Yes, Google redlined the word, "Mamdanization". It does not exist even in Urban dictionaries. Either it will fade away, like so many made-up words or indeed it will become part of our lexicon. The word will vanish with the next ebb tide if U.S. style democracy prevails and retains its capitalist economy. Or America, in fact, turns away from the pages of its storybook success filled with the realized dreams of its founding fathers and the millions upon millions of Americans who followed since, including those who chose to leave their own homeland to come here.
For the benefit of the international readers, the word above comes from NY city mayoral candidate, Zohran Mamdani, a self described socialist whose campaign promises include a lot of "free stuff" - from free bus fares to the public, government-run grocery stores, rent freezes, higher taxes to the rich, $30/hour minimum wage, replacing police with unarmed social workers, no cash bail, decarceration of prison inmates, etc.
Shockingly, during the primary, he bested a seasoned politician and former state governor of New York. Even more intriguing is that support for the kind of agenda he espouses is spreading to other local politics and the endorsement of a few congressional politicians. Not quite a national phenomenon yet but the fact that it is gaining traction, albeit slowly, presents a potential to influence the next generation. A generation, say, to develop within the next twenty five years which points to the year 2050. Sounds familiar? Four years ago, I wrote, "2050: The Ebb of the Tragic Trajectory of a Once Powerful Nation"
I wrote then in discussing the two challenges that confront the nation then and today, "One is about conserving the ideals and belief systems of what brought this country its decisive success for over two centuries. The other half is about liberally forging and fundamentally changing the country into something else. Worse is the slow but almost penetrating allure of socialism". I warned about it in 2021, long before Mamdani was even a politician, nor was socialism even considered a worthy subject in U.S. politics.
How serious is socialism? How bad can it be?
Let us be reminded to juxtapose the American experiment that began in 1776 with another that started in 1917 as the Bolshevik uprising, but more generally known as the Russian Revolution. It was five years after that, in 1922, that the Soviet Union was established. It played a major role during WWII in defeating the Nazis which made it a formidable force during five decades after the war in half of Europe. At which time the Soviet Union aimed to spread its governing doctrine not just in Eastern Europe but in Southeast Asia as well. It oversaw the division of Germany, the creation of the Warsaw Pact, and in Asia the birth of the CCP (China), North Korea (PRK), North Vietnam and Cambodia, that prompted diplomat John Foster Dulles to coin the phrase, "the domino effect" of nations falling to communism, sometime in the 50's. To the other side of the globe, Cuba's Fidel Castro succeeded in creating the lone Communist country in the Caribbean and efforts to spread it in South America failed to take deep roots with the death of Che Guevarra.
Then in 1991, the Soviet Union collapsed. Along with it, the reunification of Germany and the disintegration of the Warsaw Pact.
Let's go back to the idea of Mamdanization. Zohran Mamdani does not claim to be a Communist, instead he proudly declares that he is a democratic socialist repeatedly each time he is asked the question of his ideological philosophy.
Well, let us be reminded that the Soviet Union was formally known as the USSR. Lest we forget, the USSR stood for the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.
What about China? Formally, it is the People's Republic of China (PRC) but the political party behind the government is the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The civil war that precipitated its creation covered the years from 1927 to 1949, which coincidentally followed the Russian revolution in 1917, after which the Soviet Union was born in 1922.
China almost became a failed state between the years 1958-62 when it was estimated that 15 to 55 million perished from widespread famine. The wide range of the estimate was primarily due to unreliable communication infrastructure across much of the rural population. Most analysts concluded that the cause was 30% due to natural weather and climate events but 70% was caused by mismanagement of its economic policies and archaic agricultural practices.
The question is why China is economically successful today and a military power to boot while the USSR failed. It made one major pivot. It started operating its economy like a capitalist system while keeping the government's grip on the execution of policies as a communist state. Proof of it is, according to Forbes magazine, that there are 450 billionaires in China, not including 66 in Hong Kong. That puts China in the No. 2 spot next to the USA's 902. Political control, however, remains ironclad; any sign of dissent is summarily quelled (Tiananmen Square, remember?).
Much of the world cannot begrudge China's standing because there is no arguing with success. Perhaps, it has found the golden key to open the case for the, "Benevolence of a Socialist System?, which I wrote on Dec. 18, 2020.
In one Mamdani's interview, he made it known that he abhors billionaires, and that they should not exist at all. He told NBC News’ “Meet the Press,” “I don’t think that we should have billionaires because, frankly, it is so much money in a moment of such inequality, and ultimately, what we need more of is equality across our city and across our state and across our country.”
If New York City elects him as mayor, the repercussions could conceivably lead the country to unprecedented political pathways never once before paved, let alone traveled on. The question is why his campaign is catching on.
It is possible that that portion of half of the politically divided electorate is latching on to the latest bandwagon of a political movement in place of climate change, social and environmental activism that appear to have their course run to the ground. Climate change noises have been reduced to a murmur that even Greta Thunberg shifted her attention away from it to Gaza in the midst of the Palestinian/Israeli conflict. Mamdani may have simply tapped into another radical idealism in a city under economic stress where a good portion of the young voters and the disadvantaged can latch onto. The lack of national leadership and absence of coherent agenda from Mamdani's political party created the kind of partial vacuum his ideas easily seeped into.
November 4, 2025, less than four months from now, will be a consequential day not just for New York politics but for the entire country. New York, clearly a major component, if not the center, of world capitalism can possibly be where the ripple effects will begin and spread throughout the world. That's probably hyperbole in the short term. However, twenty five years will be a long time if Mamdanization is allowed to take hold. Remember, Marxism started locally too and today it is not exactly dead.
Karl Marx and to a certain extent with the help of Frederic Engels in the mid-1800's started the economic and political theory that became the backbone of the Bolshevik revolution. That potentially is what could befall New York City.
What New Yorkers need to be mindful of is that 90 miles from the coastline of Florida is a Caribbean country that apparently time forgot, stuck to the 1950's era. By today's standards relative to Florida, Cuba is full of anachronisms. There we find 1955 Chevy Bel Air sedans still running as private transportation instead of in a car museum or as a collector's prized possession in the U.S. That's what communist socialism did and continue to do in a country known as the last place to subscribe to the original theory that Karl Marx insisted on.
And that is what Mamdanization will do to New York.
To the international readers, from Argentina and Brazil to Uruguay and Uzbekistan and Vietnam, I beg you all to make note of this. There are a few readers in Russia but I notice Austria and Germany have taken interest as well though not a single one from China. I urge everyone to remember that the great experiment that began in 1776 is still going on. Mamdanization will undo what great results that experiment had achieved for countless dreams to be fulfilled - a propellant that had long been used to push people to come to this land.
Ronald Reagan said it best:
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