Zohran Mamdani: Lifelong Socialist Trying to Soft-Sell His Radicalism

Zohran Mamdani claims that he didn’t really identify as a democratic socialist until after Bernie Sanders’s 2016 presidential campaign, when he was 25 years old. I’m skeptical.

The Democratic candidate in New York City’s mayoral race grew up in a left-wing family. His father, Mahmood, was a well-known Columbia University professor whose work on “class struggles” occasionally cited Karl Marx and the Marxist revolutionary Frantz Fanon. In high school, Mamdani ran for class vice president with a rap video promising free fresh juice as well as gym credits for students who attend school-sanctioned sporting events. He lost, but the rap videos would return in his campaign for mayor of New York City this year.

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John Fund

John Fund is National Review’s national-affairs reporter.

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Zohran Mamdani claims that he didn’t really identify as a democratic socialist until after Bernie Sanders’s 2016 presidential campaign, when he was 25 years old. I’m skeptical.

The Democratic candidate in New York City’s mayoral race grew up in a left-wing family. His father, Mahmood, was a well-known Columbia University professor whose work on “class struggles” occasionally cited Karl Marx and the Marxist revolutionary Frantz Fanon. In high school, Mamdani ran for class vice president with a rap video promising free fresh juice as well as gym credits for students who attend school-sanctioned sporting events. He lost, but the rap videos would return in his campaign for mayor of New York City this year.