cross-posted from: https://rss.ponder.cat/post/209042
Photo: Kayla Bartkowski/Getty Images
Vermont senator Bernie Sanders announced Tuesday that he is endorsing fellow democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani for mayor, giving the 33-year-old assemblymember another boost in his challenge to front-runner Andrew Cuomo.
In a statement, Sanders said Mamdani is running “an inspirational grassroots campaign” backed by small-dollar donors and praised his plan to pay for his platform of new affordable housing and free buses through an increased tax on the wealthy and corporations, a staple of the senator’s own political ideology. Sanders notably did not endorse in the 2021 primary and only backed Bill de Blasio during his reelection bid in 2017.
“At this pivotal and dangerous moment in American history, status-quo politics is not good enough. We need the kind of visionary leadership that Zohran is providing in this campaign. In my view, Zohran Mamdani is the best choice for mayor of New York City,” he said.
Mamdani acknowledged Sanders’s support on social media, writing that the veteran progressive senator “has been the single most influential political figure in my life.”
“As mayor, I will strive to live up to his example by fighting for the working class every day and hopefully make Brooklyn’s own proud,” he said.
Speculation about Sanders’s plans to endorse in the race grew after Mamdani received the support of Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a longtime friend and ally of Sanders. The two recently embarked on the cross-country Fighting Oligarchy tour together, holding massive rallies in Republican strongholds in an effort to harness voters’ growing opposition to Trump between election years. Our Revolution, the progressive political organization founded by Sanders during his 2016 presidential bid, also announced its own endorsement in the primary, backing Mamdani and Comptroller Brad Lander, who have both cross-endorsed each other in the ranked-choice race.
It’s not yet clear if Sanders will join Mamdani on the campaign trail in the waning days of the race. A 2019 rally for Sanders’s presidential campaign with Ocasio-Cortez drew a reported 26,000 attendees to Queensbridge Park. Over the weekend, Mamdani rallied with the congresswoman at Terminal 5 in Manhattan, attracting thousands of supporters to the venue.
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He responded to a stupid gotcha question with a clever gotcha answer, not what he really believes
He supports BDS which means if elected he could potentially hurt piSSrael economically in a very bad way and I see no downside to supporting him
You're right that
has no right to exist but no one here disagrees with you on that
Zohran's answer doesn't matter because even if elected he only has control of NYC not any other part of NY let alone
so he has no say in what happens when the apartheid ends and I guarantee he'd prefer it be Palestine he just isn't taking the bait from Cuomo and the media to make the election about this
You're engaging in liberal apologia for a person who just said 'I think Isreal has a right to exist'.
Are you paying attention right now? Tel Aviv is on fire. The ENTIRE WORLD IS ON THE BRINK OF NUCLEAR WAR. The zionist entity as at it's end, but they're escalating their genocide in Gaza and turning the entire city into a combat zone right now. Saying the Nazis have a right to exist is cause for an immediate trip to the gulag. Death to Shitrael. Shove your liberal zionist apologia completely up your fucking ass.
This is a case of "hate the game, not the player". Out of context, what you're saying is correct, nobody should say "israel has a right to exist". In context, lay off him, this is wrecker behavior. You're shitting on the only Muslim candidate in this election (and the only one with a history of supporting Palestine) for not falling into the obvious trap that an aggressive and hostile media class tried to berate him into. Answering "no" would have been just falling for the trap and would have been a stupid thing to do. They already hate him because he supports Palestine. It would have been cool if he said "death 2 isnt'real, death 2 ameriKKKa, unlimited genocide upon the first world" but it would also have been stupid to torch his entire political campaign just to take the bait.
I didn't like his answer either but he gave the answer a politician in his position has to give and he still refused to play along. They'll call him antisemitic anyway, but he didn't give them a soundbite to play over and over again to smear him with. Have you dealt with manipulative snakes before? When they try to get you to hang yourself, you don't help them.
I'm not gonna ask you to dox yourself but if you don't live in NY I don't really care about your opinion here
Most of the time the western left especially here in
deserves every one of the criticisms you've made and more but this is not one of those cases
There's a very short list of politicians who aren't complete scum in this state
Now you can argue against the libs and zionists in your head like Don Quixote and call me both of those for participating in electoralism at any level but on the other hand my state representative is moving forward on legislation that will make our local power company state owned and control the prices so I'm gonna go with her
Sure, opposing tacit support for Zionazi occupation is chasing imaginary dragons. Is the revolutionary bar so high, or are you just that pathetic? Have you taken a look at whats going on right now? Israel is being destroyed as we speak. We're on the edge of global nuclear war. Just because you're too spineless to draw a line doesn't make you pragmatic, it makes you an amerikkkan.