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The Guardian
9 hours ago
- Politics
- The Guardian
Zohran Mamdani has struck a blow to the Democratic party's passivity
We're told that the Democratic party is at a crossroads, that leaders have lost their identity and their way. We're told that they must spend millions discovering their own 'Joe Rogan', or espouse deregulation, or surrender the fight for the rights of targeted minorities. The Democrats, we're told, are in a moment of soul searching, of trying to find out how they lost young men and the white working class. They're still thinking, half a decade on, of how to undo the supposed damage of the 2020 summer, when protesters opposed to the extrajudicial killings of Black civilians shouted: 'Defund the police.' The subtext of this handwringing, which has been incessant in the media and among party insiders since the November election, is that the party must move, yet again, to the right. It is presumed that they can't attract voters otherwise. The apparent victory (still unofficial because the counting won't technically be complete until July) of a 33-year-old socialist in the New York City Democratic mayoral primary this week suggests otherwise. Zohran Mamdani, a state assemblymember from Queens, was a little-known leftwing activist whose campaign against the former governor and New York household name Andrew Cuomo was polling in the single digits. But with immense personal charisma and a talent for retail politicking, airtight message discipline centered on making life affordable, and a small army of motivated young volunteers, Mamdani defeated a political dynasty, defied conventional wisdom, and is expected to win the American left its biggest electoral victory since Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's primary coup in 2018. In the process, his campaign presented a new vision of the party: one that has energized voters with its authenticity and moral vision even as major donors and the party establishment have balked. The leaders of the Democratic establishment have long believed that the party's left flank was its greatest liability. Mamdani has proven that it can be an asset. Any responsible commentator will tell you that Mamdani's success in the New York mayoral primary will be difficult for other progressive candidates to replicate. The city's public campaign-funds matching program allowed the candidate to spend his time in highly visible public engagement with the people of New York – rather than on fundraising efforts among the rich. The ranked-choice voting system – still relatively new – incentivized him and the crowded other field of candidates to form a united front against Cuomo, and allowed Mamdani to capture the crucial endorsement of his fellow candidate Brad Lander, the beloved New York City comptroller. Mamdani, too, seems to have the kind of personal talent that is rare in any politician: a relaxed and personable demeanor, an uncommon gift for oratory, and a rhetoric of morality and dignity that appears not just plausibly authentic but genuinely inspiring, and is already drawing comparisons to liberal political giants like AOC and the young Barack Obama. Crucially, too, Mamdani is uncommonly disciplined: he avoided attacking the progressive liberals, like Lander and state senator Zellnor Myrie, who were slightly to his right, preferring to unite with them and recruit them into his movement, a gesture of pragmatic generosity that kept the field from turning into a circular firing squad. And he has a gravitas that most of us could not rise to, enduring cynical and often racist smears from Cuomo supporters, who called him antisemitic for his support of human rights for Palestinians with a calm dignity that emphasized his loyalty to all New Yorkers, Jewish or otherwise. All of this – his incentives, his talents – contributed to his victory. None will be easy to recreate in another race. And yet Mamdani's victory is a signal of a subterranean shift happening in the base of the Democratic party – the younger, more motivated, more active voters who the party leadership relies on but does not quite trust. The Democratic party's leaders – like Nancy Pelosi of California, but prominently including Mamdani's fellow New Yorkers Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries – have largely rolled over in the second Trump administration, failing to use either their procedural power or their public platforms to create leverage against the Maga agenda or advance an alternative vision for the country. Their passivity and risk aversion has stood in contrast to the mounting energy of their voters, whose anger at Trump's authoritarian ambitions, racist immigration policies and broader rollback of rights has sparked a growing protest movement. Energized liberal voters find that the Democratic politicians they elected to represent them are passive and complacent, even in the face of what they themselves correctly described, in 2024, as the ascent of a fascist movement. The party's rhetoric is not being matched by its actions, and its actions are not matching its voters' passions. Indeed, the party appears most energetic when it is crushing the ambitions of its charismatic younger members, as when it denied powerful committee positions to AOC and Texas's Jasmine Crockett. Establishment Democrats seem, if anything, as if they want to disappear, to be absolved of their responsibility to advance a political agenda of their own. This might be why they have fled, repeatedly, rightward, away from their own professed principles. This might be why they lined up, during the mayoral primary, behind Cuomo, the disgraced former governor whom many of them had called on to resign just four years ago his candidacy was a promise that their own structures of power and patronage would remain intact, that nothing much would change. Mamdani represented a threat to their own vision of a do-nothing political party. For that, they tried to crush him. You can only antagonize your own base for so long before they begin to notice. In a new poll conducted just days before Mamdani's upset victory, fully 62% of Democratic voters said that their party needs new leadership. Mamdani – youthful, energetic, and actually interested in governance – offers both a rebuke to the Democratic establishment and a vision of the party's renewal. It may be coming whether the Democratic National Committee likes it or not. Fed up with their useless, antagonist leadership and unwilling to give up on the prospect of progressive change, many members of the Democrats' hated base are certain to follow Mamdani's example, taking risks to challenge unpopular or ineffectual incumbents and entrenched local party machines. Since Bill Clinton's victory in 1992, the Democrats have been trying to reinvent themselves as a more conservative party, assuming that their future lay rightward. They were looking in the wrong direction. Moira Donegan is a Guardian US columnist
Boston Globe
10 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Boston Globe
Dancing the night away in Cambridge, in a hue of red, white, and blue
Patriotic colors were everywhere, from painted stars and hopscotch squares on sidewalks, to striped banners draped over the facade of City Hall, to a brilliant light show on a warm summer night. Advertisement The party's theme, 'Revolutionary Reunion 250,' marked the city's contribution to the statewide MA250 celebrations. But at its heart, the party that started in 1996 in honor of the city's 150th anniversary, was a deeply local celebration of modern Cambridge. 'I like when people close streets, it makes me feel like it's ours,' said resident Ryan Gibeau, who teaches at Emerson College. 'To come out and dance at a place that feels like ours is pretty awesome.' 'I love the diversity, the different kinds of dances, the variance of [music] styles,' said Tao Harris, 48, of Hyde Park, who's attended the block party nearly every year since moving to the Boston area in 2004. 'There's nothing else like it.' Behind him, Spanish music streamed from storefront speakers, and the mobile act A Trike Called Quest led seniors from the Cambridge Senior Center in flamenco dancing. Advertisement The African American flag and the Black Lives Matter flag framed the DJ booth atop the front steps of City Hall, where DJs Overhead, a jumbotron flashed the crowd's favorite songs like a stadium scoreboard, 'There's no one demographic. Everybody's here,' Harris continued. The theme, he said, resonates because the vibrant mix of people 'represents what America should be, and in the sense that Cambridge is a historical city, it also works.' One resident noted the city's pioneering role in the LGBTQ+ movement. 'Cambridge was the first city to [ And indeed, among the red, white, and blue stars and stripes painted on pavement, crosswalks were proudly striped in the rainbow colors of the gay and bisexual Pride flags. Down Temple Street, a stretch of kid-friendly activities drew hundreds of children and parents under the warm afternoon sun. Chris Madson, a teacher with the Cambridge Public Schools who was attending with his second-grader, Jude, said, 'It's a summer tradition … everyone will be here, you see everyone in the neighborhood.' 'It's nice to see so many people show up with their kids,' said Sonia D'Souza of Somerville, there with her daughter Natalie, who just under 2-years-old. 'It's great for her to see the energy that the city brings. … It's a bit chaotic, but she's having fun,' D'Souza said, laughing. Advertisement Behind her, a child kicked a beach ball that narrowly missed a parent carrying a baby in a front harness. Around them, kids clambered over an inflatable, raced between plastic slides, and jumped to pop bubbles that glittered with rainbow hues. The main event, of course, was the dancing, with abandon, in the streets. 'The cliché is true,' Jeremy Phillips, 57, of Boston, said mid-dance. 'Joy is a form of resistance.' Rita Chandler can be reached at
New York Post
13 hours ago
- Politics
- New York Post
Warning to NY: Don't make the mistake we did in San Francisco by electing Zohran Mamdani
Take heed, New Yorkers, and learn from San Francisco's mistakes: The City by the Bay has discovered to its sorrow that charismatic leaders like Zohran Mamdani can dazzle — but their decisions can be disastrous. Just a few years ago San Franciscans, too, supported magnetic populists, then watched as their neighborhoods fell off a livability cliff. Advertisement Regrets, we have more than a few — and many we want to mention. In 2017 London Breed, a brash and captivating city supervisor from the projects, became acting mayor when the mild-mannered Mayor Ed Lee died. With big promises of housing creation, downtown revitalization and racial equity — as well as her hard-partying charm — she whipped up the crowds, winning the mayoralty outright in a special election. Advertisement But during her tenure, San Francisco went from thriving to diving. Massive tent encampments took over large swaths of the city thanks to her lax policies, and the financial district and retail centers hollowed out. 'I am the mayor, but I'm a black woman first,' she shouted in a 2020 speech, as violence spiraled nationwide after the death of George Floyd. 'I am angry.' Advertisement That same day, looters and vandals were running roughshod over Union Square stores and small businesses in Chinatown. Far-left public defender Chesa Boudin one-upped Breed's progressive leanings when he joined her in city government. Boudin thrilled local social-justice activists when he ran for district attorney in 2019, as opposition to President Donald Trump and the Black Lives Matter movement gained steam. He quickly eliminated cash bail, reduced incarceration and put pressure on law enforcement instead of on criminals. Advertisement Soon Honduran cartels and dealers flooded Fog City with fentanyl, and drug tourists arrived from all over the country to overstay their welcome on our permissive streets. Overdoses spiked, and property crimes like shoplifting, looting and car smash-and-grabs became the norm. Jennifer Friedenbach, the firebrand executive director of the Coalition on Homelessness, spearheaded the push to pass a 2018 'tax-the-rich' ballot proposition that promised to raise hundreds of millions for affordable housing. Her influence was enough to persuade Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff to back the measure. Prop C passed but did nothing to solve the exploding homelessness problem. Instead, high net-worth companies like Stripe and PayPal, which contributed heavily to the city's tax revenues and provided vital jobs, simply packed up and left. Life in San Francisco got ugly, fast. The police force shrank from nearly 2,000 officers in 2020 to under 1,500 in 2024. Businesses fled and tourism dwindled. Advertisement An online 'poop map' made our filthy streets a national punch line. A city that was once so vibrant and full of civic pride became an embarrassing warning to the rest of the country: Do not do what we they are doing. Now, San Francisco is in intense repair mode. Voters ousted Boudin in 2022, and his replacement, Brooke Jenkins, has focused on increasing arrests and convictions. Advertisement In 2024, the calm and measured political outsider Daniel Lurie defeated the bombastic Breed in her bid for a second term. His 100-day progress report heralded a drop in crime, the removal of tent cities and an uptick in visitors. As for Friedenbach, her coalition's sway is sagging. Calls for her dismissal from the oversight committee that controls the Prop C funds are intensifying. San Franciscans are allowing themselves to feel cautious optimism about their future: 43% of residents now believe the city is on the right track, nearly double what it was a year ago. Advertisement Pessimism persists, and it's warranted, but green shoots of hope are taking root. That's why so many San Franciscans watched New York City's Democratic primary election with both fascination and despair. They know too well that electing compelling characters like Mamdani can have dire consequences. Our merry band of socialists here are celebrating Mamdani's win, but the majority of San Francisco residents, workers and business owners send this warning: The politics and policies he espouses can turn a flawed but marvelous city into one that is unrecognizably horrifying. Advertisement So be careful, New York. It's easy to fall for simple-sounding solutions delivered by a smooth talker in seductive speeches. But once that person takes the reins, and the pie-in-the-sky promises become dangerous reality, the process to remove him is long and arduous — and fixing the wreckage is even harder. Erica Sandberg is a freelance journalist and host of the San Francisco Beat.
New York Post
13 hours ago
- Health
- New York Post
University of California system pushed DEI training before Trump discrimination probe: ‘Equality isn't fair'
WASHINGTON — The University of California system forced students to undergo diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) training that taught 'equality isn't actually fair' and implied it may be 'racist' to oppose the Black Lives Matter movement, according to internal records exclusively obtained by The Post. The training module, contracted from a vendor used by the UC system as recently as the 2024-25 school year, largely consists of interactive role-playing scenarios in which students are forced to imagine situations involving perceived 'microaggressions' against certain identities. The training module was obtained via a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request from the advocacy group Do No Harm, which is focused on 'keeping identity politics out of medical education, research, and clinical practice.' 'This course is a clear example of the political indoctrination the University of California system forces its students to go through,' said Do No Harm medical director Dr. Kurt Miceli in a statement. 'Instead of spending precious time developing critical thinking and analytical skills, students in the UC System are subjected to learn progressive political dogma. The UC System and any other school using this training should refocus on the basics of academic excellence rather than DEI and critical theory.' 3 The training module was obtained via a Freedom of Information Act request from the advocacy group Do No Harm, which is focused on 'keeping identity politics out of medical education, research, and clinical practice.' Vector Solutions It's unclear how widespread the training is in the UC system, but a UCLA student had been required to take the DEI module before graduating this spring, according to reps for Do No Harm. A rep for the University of California said in a statement that the vendor, Vector, no longer had a contract with any school in the 10-campus system. 'Like many large institutions of higher education across the country, for a time, Vector (formerly, EverFi) was a training vendor for the University of California system. The University no longer has a systemwide contract with Vector,' the spokesperson said. 'The University of California ended its systemwide contract with Vector for employee sexual harassment prevention training in May 2024. For student harassment training, the Vector contract was extended through the end of May 2025 to ensure a smooth transition to the new platform and is now ended,' the rep added. 'The University of California did not renew a systemwide contract with Vector for diversity training, and that offering is no longer in use. UC campuses require students, faculty, and staff to complete a variety of trainings based on legal and/or regulatory requirements, UC system requirements, and individual campus needs.' In one video module on 'power, privilege and oppression,' participants were asked to distinguish between 'equality' and 'equity.' '[S]ometimes, equality isn't actually fair,' the script states. 'Equity means fairness, which is about giving everyone what they need to be successful.' Another situation asks trainees to navigate how to respond when a fellow student expresses skepticism about the Black Lives Matter movement and suggests that rallying around the phrase 'All Lives Matter' might be a better way to 'bring people together.' The options for the trainee to pick from include educating the skeptic about why 'Black Lives Matter' is an important movement, telling the student that he's 'naïve' and his 'comments are racist,' or a final option, which is to 'engage in a discussion.' 3 The module details cut against several executive actions taken by the Trump administration — and raise questions about whether the UC system could be subjected to greater scrutiny. Pool/ABACA/Shutterstock The document also instructs students on what types of speech they should and should not use. It reminds trainees to use 'inclusive language' and avoid terms including 'lame' and 'insane,' which purportedly contribute to the 'stigma that disabled people face,' while affirming 'that transgender and intersex people are entitled to use facilities that reflect their gender identity.' If a student '[has] religious, political, or cultural objections to someone's gender identity or expression,' the document advises that they 'remember that our community values include treating everyone with dignity and respect.' The end of the document provides a list of resources for students to 'inspire further learning.' 3 A UCLA student was required to take the DEI module as recently as June, according to reps for Do No Harm. ALLISON DINNER/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock Among the organizations to which students are referred is 'Showing Up for Racial Justice,' an initiative that aims to '[bring] hundreds of thousands of white people into fights for racial and economic justice.' The group has also accused white voters of casting their ballots for 'self-described Nazis, white supremacists, and those with strong ties to white nationalists,' and described the Republican Party's success among Southern white voters as a result of 'appealing to their racism.' The module details cut against several executive actions taken by the Trump administration — and raise questions about whether the UC system, which receives more than $17 billion in federal funding annually, could be subjected to greater scrutiny. On Thursday, the Trump administration launched an investigation into the UC system to determine whether it ran afoul of federal law by engaging in racial or sex-based discrimination when hiring faculty for certain fellowship programs. Earlier this year, the UC system was hit with a lawsuit by the group Students Against Racial Discrimination for allegedly continuing race-based admissions — even after a Supreme Court ruling outlawed the practice in 2023. Reps for UCLA did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Elle
19 hours ago
- Politics
- Elle
‘We Are Living Through Overwhelming Times' – Afua Hirsch On How Not To Be Paralyzed By Inaction
'When we said 'Summer's gonna be fire', we didn't mean literally!' This is my teenage daughter's take on current world events, delivered as usual in under a dozen words, and accompanied by an eyeroll. There is nothing new in our tendency to use humour as a coping mechanism for the sense of imminent catastrophe may be imminent – it's called gallows' humour for a reason. Even if the carousel of these particular protagonists - Israel, Iran, Trump's America, Putin's Russia - seem to be constantly inventing new and unwelcome surprises. When I first entered the world of news reporting, I did so with a certain naivety. I believed that everything happening at that moment was of great importance. I felt a duty to investigate, share and follow it closely, and that doing so could make a real difference. The more informed we are, I reasoned, the better decisions we can make. We need information because we have agency – at the ballot box, in the pressure we put on our leaders, in our acts of protest, boycott and outspokenness. Of course this is true. I recently watched my friend Misan Harriman's powerful documentary Shoot The People– a journey into protests that changed the world, Black Lives Matter, the movement against apartheid, the present mass mobilisation of ordinary people for Gaza. I studied the reactions of the audience, and many were learning for the first time how powerful and impactful protest can be. You have to learn about protest to understand what it is. It should not be a last resort; it should be in our bones. 'We need to remember that the struggle is a never-ending process,' said Coretta Scott King. 'Freedom is never really won. You earn it and win it in every generation.' This generation has a lot to fight for. I still respect and depend on reporters who bring us minute-by-minute information about the heady developments in the world. But I have also learned that we all have our own role to play. Not only is it OK to engage in your own way, but it's also a responsibility. We need to know the wrongs being committed so that we can hold those who commit them accountable. And so that even if it's not our own experience, we can have the empathy and humanity to - as Clarissa Brooks said after the murder of George Floyd - 'sit with what it means to see, participate and be an oppressed person in a world that feeds off of your body.' Part of the change we need is also imagining a better future. Imagination and slavish adherence to the news cycle often pull in opposite directions. It's hard to talk about this without feeling narcissistic. Civilians are dying and living through atrocities, and we worry about the impact just hearing it might have on our own mental health. Injustice gnaws at our sense of peace, and we worry about how to express solidarity on our platforms without facing what can seem like a lose-lose outcome; silence is complicity, protest is performative. A lot of high-profile people I know wrestle with this. They want to speak up, but they are afraid for the consequences for their career. This is not an irrational concern, looking at what has happened to their peers. Melissa Barrera, an actor who was 'quietly dropped' after sharing social media posts that talked about Gaza. The band Kneecap were removed from the lineup at the Scottish music festival TRNSMT after the police claimed they were a safety risk. Kehlani was dropped from a scheduled performance at Cornell University after a stance she described as anti-genocide. And American universities – including my own, The University of Southern California - that allowed protests about Israel's war on Gaza, even as they were heavily and oppressively policed, have been met with a barrage of punitive measures, including the removal of crucial federal funding from the American government. The intentional impact of these sanctions is to scare people into silence. And in many instances, it's working. But unlike the media landscape when I was growing up, where a few platforms could gatekeep which voices had airtime, now we get to choose our influences. Instead of following celebrities who seemingly stand only for protecting the status quo, we can choose to follow artists like Paloma Faith, activists like Greta Thunberg and Rima Hassan, political candidates like New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani, whose triumph as the Democratic candidate for arguably the most important city in the world is a reminder that power can and must change hands. We are living through overwhelming times, in substance and form. The proliferation of platforms, the infiltration into all aspects of life of AI, the constant feeds, alerts, bulletins and content is more than either the human brain or our hearts can handle. Add in the nature of that content; the devastating images of every single story from Gaza, the fear of nuclear conflict in Iran or Russia, and we are justified in feeling paralysed. Paralysis is the opposite of action, overwhelm is the opposite of clarity. If there's one thing we can do, it's to reject anything that makes us feel helpless and embrace anything that makes us feel our power. An older, seasoned, but never jaded journalist I know, who hates the limelight as so many of the best people do, always says, 'disobedience, protest and speaking out isn't optional. It is the only way to use the miracle of having been born.' ELLE Collective is a new community of fashion, beauty and culture lovers. For access to exclusive content, events, inspiring advice from our Editors and industry experts, as well the opportunity to meet designers, thought-leaders and stylists, become a member today HERE.
