Shadi Hamid, a columnist for the Washington Post, acknowledged that wokeness may have cost Democrats elections, but offered an interesting perspective on figures like Zohran Mamdani, the socialist who upset the New York City mayoral race by defeating an establishment Democrat. While many conservatives view Mamdani as a sign that the Democrats are shifting further to the left, this columnist argued that he may be a more moderate Democrat.
Moderate at least when it comes to cultural issues and wokeness.
He wrote:
From 2014 to about 2023, and peaking in 2020, Democrats fell under the sway of “woke” ideas that prioritized divisive cultural issues such as transgender rights and reducing funding for police. In those years, there was widespread backlash against White men, who were increasingly denied employment opportunities in elite institutions. As Jacob Savage documented in his viral essay “The Lost Generation,” the rise of diversity, equity and inclusion meant that Hollywood, newsrooms and universities — in the name of prizing diversity over all else — made it challenging for White millennial men to gain a foothold in the creative professions.
The election of Donald Trump in 2024 and his jihad against DEI ended the “peak woke” preoccupations of the preceding years. Meanwhile, a growing number of Democrats and liberals have acknowledged that things may have gone too far, alienating too many Americans who might have otherwise been sympathetic to Democratic Party’s economic message but couldn’t get on board with an expansive and aggressive cultural agenda.
Even though someone like Mamdani joined every other progressive in 2020, “heralding the moment” following George Floyd’s death, his actual campaign focused far less on the cultural issues that Democrats once emphasized. He still expressed support for so-called trans rights and didn’t completely retract his stance on alleged police racism, but these were not his central priorities. Instead, he focused his campaign on issues that resonated with New Yorkers, avoiding alienating those who felt wokeness had gone too far.
The writer Ross Barkan has been perhaps the most insightful chronicler of all things Mamdani. He hired then-obscure Mamdani as his campaign manager in his 2018 bid for a New York state Senate seat. As Barkan notes, “You look at his 2020 statements, you’d see a very woke politician. … Knowing him from 2018, though, I don’t remember him being overly woke. I can say he was someone who’s always a pragmatist in that way. [When] we were campaigning, he was thinking, how do we appeal to moderates? How do we appeal to conservatives?”
The question then becomes: how is a socialist economic message resonating with moderates? And could Mamdani’s platform be a true form of moderation among Democrats?
“Now, the tent is expanding,” Hamid continued. “As long as you’re ‘pro-Palestine’ and economically progressive, you can probably find a place for yourself in today’s Democratic Party.”
The question remains whether economic progressivism will gain widespread popularity nationwide, or if Mamdani was simply an anomaly. The midterm elections this year and who Democrats choose as their candidate for President in 2028 will be telling. Regardless, Mamdani’s victory could signal a type of moderation within the Democratic Party, one that prioritizes issues directly affecting Americans rather than spending political capital to ensure men can use women’s bathrooms.
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