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Mamdani Wants to Show That Democratic Socialism “Can Flourish Anywhere”

The mayor is using his “100 Days” moment to talk about “the change that democratic socialism can deliver.”

Zohran Mamdani at a rally in Queens, on April 12, 2026.

The mayor of the largest city in the United States appeared on the widely viewed CBS Mornings show Thursday and talked up the national appeal of democratic socialism.

“Before I was the mayor, I was an Assembly member (representing) Astoria and Long Island City. At that time, I was told that you could only be a democratic socialist in northwest Queens. Then I became the mayor. Now, the next question is the state. The next question will be the country. I think that this is a politics that can flourish anywhere because, frankly, there is only one majority in this country—that’s the working class,” announced Zohran Mamdani during an interview in which he touted the successes of his first 100 days as mayor of New York City. “And it’s time we have politics that puts them at the heart of what it is that we’re pursuing, and not as part of the appendix.”

This was the latest iteration of the mayor’s unique response to the attention that’s been coming his way as he’s finished his first 14 weeks in office. Mamdani’s 100-day publicity blitz has featured compelling reflections on his accomplishments—progress on universal childcare and safer streets, cracking down on bad landlords, 102,000 potholes filled—but that’s to be expected. Ever since President Franklin Roosevelt did it in the midst of the Great Depression, newly elected executives have used the arbitrary measure of their first 100 days to reassure voters that the right choice was made in the previous November’s balloting.

But Mamdani is doing something more—he’s framing his still-fresh tenure not only as a measure of his ability to govern but as a sign that the ideology of democratic........

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