10 years after Bernie first ran his presidential campaign, the American left finally gets to celebrate the election of its first socialist mayor. (With the exception of AOC, whose relation with the left had soured just a few years in)

I’ll leave you to decide whether this is good progress or not.

But what is clear is that this is nowhere near the “significance” of Obama’s presidential win. Not even close.

At one point, Bernie boasted a million volunteers nationwide during his primary campaign. Have those energy dissipated into nowhere? Or did it remain latent and about to be reinvigorated after Mamdani’s victory? Are there plans to run 100s and 1000s of socialist candidates all over the country? If so, what are the organized movements that sustain these effort? How are they organized, especially against hostile state apparatuses? Can they translate electoral victories into palpable political actions? What are their strategies toward taking broader state power?

These are the important questions to ask. And if no such political movement emerges in the wake of Mamdani, nothing will change.