“Comrades!” — New York’s Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani, who obviously enjoys trolling his critics, could have launched his victory speech with that shout out. He was far subtler than that, quoting Eugene Debs instead, the progressive-era socialist who ran for president several times and was thrown into federal prison by Woodrow Wilson for opposing the American entry into the first World War. Mamdani knew most of his audience hadn’t the slightest memory of this early-20th-century history, but Debs’ message still echoes today, “I can see the dawn of a better day for humanity.” Mamdani also borrowed from Barack Obama, declaring, “Hope is alive!”

Opponents poured tens of millions of dollars into attacking a Democratic Socialist candidate as communist and a Marxist. Whatever sting these accusations may have carried in the 20th century, it’s apparent they’ve grown stale in the 21st. It’s important to distinguish between old-school socialism which seeks public ownership of the economy’s means of production and democratic socialists who are accepting of capitalism and supportive of market regulation. Zohran felt safe to confess, “I am young… I am Muslim. I am a democratic socialist. And most damning of all, I refuse to apologize for any of this.” He could say this with a grin, which raises the question of why a backbench member of the New York Assembly, with just 1% name recognition earlier this year, could get away with such impudence and cruise to victory.

For starters, his critics, and they are legion, had best start rolling out of bed before dawn because Zohran Mamdani has proven himself politically smarter than they are. While throwing mud at the candidate they feared, he was speaking to the concerns and contempt voters have for a political system that has failed them for the better part of half-a-century. Just as Donald Trump, another New Yorker, demonstrated in 2016 the Republican Party had become a cowardly, hollow shell, Mamdani, perhaps to his own surprise, discovered the New York City Democratic elites were similarly vulnerable. Just consider both Clintons endorsed Cuomo. On election night, Zohran struck a nerve as he charged, “For years, those in City Hall have only helped those who can help them. But on Jan. 1, we will usher in a city government that helps everyone.”

As a mayoral candidate, he did not discover his eloquence on Nov. 4 but had been rousing supporters for many months. Speaking to more than 13,000 at the Forest Hills Tennis Stadium in October he spoke about what he had learned from his sidewalk conversations with working New Yorkers, “They told us they didn’t believe in a system anymore that did not even pretend to offer solutions to the defining challenge of their lives — a cost-of-living and affordability crisis. Rent was too expensive. So were groceries. So was childcare. So was taking the bus. And working two or three jobs still wasn’t enough.” He went on to say, “My friends, the era of government that deems an issue too small or a crisis too big must come to an end… let us win a City Hall that works for those straining to buy groceries, not those straining to buy our democracy.”

Once again, we need to ask how this populist appeal carried Mamdani to a landslide victory, both in the Democratic primary and then again at the general election. I would suggest it was, in part, for the same reason Donald Trump was able to win re-election in 2024. Some Trump voters were fed up with an ostensibly democratic system that serves, in practice, only oligarchic ends. Young residents, under 30, flocked to the polls in record numbers. Sixty-two percent of these previously low propensity voters cast their ballots for Mamdani in a near record turnout. It was these often-first-time voters who produced his tidal wave.

The campaign donors who write six-figure checks aren’t paying for good government but special favors. Some Trump voters took a chance on him because he appeared to be saying the right things regarding a rigged economy. The sluicing of nearly 100% of economic gains during the COVID years to the top 1% of earners is fresh in our memories. Now it appears their votes have proven a poor bet, so why not take a chance on a democratic socialist who seemed to be saying the right things? It’s unlikely New York voters will demonstrate a lot of patience, however. Their new mayor seems to recognize how short his runway could be, as reflected by the day after headline in the New York Times, “An Emboldened Mamdani Sheds Conciliatory Tone.”

Mamdani recognizes he will have to tax those who can actually afford it: the rich and the profitable corporations that have benefited most from residency in the largest financial center in the world. There is an intuitive logic to the notion simple fairness dictates those who reap the most wealth from a society’s labors should return the most to sustain its social structures. Free buses, free childcare and cheaper groceries don’t sound so much like a handout as a hand up. When the mayor-to-be promises, “A government that refuses to accept one in four New Yorkers living in poverty, that refuses to accept more than 150,000 public school students being homeless, that refuses to accept that two union salaries are not enough to put down a mortgage in this city, and a government that refuses to accept you being priced out of the very city you help build every single day,” it sounds more like common sense than socialism. Or, perhaps a little democratic socialism can be common sense.

Zohran explained to the Times, “I think that our tax system is an example of the many ways in which working people have been betrayed.” Warren Buffet would agree when he objects to the reality that his secretary pays a larger share of her earnings in taxes than the cosseted and loop-holed titans of industry. If there is an iron fist hidden within the velvet glove of Mamdani’s joyful congeniality, New Yorkers are in for one helluva ride. With his claim that, “When the power of the people overwhelms the influence of the powerful, there is no crisis government cannot meet,” Zohran gives me goosebumps.

Miller Hudson is a public affairs consultant and a former Colorado legislator.