/Wikipedia

 

Between now and next year’s midterm elections, the “S” word, and
even the “C” word, are going to get a workout. President Trump and
his allies have called New York’s socialist mayor-elect Zohran
Mamdani a Communist, a Marxist, a terrorist, and even a jihadist.
They’re warning that the U.S. is experiencing a wave of
“socialism,” a term that they hope still carries its hoary Cold
War connotations. They hope to make Mamdani the face of the Democratic
Party, a tactic intended to discredit its candidates in swing races.

During the Red Scare hysteria of the 1950s, American socialism fell on
hard times. Few Americans distinguished between the European
social-welfare systems and the communism of the Soviet Union or China.
Across the nation, universities, labor unions, public schools, movie
studios and other major institutions purged themselves of their
left-wingers. Even many liberals were afraid to speak out for fear of
being called a Communist and losing their jobs.

Through the Obama administration, the use of the term “socialism”
as a kind of political epithet was on full display, with the
president’s opponents — the Republican Party, the Tea Party, the
right-wing blogosphere, the Chamber of Commerce, and conservative
media figures such as Glenn Beck, Ann Coulter, Sean Hannity, and Rush
Limbaugh — labeling anything he proposed, including his modest
health-care reform law, “socialism.”

Over the last decade, however, something has started to shift.
Republicans have not stopped red-baiting, and they will continue to
shout “socialism” as they attempt to defeat Democrats next year
and in 2028. But the political climate has dramatically changed.
Americans, particularly those under 50, are more open to candidates
who call themselves socialists, so long as they have practical ideas
for solving their problems. They are reassessing their understanding
of socialism, and its place within American identity.

This is fitting: For more than a century, socialism has been integral
to American progressivism, championing early many of the reforms that
would eventually come into vogue on the center left.

We are seeing that dynamic play out again today.

From the margins to the mainstream

Mamdani is a member of Democratic Socialists of America, but most of
the one million New Yorkers who voted for him would likely not
describe themselves as “socialists.” The same is true of those who
voted for Katie Wilson, the socialist community organizer who will
become Seattle’s new mayor, or for the other dozen socialists who
were elected to office for the first time in November. There are few
self-identified socialists among the voters who supported the more
than 250 people now serving in office who are DSA members, were
endorsed by local DSA chapters, or, like Sen. Bernie Sanders of
Vermont, call themselves democratic socialists but have never joined
the organization.

There are now at least 135 DSAers and DSA-affiliated city council
members, 64 state legislators, 21 school board members, 6 mayors, and
three members of Congress. In November, voters in Atlanta; Detroit;
Tucson; Greenbelt, Maryland; Troy and Poughkeepsie, New York; Hamden,
New London and New Britain, Connecticut; and Amherst, Massachusetts
elected democratic socialists on their city councils. Minneapolis
added one new democratic socialist to its city council, bringing the
total to five. Ithaca, New York, added two, bringing the total to
three. Five DSAers serve on the Chicago city council and four serve on
its counterpart in Portland, Oregon. In Los Angeles, four of the 15
city council members are affiliated with DSA, and two others are
currently running for council seats that will be decided next year.
Voters have elected eight DSAers to the New York state legislature and
three to Pennsylvania’s. Last year, voters in Eau Claire, Wisconsin
elected socialist Christian Phelps, a freelance journalist and
organizer for Wisconsin Public Education Network, to the state
assembly, replacing a Republican.

To put that all in perspective, we haven’t seen so many socialist
office holders since, roughly, 1912. That year, Eugene V. Debs — the
Socialist Party’s presidential candidate — won more than 900,000
votes, 6 percent of the total (and fewer than the votes Mamdani got
for mayor). Debs might have garnered even more, but two other
candidates — Democrat Woodrow Wilson and Progressive Party candidate
(and former president) Theodore Roosevelt — stole some of the
Socialists’ thunder, winning the support of workers, women and
consumers with promises of such progressive reforms as women’s
suffrage, child labor laws and workers’ right to organize unions —
policies the socialists helped to mainstream.

Debs lost, but that year 1,200 members of the Socialist Party held
public office, from school boards to Congress, including 79 mayors in
cities such as Milwaukee, Buffalo, Minneapolis, Reading and
Schenectady. In office, they pushed for the expansion of parks,
libraries, playgrounds and other services, including public ownership
of utilities and transportation facilities, free meals for poor
schoolchildren, a living wage for workers, and a friendlier attitude
toward unions, especially during strikes.

This has been the pattern with American socialists. For more than a
century, their role has been to move so-called “radical” ideas —
proposals to make society more humane, more livable, and more fair,
and to give everyday people a stronger voice in their democracy and
workplaces — from the margins to the mainstream.

In 1916, Congressman Victor Berger, a Milwaukee socialist, sponsored
the first bill to create “old age pensions.” The bill didn’t get
very far, but two decades later, in the midst of the Depression,
President Franklin D. Roosevelt persuaded Congress to enact Social
Security. Conservative critics and big business groups denounced it as
un-American, even Communistic. But today, most Americans, even
conservatives, believe that Social Security is a good idea. What had
once seemed radical has become common sense. In fact, much of FDR’s
other New Deal legislation — the minimum wage, workers’ right to
form unions and public works programs to create jobs for the
unemployed — was first espoused by American socialists.

A crisis of capitalism

The DSA was founded in 1982, as the Cold War waned, after a merger of
two small leftist organizations. Before Sanders ran for president in
2016, its membership hovered around 8,000. Within a year after
Sanders’ first presidential campaign and then Rep. Alexandria Ocasio
Cortez’ victory in 2018, the number jumped to about 32,000.
Mamdani’s campaign inspired a new wave of membership, which now
exceeds 80,000 nationwide. The median age has declined from 68 in 2017
to about 33 today, according to DSA.DSA members, however, represent
just a tiny sliver of the Americans who offer support for socialism at
the ballot box. According to a recent Gallup poll, 39% of Americans
(including 66% of Democrats) have a positive attitude toward
socialism. Moreover, the proportion with a favorable view of
capitalism has plunged from 60% in 2021 to 54% today.

But even that figure underestimates that potential appeal of
socialist-like ideas among Americans. Polls show that a vast majority
of Americans share progressive views, even if they don’t describe
themselves as socialists. For example:

* 71%
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consider wealth inequality a serious national issue.
* 69%
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of Americans think the American economy is rigged to advantage the
rich and powerful.
* 82%
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view the influence of money in politics as a threat to American
democracy.
* 71%
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of Americans (including 53% of Republicans) think that billionaires
aren’t taxed enough.
* 63%
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of Americans — including 43% of Republicans — say tax rates on
large businesses and corporations should be raised.
* 82%
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say the cost of prescription drugs is unreasonable, and say profits
made by pharmaceutical companies are a “major factor” in the high
price of prescription drugs. Surprisingly, 89% of Republicans share
this view, compared with 78% of independents and 84% of Democrats.
* 62%
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of Americans — including 90% of Democrats, 65% of independents, and
32% of Republicans — think it is the responsibility of the federal
government to make sure all Americans have health care coverage.
* 59%
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support a single-payer or Medicare for All system (27% oppose the idea
and 14% had no opinion).
* 68%
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of Americans support labor unions, a significant increase since the
1960s.
* 83%
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support raising the federal minimum wage from the current $7.25 an
hour to $12, while 64% of voters (including 45% of Republicans) think
it should be increased to $17 an hour.
* 82%
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(including 76% of Republicans) support a federal paid family and
medical leave program.
* 73%
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of Americans support government-funded universal child care.
* These views align with the positions of DSA office-holders and
other progressive officials. In fact, nothing about Mamdani’s agenda
for New York, or Wilson’s for Seattle, is particularly radical. For
example, many cities around the world, and quite a few in the United
States, provide free public transit. Hundreds of cities already have
some form of rent control, including New York. Government-run grocery
stores — a Mamdani proposal on which right-wing voices fixated —
are successful around the world, operated by governments left, right
and center, and, in fact, already exist in New York
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* If Mamdani, Wilson, and other democratic socialists have any model
at all, it is not the authoritarian governments of Russia, China or
Cuba, but the social democracies of Scandinavia. These countries have
greater equality and a higher standard of living for working families,
stronger unions, and a much wider social safety net. They also have
free (or almost free) universities, universal health insurance, and
lower poverty.
* Like social democrats and democratic socialists, most Americans
agree that private businesses should be subject to rules that require
them to act responsibly. Banks shouldn’t engage in reckless
predatory lending. Energy corporations shouldn’t endanger the planet
and public health by emitting too much pollution. Companies should be
required to guarantee that consumer products (like cars and toys) are
safe and that companies pay decent wages and provide safe workplaces.
* They want to reduce the political influence of the super rich and
big corporations, increase taxes on the wealthy to help pay for
expanded public services like child care, public transit, and higher
education, and reduce barriers to voting. They support a higher
minimum wage, paid sick days and paid vacations, safer workplaces, and
unions. Socialists emphasize government enterprise, but even most
Americans favor government-run police departments, fire departments,
national parks, municipally-owned utilities, local transit systems,
and public state universities and community colleges.
* It was Mamdani’s and Wilson’s focus on affordability and
democracy that catapulted them into the winner’s circle. The lesson
for Democrats is not that all or even most of their candidates should
run as democratic socialists, but that they should embrace policy
ideas that help Americans who are worried about making ends meet,
concerned about the widening wealth and income divide, and upset that
our democracy is being gutted by billionaires. Indeed, the arrogance
and corruption of Trump and Elon Musk — and their obvious
indifference and cruelty toward Americans just trying to get by —
were a major factor in recruiting Americans to vote for Mamdani,
Wilson, and other socialist candidates, as well as Buffalo’s
newly-elected progressive mayor Sean Ryan and more mainstream
Democrats like newly-elected governors Mikie Sherrill in New Jersey
and Abigail Spanberger in Virginia.

A very American tradition

Throughout American history, some of the nation’s most influential
activists and thinkers, such as Debs, John Dewey, Helen Keller, W.E.B.
DuBois, Albert Einstein, A. Philip Randolph, Walter Reuther, Gloria
Steinem, and Martin Luther King Jr. embraced democratic socialism.King
believed that America needed a “radical redistribution of economic
and political power.” He told his staff, “maybe America must move
toward a democratic socialism.”

Conservative Americans love to recite the “Pledge of Allegiance”
and sing “America the Beautiful. Few probably know that Francis
Bellamy, a socialist Baptist minister, wrote “The Pledge” and that
a socialist poet, Katherine Lee Bates, penned “America the
Beautiful” in the 1890s.

In the early 1900s, socialists led the movements for women’s
suffrage, child labor laws, consumer protection laws and the
progressive income tax. Socialists were in the forefront of the civil
rights movement from the founding of the NAACP in 1909 through the
Voting Rights Act of 1965. Socialists have long pushed for a universal
health insurance plan, which helped create the momentum for
stepping-stone measures such as Medicare and Medicaid in the 1960s and
Obamacare today.

Mamdani, Wilson, and other elected socialists are well-acquainted with
the history of American socialism, including the opportunities and
pitfalls they faced when governing cities.

In the early 1900s, Milwaukee was the center of American socialism.
Dominated by the brewery industry, the city was home to many Polish,
German, and other immigrant workers who made up the movement’s rank
and file. In 1910 Milwaukee voters elected Emil Seidel, a former
pattern maker, as their mayor, gave socialists a majority of seats on
the city council and the county board and selected socialists for the
school board and as city treasurer, city attorney, comptroller and two
civil judgeships.

In office, the socialists expanded Milwaukee’s parks and library
system and improved the public schools. They granted municipal
employees an eight-hour day. They adopted tough factory and building
regulations. They reined in police brutality against striking workers
and improved working conditions for rank-and-file cops. Milwaukee’s
socialists improved the harbor, built municipal housing and sponsored
public markets. The socialists had their own local newspaper and
sponsored carnivals, picnics, singing societies and even Sunday
schools. Under pressure from city officials, the local railway and
electricity companies — which operated with municipal licenses —
reduced their rates.

Grateful for these programs, voters kept socialists in office. They
elected Daniel Hoan as mayor from 1916 to 1940. In those years,
Milwaukee was frequently cited for its clean, efficient management
practices, and its leaders boastfully called themselves “sewer
socialists.”

In April 1936, Time Magazine put Hoan on its cover. The story called
Hoan a “reform mayor” who “represents a party which has only
some 3,000 paid-up members in a city of 578,000 people. The city’s
bankers, utilities and big real estate owners are his “his sworn
enemies,” Time noted, and the local press is “solidly against
him.” Despite this, Milwaukee voters kept Hoan in office for 24
years. The reason, Time explained, is that Hoan “remains one of the
nation’s ablest public servants, and under him Milwaukee has become
perhaps the best-governed city in the U.S.”

New York City, too, has a history of adopting policies labeled as
“socialist.” Fiorello La Guardia, during his three terms as New
York’s mayor (1933–45), was in particular denounced as a leftist
by his critics. Though he ran an honest, efficient, and progressive
administration that helped lift the spirit and improve the conditions
of New York’s polyglot working class, business groups constantly
attacked him as an impractical radical. When La Guardia wanted the
city to purchase snow-removal equipment in advance of winter storms,
Comptroller Charles Craig said it was “the wildest kind of radical,
socialistic” idea. La Guardia once told the New York Times, “When
anyone raises a question about the existing order, he is called either
a reformer or a radical. It has been my lot to be called the latter.
Why? Only because I have consistently objected to things which I
believe unjust and dangerous.”

Socialists and the Democratic Party

In 1932, in the depths of the Depression, Norman Thomas, a Protestant
minister, ran for president on a Socialist Party platform that called
for old-age pensions, public works projects, a more progressive income
tax, unemployment insurance, relief for farmers, subsidized housing
for working families, a shorter work week and the nationalization of
banks and basic industries. Thomas figured that in such desperate
times, his message would appeal to voters. But many voters who may
have agreed with Thomas’ views did not want to “waste” their
vote on a socialist who had no chance to win and who might even take
enough votes away from the Democratic candidate, Franklin D.
Roosevelt, to keep Republican Herbert Hoover in office. Thomas did not
expect to win, but he was disappointed that while FDR garnered 22.8
million votes (57 percent), he had to settle for 884,781 (2 percent).
When friends expressed delight that FDR was carrying out some of the
Socialist platform, Thomas responded that it was being carried out
“on a stretcher.” He viewed the New Deal as patching, rather than
fixing, a broken system.

Following the success of his popular muckraking book, “The
Jungle,” about the horrors of Chicago’s slums and factories,
journalist Upton Sinclair moved to California and ran on the Socialist
Party ticket for the House of Representatives (1920), the U.S. Senate
(1922) and California governor (1926 and 1930), winning few votes. In
1934, Sinclair figured he might have more influence running for office
as a Democrat. He wrote a 64-page pamphlet outlining his economic plan
— “I, Governor of California and How I Ended Poverty” — and
entered the California Democratic gubernatorial primary.

Much to Sinclair’s surprise, his pamphlet became a bestseller across
California. His campaign turned into a popular grassroots movement.
Thousands of people volunteered for his campaign, organizing End
Poverty in California (EPIC) clubs across the state. The campaign’s
weekly newspaper, the EPIC News, reached a circulation of nearly one
million by primary day in August 1934. The campaign allowed Sinclair
to present his socialist ideas as common-sense solutions to
California’s harsh economic conditions.

Sinclair shocked California’s political establishment (and himself)
by winning the Democratic primary. Fearing a Sinclair victory,
California’s powerful business groups joined forces and mobilized an
expensive and effective dirty-tricks campaign against him. On Election
Day, Sinclair got 37 percent of the vote — twice the total for any
Democrat in the state’s history.

Sinclair did not win, but his ideas pushed the New Deal to the left.
After the Democrats won a landslide midterm election in Congress that
year, FDR launched the so-called Second New Deal, including Social
Security, major public works programs and the National Labor Relations
Act, which gave workers the right to unionize.

The Sinclair campaign taught socialists a valuable lesson: Rather than
run candidates on a third-party ticket, which would make them a fringe
political movement, they would not only continue to participate in the
key movements for a more robust politics and humane country, but also
work within the Democratic Party to push it to embrace more radical
ideas.

The new Gilded Age

As the Democratic Party finds its way, largely out of power amid
Trump’s authoritarian onslaught, oligarchs’ looting of government
and a precarious, worsening economy, New York voters welcomed
Mamdani’s laser-like focus on making the city more affordable,
including free buses, universal pre-K and child care, city-owned
grocery stores, and rent freezes.

New Yorkers also embraced his attacks on the city’s super-wealthy,
including the outsized influence of the Wall Street and real estate
industries. Voters favored Mamdani’s plan to increase taxes on the
city’s super-rich to help pay for improving and expanding public
services. This includes an additional tax bracket for New York City
residents with income over $1 million, which would be taxed at 5.9%,
and raising the state’s highest corporate tax rate from 7.25% to
11.5%.

Mamdani frightened many of the city’s, and the nation’s,
billionaires, who were used to getting their way in politics. Within
the last few weeks before the November 4 election, a few dozen
billionaires donated over $8 million to political action groups
opposed to Mamdani or in support of his chief rival, ex-governor
Andrew Cuomo. That last-minute war chest had little impact on the
outcome. Mamdani (who beat Cuomo in the Democratic primary in June)
garnered over half the vote in a three-way contest with Cuomo (running
as an independent) and Republican candidate Curtis Sliwa.

At the root of Americans’ growing criticism of capitalism and
support for socialist-like policies is the widening disparity of
wealth and income. The country’s 1,135 billionaires are today worth
$5.7 trillion, more than the combined wealth of the bottom half of
U.S. households. Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and Mark Zuckerberg alone
accounted for nearly $1 trillion in wealth. In 1965, CEOs were paid 21
times as much as the typical worker; it has since skyrocketed to 285
times. This year Starbucks is set to make over $25 billion in profits.
Brian Niccol, its CEO, made $95.8 million last year, while the typical
barista earned less than $15,000. Starbuck’s CEO-to-median-worker
pay ratio is 6,666-to-1.

More than one-third of Americans say they can’t afford an unexpected
expense of $400, with close to half saying they have less in emergency
savings than they did a year ago. Rents are skyrocketing, making it
difficult to save to buy a home. The median age of new homebuyers is
now 40 — the highest it has ever been. Meanwhile, in this new Gilded
Age, billionaires like Trump and Musk flaunt their wealth, engage in
the corrupt practices of crony capitalism, and reveal their disdain
for democracy and ordinary Americans. It is not lost on voters that
these are facts of the sort that America’s most well-known
democratic socialist politician, Bernie Sanders, injected into the
electoral conversation — messaging that has helped socialism’s
rehabilitation after decades of red-baiting.

Mamdani’s come-from-far-behind victory was made possible by an army
of over 100,000 volunteers. Some were veterans of earlier electoral
fights; some had been active in union, community organizing, and other
battles. For others, the Mamdani crusade was their first political
involvement. The same was true of the more than five million Americans
who participated in October’s “No Kings” marches and rallies
across the country, the largest one-day protest in the nation’s
history, many of whom are now part of the resistance to Trump’s ICE
and Border Patrol invasions of U.S. cities. The key organizers of
these efforts are progressives and leftists, but most of the
participants are simply people who are fed up with economic hard
times, fading dreams, and anger at the arrogance of wealthy
plutocrats.

These dynamics have helped put socialists into office, but winning
office is just a first step. For those who have had to actually govern
cities, Mamdani has perhaps the hardest task. He must run an
administration that focuses on civic housekeeping — getting the
trash collected, fixing the potholes, making sure the parks and
playgrounds are maintained, and guaranteeing that the schools and
hospitals have the resources they need and the police respond quickly
to 911 calls. To make that happen, he has to work with Gov. Kathy
Hochul and the state legislature, because the city lacks the authority
and money to adopt many of his ideas, which the real estate and
finance lobby groups will try to obstruct. Can the state’s liberals
and progressives, including DSA, push Hochul and state legislators to
embrace Mamdani’s agenda? For the next three years, he’ll also
have to deal with a hostile president, determined to undermine cities
run by Democrats. If the Democrats take back the House next year, it
could help to blunt many of Trump’s policies — including attacks
on the things that many New Yorkers and Americans rely on, such as
health insurance, food stamps and rent subsidies. If a Democrat wins
the White House in 2028, New York, and Seattle, could serve as
laboratories for a progressive agenda on jobs, environment, and
housing.

In his November 4 victory speech, Mamdani said: “The sun may have
set over our city this evening, but as Eugene Debs once said: ‘I can
see the dawn of a better day for humanity.’” If they want his
administration to succeed, Mamdani’s supporters need to recognize
the constraints he’s facing, give him leeway to forge compromises to
get things done, and mobilize when business lobbyists try to block
his proposals in the legislature. A better day is possible, but it
won’t happen overnight — in New York, Seattle or across the
country.

Peter Dreier is professor of politics and urban policy at Occidental
College. His books include "Baseball Rebels: The Players, People, and
Social Movements That Shook Up the Game and Changed America," "We Own
the Future: Democratic Socialism, American Style," "The 100 Greatest
Americans of the 20th Century: A Social Justice Hall of Fame," "Place
Matters: Metropolitics for the 21st Century," and "The Next Los
Angeles: The Struggle for a Livable City." From 1984-1992 he served as
a deputy to Boston Mayor Ray Flynn.

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