"Certainly [Mamdani's] a different stripe of outsider than the genteel reformers who emerged at the end of the nineteenth century, or the Progressives who came after them. Before the First World War, socialist candidates for mayor appeared on ballots in more than half a dozen elections, though most struggled to find support outside the German- and Jewish-immigrant neighborhoods of the Lower East Side."
""Any people is capable of rising in wrath to overthrow bad rulers," he wrote. "New York has done it several times. With fresh and present outrages to avenge, particular villains to punish, and the mob sense of common anger to excite, it is an emotional gratification to go out with the crowd and 'smash something.' The machine was durable-it adapted itself, and was always ready to rev back up when the outsiders inevitably stumbled."
Zohran Mamdani won a pivotal New York mayoral race amid widespread Democratic gains nationwide framed as a rebuke to President Donald Trump. Questions arise about whether Mamdani can confront and outlast New York’s entrenched political machine. Historical context notes earlier socialist mayoral runs and figures like Henry George, who achieved notable electoral success in 1886, and Lincoln Steffens' warning that popular uprisings often produce temporary upheaval while machines adapt and return. Reliance on a single electoral victory may not guarantee lasting structural change, and sustaining reform will require organized strategy beyond initial public anger.
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