Progressive Politics

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/38975337

By E. J. Dionne Jr.
Mr. Dionne is a contributing Opinion writer.
Oct. 16, 2025

https://archive.ph/IBWOs

Beyond the specifics, history teaches that progressive mayors prosper when they understand why voters put them in office. Sheri Berman, a Barnard College political scientist and a widely respected scholar of social democracy, offers a brisk two-part formula. “Successful left-wing mayors,” she told me, “focused on (a.) problems in their cities, and (b.) problems where they had the power to do something.”

For history buffs, Mr. Mamdani has done the service of rekindling an interest in a largely forgotten American tradition, the “sewer socialists” who ran a significant list of cities in the last century. The most durable among them was Daniel Hoan, the socialist mayor of Milwaukee from 1916 to 1940. You don’t get re-elected that often by being a failure.