The far-left loves to talk about “solidarity” — until one of their own actually wins an election and suddenly has to govern in the real world. That’s exactly what’s happening to New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani, whose own Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) base is already melting down before he even sets foot in office on Jan. 1.
Since Mamdani’s November victory, DSA leaders and chapters have taken turns blasting him online for a shocking list of “betrayals” — including allowing NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch to keep her job, endorsing a non-DSA Democrat (Brad Lander) for Congress, and even attending a cooperative White House meeting with President Donald Trump. Yes, the same Trump they’ve spent years calling every name in the book. Apparently, talking with a sitting president about shared goals is now an unforgivable act on the socialist left.
Stu Smith, a City Journal analyst who tracks DSA politics, summed it up perfectly: “He isn’t even sworn in yet, and parts of his own base are already seething… On the far left, there’s a growing bloc of disaffected activists who see politicians that alarm conservatives, like Mamdani, as not nearly radical enough simply because they operate inside electoral politics.” In other words: governing = selling out.
The DSA’s outrage is especially ironic considering the group helped drag Mamdani over the finish line. Over 99,000 of their volunteers knocked on doors, flooded phone lines, and pushed voters to back a candidate who campaigned on abolishing police and prisons — and even arresting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on U.S. soil. Mamdani himself once backed dismantling the NYPD and spent his early political career attacking Israel. But now that he’s transitioning into the mayor’s office, he’s suddenly talking about “working with” police and promising to fight antisemitism. The socialists didn’t sign up for a reality check.
Not that Mamdani has cut ties with them. Far from it. His transition team is packed with DSA-aligned ideologues — at least 26 of them across economic, housing, education, immigration, and other policy roles. One member is a vocal police abolitionist who wrote an op-ed urging Mamdani not to keep Commissioner Tisch. He didn’t listen. Cue more rage.
Radical group Within Our Lifetime declared that keeping Tisch “represents a political alignment with the NYPD’s legacy of racialized policing, surveillance, and repression,” and a betrayal of Mamdani’s own rhetoric about “justice and liberation.” Their statement was co-signed by multiple DSA caucuses and chapters, naturally.
Smith says the fractures are already clear, comparing Mamdani’s situation to Chicago’s Brandon Johnson — a mayor wildly unpopular with his city but propped up by a small, noisy left-wing echo chamber. According to Smith, Mamdani could be headed down the same road, though the DSA “playbook” will continue spreading to other major cities regardless.
And the socialist infighting isn’t new. Even before election night, DSA’s fringe “Liberation Caucus” was publicly calling Mamdani out over Israel, policing, and other ideological purity tests. One DSA educator even nicknamed him “ZIOhran,” a not-so-subtle jab implying he’s too friendly toward Zionists. Yet the same caucus released a post-election video declaring support for Mamdani — but “with conditions,” because nothing says unity like threatening your own mayor-elect.
One DSA International Committee member, calling himself “BlackRedGuard,” warned that mistakes are inevitable “under capitalism” and insisted the movement must correct Mamdani whenever he strays from the revolution. He even declared that the left must “create one, many, but better Zohrans,” fully controlled by the movement and marching toward — you guessed it — the Party.
In short: the radicals who helped elect Mamdani are furious that he seems marginally interested in governing instead of launching their dream revolution. And if this is what the left looks like before January 1, New York City is in for quite a show.
