Is Trump allowed to deploy National Guard on US soil?
President Donald Trump has called for 2,000 US National Guard troops to be deployed to Los Angeles where protests against immigration raids have escalated.His decision to summon the National Guard overruled the authority of California Governor Gavin Newsom, who called the move "purposefully inflammatory". At least 118 immigrants were arrested in operations across the city over the past week, which led to tense scenes as crowds gathered outside businesses thought to be raided.The LA County Sheriffs Department said crowds "became increasingly agitated, throwing objects and exhibiting violent behaviour", prompting police to use tear gas and stun grenades.Governor Newsom, along with the LA mayor and a California congresswoman said in separate comments they believed local police could handle the protests. Twenty-nine people were arrested, according to local officials.Follow live coverage here
Can the president deploy the National Guard?
To quell the growing unrest, Trump issued a directive under a rarely used federal law that allows the president to federalise National Guard troops under certain circumstances.The National Guard acts as a hybrid entity that serves both state and federal interests. Typically, a state's National Guard force is activated at the request of the governor. In this case, Trump has circumvented that step by invoking a specific provision of the US Code of Armed Services titled 10 U.S.C. 12406, which lists three circumstances under which the president can federalise the National Guard.If the US is "is invaded or is in danger of invasion by a foreign nation"; "there is a rebellion or danger of a rebellion" against the government; or "the president is unable with the regular forces to execute the laws of the United States". Trump said in his memorandum requesting the National Guard that the protests in Los Angeles "constitute a form of rebellion against the authority of the Government of the United States".According to experts, this is the first time the National Guard has been activated without request of the state's governor since 1965.In 1992, the National Guard was federalised in LA during riots after police officers were acquitted for the beating of black motorist Rodney King.Then-President George HW Bush sent troops at the request of California's governor at the time, Pete Wilson.In 2020, National Guard troops were deployed in some states in the wake of protests over the killing of George Floyd.
How have officials responded to Trump's order?
Senior figures in the Trump administration have backed the president's decision to mobilise the National Guard. Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth said on social media it was "COMMON SENSE", adding: "Violence & destruction against federal agents & federal facilities will NOT be tolerated." Republican Senator Markwayne Mullin told CNN: "Does it look like it's [the protests] under control? Absolutely not."However that has been rejected by several Californian officials who insist city police are equipped to deal with the unrest, and the military's involvement is unnecessary. California congresswoman Nanette Barragán, a Democrat who represents the city of Paramount in LA's suburbs where the protests have taken place, told CNN: "We don't need the help."The National Guard is "only going to make things worse," she said. Her words echo that of Governor Newsom who also spoke against National Guard troops being sent to his state."The federal government is taking over the California National Guard and deploying 2,000 soldiers in Los Angeles — not because there is a shortage of law enforcement, but because they want a spectacle," Newsom wrote on X. LA Mayor Karen Bass told ABC7 the National Guard's deployment was uncalled for.
What has ICE been doing in LA?
Trump re-entered office with the aim of executing the "biggest deportation operation" in US history.The White House set a recent goal for ICE officials to make at least 3,000 arrests per day, as the total number of deportations has fallen below Trump's expectations.The immigration raids and arrests have stirred anxiety in communities across the US, where agents have appeared everywhere from work places, to people's homes, and court houses.The ambitious deportation campaign has included rounding up migrants on military planes and sending them to Guantanamo Bay, a notorious US military detention facility accused of human rights abuses, before bringing them back to Louisiana.Other migrants have been deported to a mega-prison in El Salvador, including some who were in the US legally. Some migrants have been sent to countries where they are not from. Many of these actions have been met by legal challenges in court.
How has LA responded to the raids?
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers swept through heavily Latino parts of LA on Friday executing Trump's crackdown on illegal immigration, leading to dozens of arrests.The Los Angeles Times reported 44 people were arrested, citing a homeland security official. In one scene on Friday, several protesters clashed with federal agents outside of a clothing wholesaler. They threw objects at agents and attempted to block federal officials from carrying out their arrests. In response, agents in riot gear used flash bang grenades and pepper spray to tame the crowd.Outside a Home Depot shop in Paramount, roughly 20 miles (32 km) south of downtown LA, tear gas and flash bangs were deployed against protesters. In a social media post, ICE described the scene on Saturday, saying: "Our brave officers were vastly outnumbered — over 1,000 rioters surrounded and attacked a federal building."
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The Guardian
6 minutes ago
- The Guardian
‘A marker of luxury and arrogance': why gravity-defying boobs are back – and what they say about the state of the world
It was, almost, a proud feminist moment. On inauguration day in January, the unthinkable happened. President Trump, the biggest ego on the planet, was upstaged by a woman in a white trouser suit – the proud uniform of Washington feminists, worn by Kamala Harris, Hillary Clinton and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in solidarity with the traditional colour of the suffragettes. In the event, the white trouser suit barely got a mention. The show was stolen by what was underneath: Lauren Sánchez's cleavage, cantilevered under a wisp of white lace. The breasts of the soon-to-be Mrs Jeff Bezos were the ceremony's breakout stars. The only talking point that came close was Mark Zuckerberg's inability to keep his eyes off them. Call it a curtain raiser for a year in which breasts have been – how to put this? – in your face. Sydney Sweeney's pair have upstaged her acting career to the point that she wears a sweatshirt that says 'Sorry for Having Great Tits and Correct Opinions'. Bullet bras are making a sudden comeback, in sugar-pink silk on Dua Lipa on the cover of British Vogue and nosing keen as shark fins under fine cashmere sweaters at the Miu Miu show at Paris fashion week. Perhaps most tellingly, Kim Kardashian, whose body is her business empire, has made a 180-degree pivot from monetising her famous backside to selling, in her Skims lingerie brand, push-up bras featuring a pert latex nipple – with or without a fake piercing – that make an unmissable point under your T-shirt. Not since Eva Herzigova was in her Wonderbra in 1994 – Hello Boys – have boobs been so, well, big. It is oddly tricky to discuss boobs without sounding as if you are in a doctor's surgery or a fraternity house. The word breasts is rather formal. Boobs is fond and familiar, which feels right, but sniggery, which doesn't. Bosoms are what you see in period dramas. Knockers, jugs, melons, hooters, fun bags? Whatever we call them, they are full of contradictions. Men see them and think of sex; babies see them and think of food. They contain a liquid without which the human race could not until recently have survived, but they are also one of the most tumour-prone parts of the body. You can admire them in the Uffizi, the Louvre and the National Gallery, but they are banned on Instagram (Free the nipple!). They are nursing Madonnas, and they are Madonna in a conical bra. They are topless goddesses and top shelf; entirely natural yet extremely rude; and they are, right now, absolutely everywhere. There is a whole lot going on here. In America, the impact of the Trump administration is going way beyond policy, reshaping culture at a granular level. The Maga ruling class has a thirst for busty women in tight clothes, which fuses something new – what Zuckerberg has called 'masculine energy' – with nostalgia for 1950s America. (The 'again' in Make America Great Again may not have a date stamp, but it comes with a white picket fence.) As a symbol of fertility, full breasts are catnip to a regime obsessed with breeding and keen to limit reproductive freedoms. Boobs are in the eye of the storm of the current gender fluidity rollback, too. Nothing says boys will be boys and women should look like women more than Bezos's Popeye biceps next to Sánchez's lace-edged curves. They used to say that a picture was worth a thousand words; in today's ultra-visual culture, that rate of exchange has steepened. The fact that a culture that was, until a few years ago, sensitively exploring gender as a complex issue has now regressed to the level of teenage boys watching American Pie for the first time says everything about how things have changed. Since 1962, when Timmie Jean Lindsey, a mother of six from Texas, became the first woman in the world to have silicone implants, breasts have been a lightning rod for the battleground between what is real and what is fake. The debate that catapulted Pamela Anderson to fame in the 1990s has become one of the defining issues of our time. It turns out that breasts, and beauty, were just the start. Artificial intelligence has jumped the conversation on. From Mountainhead to Black Mirror, we are now talking not just about real boobs v fake ones but about real brains v fake ones. In the battle between old-school flesh and blood and the prospect of a new, possibly improved, version of the human race, breasts have been leading the culture for 63 years. In a nutshell, the world is losing its mind over the girls. 'The State of the Union is … boobs' was the New York Post's succinct verdict on the charms of Sweeney, while Amy Hamm wrote in the National Post that they were 'double-D harbingers of the death of woke'. On inauguration day, onlookers were divided between outrage at an inappropriate level of nudity and admiration for how Sánchez's 'Latina auntie' energy showed her, um, balls. All of which makes it a weird time to have breasts. When writer Emma Forrest saw the author portrait taken for the jacket of her new novel, Father Figure, her first thought was, 'Oh wow, my boobs look huge.' She is wearing a plain black T-shirt, 'so that must be OK, right? It's not like I'm wearing a corset. I feel I should be allowed to have people review my books without having an issue with my boobs. But who knows.' Breasts have always had the power to undermine women. After a double mastectomy and reconstructive surgery, Sarah Thornton found herself with much bigger breasts than she had wanted – having asked for 'lesbian yoga boobs', she woke up with D cups – and wrote her book, Tits Up, to make peace with her 'silicone impostors' by investigating their cultural history. Breasts, she writes, are 'visible obstacles to equality, associated with nature and nurture rather than reason and power'. Since she was a teenager, Forrest has lived with 'the assumption that having big breasts means being messy, being sexually wild, having no emotional volume control. I have had to learn to separate my own identity from what other people read on to my body.' It's Messy: On Boys, Boobs and Badass Women is the title of Amanda de Cadenet's memoir, in which she writes about developing into 'the teenage girl whose body made grown women uncomfortable and men salivate', recalling the destabilising experience of having a body that brought her overnight success – she was a presenter on The Word at 18 – while simultaneously somehow making her the butt of every joke. If the length of our skirts speaks to the stock market – short hemlines in boom times, long when things are bad – breasts are political. Thirty years after the French Revolution, Eugène Delacroix painted Liberty Leading the People with a lifesize, bare-breasted Liberty hoisting the French flag, leading her people to freedom. A century and a half later, women burning their bras at the 1968 protest against the Miss America pageant became one of the defining images of the feminist movement – never mind the fact that it never happened. (Protesters threw copies of Playboy, and some bras, in a trash can, but starting a fire on a sidewalk was illegal.) Intriguingly, decades when big breasts are in fashion seem to coincide with times of regression for women. Think about it. The 1920s: flat-chested flapper dresses and emancipation. The 1950s: Jayne Mansfield and women being pushed away from the workplace and back into the home. The 1970s: lean torsos under T-shirts, and the women's liberation movement. Sarah Shotton started out as an assistant in Agent Provocateur's raunchy flagship store in Soho, London, in 1999, when she was 24, and rose to become creative director of the lingerie brand in 2010. Her 15 years in charge have seen Agent Provocateur rocked by the changing tides of sexual politics. In 2017, the year #MeToo hit the headlines, the company went into administration, before finding a new distributor. Shotton says, 'I have always loved sexy bras, and it's what we are known for. But there was a time when it felt like that wasn't OK. Soon after #MeToo, we had a campaign lined up to shoot and the phone started ringing with all the agents of the women who were supposed to be in it, pulling their clients out, saying they didn't want to be seen in that way.' But the brand's revenues have doubled in the past three years. 'Last year we shot a film with Abbey Clancy and Peter Crouch, where she's in really sexy lingerie and he's playing pool. I remember saying, 'This is either going to go down like a ton of bricks or people are going to love it.'' It seems as if they loved it: the company's sales are expected to hit £50m this year. 'I think a younger generation now want what we had in the 1990s and 2000s,' Shotton says, 'because it looks like we had more fun. My generation of women had childhood on our BMX bikes, then when we were in our 20s, your job finished when you left the office and you could go out drinking all night if you wanted to. I think we really did have more fun. Life just didn't feel as complicated as it does now.' The bestselling bras, she says, are currently 'anything plunging and push-up. Racy stuff. Our Nikita satin bra, which is like a shelf for your boobs and only just covers your nipples.' Sign up to Inside Saturday The only way to get a look behind the scenes of the Saturday magazine. Sign up to get the inside story from our top writers as well as all the must-read articles and columns, delivered to your inbox every weekend. after newsletter promotion The legacy of the 1990s, when feminism and raunch became bedfellows, has left the world confused about breasts. Before that, the lines were pretty simple – the flappers throwing off their corsets, the feminists protesting over Page 3. But Liz Goldwyn, film-maker and sociologist (and granddaughter of Samuel Goldwyn Jr), whose first job was in a Planned Parenthood clinic and who collects vintage lingerie, doesn't fit neatly into any of the old categories. 'Third-wave feminists like myself grew up in the riot grrrl and burlesque days, where we embraced corsets and kink along with liberation and protest,' she says. Goldwyn collects, loves and wears vintage lingerie, while abhorring Spanx. 'I would rather go to the dentist than wear shapewear, but I find nothing more satisfying than to colour-coordinate my lingerie drawers.' Wearing a corset, she says, 'makes me breathe with more presence'. Breasts have always been about money and class as well as sex and gender. The Tudor gentlewomen who wore dresses cut to expose their small, pert breasts were proudly indicating they had the means to afford a wet nurse. Sánchez's inauguration outfit – tiny white Alexander McQueen trouser suit, lots of gravity-defying cleavage – 'taps into the fact that people who are that wealthy can have the impossible,' Forrest says. 'It is pretty difficult to have a super-slim body and big breasts. Her body is a physical manifestation of something much bigger, which is the hyper-wealthy living in a different reality to the rest of us. The planet might be doomed, but they can go to space. It's a 'fuck you' marker of luxury and arrogance.' The vibe, Goldwyn agrees, 'is very dystopian 1980s Dynasty meets 'let them eat cake'. I would never disparage another woman's body, but I have no problem disparaging her principles … in claiming to stand for women's empowerment, yet attending an inauguration for an administration that has rolled back reproductive freedoms.' Surgery – the blunt fact of boobs being a thing you can buy – has crystallised the idea of breasts as femininity's biggest commercial hit. (They are at times referred to, after all, as prize assets.) The primitive – survival of the fittest, in the thirsty sense of the word – is now turbocharged by enlargement is the most popular cosmetic surgery in the UK, with 5,202 procedures carried out in 2024, according to the British Association of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons. When Jacqueline Sanchez Taylor interviewed women in 2010 about their experiences of breast augmentation for her research into the sociology of cosmetic surgery, 'a lot of young women told me they were doing it for status'. Not to show off, but to show 'they had made it. They felt they were being good citizens: going out there and making money, but also wanting to play the part of being feminine.' Breasts, Sanchez Taylor says, 'say everything about who a woman is: about femininity and fertility, class and age.' They are at the centre of the industrial complex that has grown up around female beauty. 'I remember sitting in a consultation with a woman and her surgeon, and him saying cheerfully, 'Oh yes, you've got fried egg breasts. But we can fix that.'' Fake is no longer scandalous or transgressive. The vocabulary of plastic surgery has been gentled and mainstreamed to become the more palatable cosmetic surgery. The older women of the Kardashian family have been coy about having had work, but 27-year-old Kylie Jenner recently shared on social media the details of her breast surgery – down to the implant size, placement and name of surgeon. Unreal is here to stay, and the new battle line is between perfection and imperfection. The generation growing up now, who have never seen a celebrity portrait that wasn't retouched, have never used a camera that doesn't have filters, take 20 selfies and delete 19 of them, have an intolerance of imperfection. To put it bluntly: normal looks weird to them. So it seems natural – even if it isn't really natural – that celebrity boobs are getting bigger even as celebrity bodies are getting smaller. 'We are in a really weird place with the body, particularly in America,' says Emma McClendon, assistant professor of fashion studies at St John's University in New York, who in 2017 curated the New York exhibition The Body: Fashion and Physique. 'What we are seeing now is definitely not about the bigger body. It is a very controlled mode of curviness, which emphasises a tiny waist.' (Very 1950s coded, again.) 'GLP-1 weight-loss drugs are having a cultural impact on all of us, whether or not you or people you know are on them,' McClendon says. 'The incredible shrinking of the celebrity body that is happening in America is creating this idea that your body is endlessly fixable and tweakable.' Hairlines can be regrown, fat melted, wrinkles erased. For most of the past half-century, fashion has held out against boobs. With a few notable exceptions – Vivienne Westwood, rest her soul, adored a corset-hoisted embonpoint – modern designers have mostly ignored them. Karl Lagerfeld insisted his models should glissade, ballerina style, and disliked any curves that veered from his clean, elongated lines. And yet in the past 12 months, the bullet bra has come back. A star turn on the Miu Miu catwalk was presaged last year by a cameo in the video for Charli xcx's 360, worn by photographer and model Richie Shazam, and by influencer and singer Addison Rae, whose lilac velvet corset creamed into two striking Mr Whippy peaks at a Young Hollywood party last summer. To seal the revival, none other than the queen of fashion – Kate Moss – wore a bullet bra under her Donna Karan dress in a viral fashion shoot with Ray Winstone for a recent issue of Perfect magazine. Perhaps the bullet bra, which can be seen as weaponising the breast, is perfect for now. 'Fashion is the body, and clothes turn the body into a language,' McClendon says. The bullet bra is steeped in a time when 'domestic femininity was repackaged as glamour', Forrest says. 'A postwar era, coming back from scarcity and lack and hunger, when Sophia Loren was sold as a kind of delicious luxury truffle.' Goldwyn is a fan. 'A perfectly seamed bullet bra lifts my spirits (and my breasts) if I am in a foul mood,' she says. 'I hope we can reclaim it as symbolic of resistance, defiance and armour.' In the backstage scrum with reporters after she had made bullet bras the centrepiece of her Miu Miu catwalk show, Miuccia Prada said the collection was about 'femininity', then she corrected herself: 'No – femininities.' Prada has been using her clothes to articulate the complexities of living and performing femininity for decades, and this season it led her to the bullet bra. 'What do we need, in this difficult moment for women – to lift us up?' she laughed, gesturing upwards with her hands, surrounded by pointy-chested models. 'It's like a new fashion. I think the girls are excited.' Half a millennium after Leonardo da Vinci painted the Madonna Litta, his 1490 painting of the Virgin Mary baring her right breast to feed Christ, which now hangs in the State Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg, Russia, another Madonna found her breasts in the spotlight. In the late 1980s, Jean Paul Gaultier was experimenting with conical bras in his Paris shows. 'He took inspiration from his grandmother's structured undergarments,' says fashion historian Amber Butchart, 'and used them to herald self-liberation. I don't generally like the word empowering – it doesn't tend to mean much – but that was very much the idea.' In 1989, while Madonna was preparing for her 1990 Blond Ambition world tour, she phoned Gaultier and asked him to design the wardrobe. On the opening night, in Japan, Madonna tore off her black blazer to reveal that iconic baby-pink satin corset with conical cups. 'Do you believe in love? Well, I've got something to say about it,' she declared, before launching into Express Yourself. The silhouette, which could be seen all the way from the cheap seats, would end up scandalising the pope and costing the world's biggest female pop star a lucrative Pepsi deal. Boobs have always been good at capturing our attention, and they have it right now. Hello again, boys.
The Sun
13 minutes ago
- The Sun
Explosive moment fuming driver pounds ‘idiot' motorist's car with bat before he's almost squashed by bumper
THIS is the shocking moment a bloodied driver smashes up a car with a bat before being rammed out the way by an "idiot" motorist. Explosive footage captured the enraged bloke approaching a white Nissan in the middle of the road before unloading on the driver's side window. 6 6 The motorist, identified as Mike Chaltry, says he was left fuming after being cut off on a downtown Milwaukee freeway - sparking a heated reaction. Chaltry claims the reckless driving left him almost crashing into the other car's bumper so he decided to pull over and give the fellow driver a piece of his mind. But Chaltry says he was savagely punched in the face through the car window seconds when he stopped. This left him with a bloody and broken nose. As the pair followed each other off the freeway they came to a head at a set of traffic lights as a heated shouting match commenced. The video picks just as the roadside chaos unfolds as Chaltry goes up to the man's car. As claret continued to pour down his face, Chaltry looked to get his revenge as he brandished a bat and started to attack the Nissan. The dramatic footage showed the blood-soaked driver violently swinging at the windows and destroying a wing mirror. As the battering continues, the Nissan driver quickly backs up - appearing to hit the person behind him who films the altercation. The motorist then angles the car towards Chaltry and puts his foot down. His acceleration knocks Chaltry off his feet and sends his flying into another car in the lane across who is stopped at a traffic light. The move leaves Chaltry pinned between both cars as he wrestles to escape by continuing to swing at the window. After a few clean hits and a badly smashed up passenger door, the Nissan driver finally pulls away. But due to the lights still being red he is forced to simply wait at the junction as Chaltry rushes over and unloads a final huge blow which leaves one of the the back windows completely shattered. Speaking on the hectic moment, Chaltry told WISN 12 News he doesn't like people calling him the 'face of road rage' in Milwaukee due to what the video doesn't show. He said: "I'm not the one who started it. I mean, he was driving like an idiot. "He sucker punched me through the window of my car and broke my nose - I got stitches. 'He put my life in danger three times. When he hit me on the highway, when he punched me in the head and when he tried hitting me with his car. "There's no need for that. I just don't get it. I was angry, but I had good reason to be angry. He didn't.' Cops confirmed they have since arrested the Nissan driver for suspected battery. He was also caught and handed citations for driving without insurance or registration papers. Due to his role in the row, Chaltry faces possible charges for disorderly conduct and criminal damage to property. It comes after his case was referred to the Milwaukee County District Attorney's Office this week. 6
The Guardian
16 minutes ago
- The Guardian
A roadmap to beat Trump? How rise of Zohran Mamdani is dividing Democrats
The Friday night before election day, Zohran Mamdani, the 33-year-old democratic socialist running for mayor of New York City, walked the length of Manhattan, from Inwood Hill Park at its northern tip to the Battery – about 13 miles. Along the way, he was greeted by a stream of New Yorkers enjoying the sticky summer night – men rose from their folding chairs to shake his hand, drivers honked in support and diners leapt up to snap a selfie with the would-be leader of their city. A feelgood video of his trek, produced by Mamdani's campaign, captures the 'only in New York' quality of his ascendance, from little-known assembly member to the all-but-official Democratic nominee for mayor of America's largest city. His stunning political upset, triumphing over the better-financed, establishment-backed former governor, Andrew Cuomo, who conceded the race on Tuesday night with only the first round of votes counted, carries what many Democrats hope is an unmistakable message to their party's old guard: it's time to pass the torch. Mamdani himself said he viewed the election as a referendum on a crumbling status quo. In his election party speech, delivered in the first minutes of Wednesday morning, he vowed 'to govern our city as a model for the Democratic party – a party where we fight for working people with no apology'. With a relentless focus on the cost of living, a relatable online presence and an army of volunteers tens of thousands strong, Mamdani – who would be the first Muslim mayor in the city's history – defied conventional wisdom that said Cuomo – the 67-year-old scion of a prominent New York political family with a massive war chest – was invincible. And he did it in a way that many Democrats from across the ideological spectrum believe might offer a roadmap for winning back the voters they have lost touch with, in the first major primary election since Donald Trump reclaimed the White House. 'The establishment, at this point, is suicidally clinging to a version of power it no longer even has,' said Amit Singh Bagga, a Democratic strategist and former New York City official. 'We have made this choice to not evolve – and if you do not evolve, you will walk your party – and potentially our democracy – up to the brink of extinction.' Early data suggests Mamdani's youth-powered campaign stitched together a new multiracial coalition, activating disengaged voters across the five boroughs, particularly in predominantly Asian and Hispanic districts. He won big in Ridgewood, Queens (where he notched 80% of the vote), and in nearby Bushwick, Brooklyn (79%) – the kinds of gentrifying neighborhoods where his younger fanbase lives. On election night, popular bars projected the results to amped-up patrons as if it were their Super Bowl. (The New York Times called this area 'the Commie Corridor', to the delight of the neighborhood's out-and-proud leftists.) Even residents of the financial district – the symbolic heart of American capitalism – voted for the democratic socialist. Speaking at a thinktank in Washington on Thursday, Democratic senator Elissa Slotkin, a relative moderate who represents battleground state Michigan and is viewed as a rising star in the party, said New Yorkers made two demands crystal clear. 'People, just like in November, are still really focused on costs and the economy and their own kitchen-table math – and they're looking for a new generation of leadership,' she said. Of Mamdani's campaign, Slotkin added: 'We may disagree on some key issues but understanding that people are concerned about their family budget – that is a unifying thing for our coalition.' Yet other corners of the party were raising alarms, warning that Mamdani's populist economic policies and pro-Palestinian views placed him beyond the pale of swing-voter consensus. 'What can work in Brooklyn is not the path for the battlegrounds,' said Kate deGruyter, communications director at the centrist Democratic thinktank Third Way. 'And I think we need to be really clear about that.' Whether the Democratic establishment ultimately decides to embrace Mamdani before the November general election may provide a clue as to its future. Polls and focus groups make clear that voters view Democrats as elitist and out of touch. In 2024, voters said Kamala Harris came across as overly scripted in her presidential campaign, especially compared with Trump's free-wheeling approach. 'You've got to let the candidate be themselves,' said Debbie Saslaw, co-founder of Melted Solids, the Brooklyn-based production studio that crafted some of Mamdani's most viral videos. Saslow and co-founder Anthony Dimieri said their work looked to amplify Mamdani's authenticity. He spoke about 'halal-inflation' in front of food trucks and cut campaign videos in English and Spanish. In others, he explained the city's ranked-choice voting system in Hindi and Urdu – and likened Cuomo to a 'Bollywood villain'. '[Mamdani] spoke the language of all New Yorkers, because people don't want to be pandered to,' she said. 'A meme only speaks to people who are extremely online. Our priority was going all around New York City and speaking to hundreds of people about the issues.' In 2024, the Harris campaign raised an eye-watering billion dollars, but many Democrats now believe a too-cautious media strategy cost her dearly. Mamdani – who once tried to launch a rap career under the name Mr Cardamom – had no hestitation talking to everyone. He appeared on just about any media platform that would have him – from popular TikTok shows like Subway Takes, where host Kareem Rahma discusses current events while riding the train, and Gaydar, where a comedian named Anania cheekily tries to guess if someone is 'gay, straight or a homophobe' while quizzing them on queer history. He spoke to more mainstream and moderate audiences on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert and The Bulwark, a never-Trump conservative news website. 'Mamdani clearly understands the value of our platform,' said Amelia Montooth, a 28-year-old New Yorker and CEO of Mutuals Media, who produces Gaydar. 'I was in awe of the fact that they said yes to appearing on the show right away, and they didn't try to change anything about the show or edit us.' Mamdani's flood-the-zone, 'go everywhere' approach proved popular, especially when he was asked, and sometimes cornered, in debates and discussions about his views on Israel, a topic long viewed as crucial for electability in New York. Both Cuomo and conservatives continued to try to paint Mamdani's rhetoric, including an explanation of the controversial phrase 'globalize the intifada', as antisemitic. But in a sign that times may have changed, Mamdani's pro-Palestinian views did not prevent his decisive victory – nor were they central to his campaign. Instead, he kept a laser-focus on affordability – with policy goals that included a rent freeze, free buses and universal childcare. Groups like Hot Girls for Zohran staged canvassing parties, lookalike contests, and DJ nights at queer clubs in Brooklyn. The duo behind Hot Girls for Zohran – Cait and Kaif, two gen-Z New Yorkers who keep their last names private for security reasons – said they ran the group as if it were a 'marketing' campaign. 'We wanted it to be very accessible to people who normally aren't politically active,' Cait said. 'We brought them in with fun events, and then we got them to go canvas. We made it a cultural thing: you go with your friends to volunteer, and then you go party.' Yet Mamdani's victory has rattled the Democratic establishment, triggering a wave of panic that his politics will further alienate the voters they need to win back power in 2026 and 2028. As the ranked-choice tabulations continue, business leaders and some major Democratic donors are debating whether to coalesce around an independent bid by Cuomo or to rally behind the city's deeply unpopular incumbent mayor, Eric Adams, who is also running as an independent. Lis Smith, a veteran Democratic strategist who previously worked for Cuomo but is now a critic, said many of the leading Democrats 'freaking out' over Mamdani's win had only themselves to blame. 'They looked around a city of more than 8 million people and said: 'You know what, let's nominate the guy who was run out of office 4 years ago,'' she observed on X in reference to Cuomo, who resigned as governor over multiple sexual assault allegations. Mamdani has quickly pivoted to the general election, seeking to build moment from his powerful showing in the Democratic primary. But his path to City Hall – in a city where Democrats outnumber Republicans six to one – could be unusually competitive. Centrist Democrats could rally around Cuomo or Adams, who until recently was beset by corruption charges that were dropped by the Trump administration. The same goes for billionaires such as Bill Ackman, who promised to 'take care of the fundraising' for a strong centrist challenger. He also risks damage from a rightwing campaign that has already kicked into gear. Republicans gleefully seized on Mamdani's success, seeking to make him the new face of the Democratic party, with some criticism veering into outright Islamophobia and bigotry. Trump assailed Mamdani as a '100% Communist Lunatic' who looks 'terrible', has a 'grating voice' and is 'not very smart'. The establishment has certainly felt the jolt of Mamdani's political earthquake, as it did in 2018, when Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez toppled one of the highest-ranking House Democrats. Ocasio-Cortez, also of Queens, was one of Mamdani's most prominent progressive supporters along with Senator Bernie Sanders. So far, Mamdani has received a mixed reception from Democrats in New York and nationally. While progressives are elated, many centrist Democrats are alarmed by the ascension of a democratic socialist who previously called for defunding the police and is vocally pro-Palestine. New York congressman Jerry Nadler, one of the city's most prominent Jewish leaders, endorsed Mamdani after previously supporting one of his opponents. But Senator Chuck Schumer and Representative Hakeem Jeffries – both New Yorkers who lead the Senate and House Democrats – congratulated him without extending an endorsement. Others distanced themselves entirely. Representative Laura Gillen, a first-term Democrat who flipped a Long Island House district last year, called Mamdani 'the absolute wrong choice for New York'. Representative Tom Suozzi, another Long Island Democrat in a competitive district, said he had 'serious concerns' about Mamdani before the election and 'those concerns remain'. The response has infuriated progressives. 'Tell them what they love to tell us: vote blue no matter who,' declared David Hogg, the Florida activist who recently stepped down as a national party official after clashing with the leadership at the Democratic National Committee over his decision to support primary challenges against long-serving Democratic incumbents. Bagga, the former city official, urged Democratic leaders to engage young political talent such as Mamdani – candidates who are resonating with the young and working-class voters that abandoned the party last year. 'We have to be able to not eat ourselves for lunch,' he said, 'because the more we continue to do that, the Maga authoritarian right will eat us all for dinner'. A wave of young Democrats running for office are taking hope from Mamdani's campaign – validation that campaigns built on TikTok, door-knocking and a focus on bread-and-butter economic issues can shake even the most entrenched political machines. In southern Arizona, 25-year-old Deja Foxx is running in a special election for a solidly blue seat held for most of her life by the congressman Raúl Grijalva, until he died in office in March. A reproductive rights activist and digital strategist, Foxx is hoping to channel the same desire for generational change that powered Mamdani's political upset in New York. Facing a competitive field that includes Grijalva's daughter, Foxx is making the case that her youth and lived experiences – the daughter of a single mom who struggled with addiction, a 'free lunch kid' who relied on Medicaid and public housing and an organizer for reproductive rights before she was old enough to vote – make her a credible voice for the working-class people of the district. In an interview as she drove across the border-spanning district on her 'Crashout or Congress' tour, Foxx called on the party's leaders to show more 'courage' and support young candidates. 'We need to be really clear-eyed, even in these blue seats, about who we're sending into these positions of power,' she said. 'It's not enough to just check the boxes. We need real champions.'
