Zohran Mamdani Just Became Mayor of NYC; Here's What Progressive Politicians Across Canada Need To Understand

Dear Progressive Canadian Political Parties & Politicians – U Up?

Dear Progressive Canadian Political Parties & Politicians – U Up?

Zohran Mamdani just became New York City’s mayor.

34 years old. Democratic socialist. Immigrant and son of Ugandan immigrants. Ran on rent freezes, universal childcare, free buses, and taxing the rich. Beat a former governor. Won with record youth turnout and zero corporate cash 🙌🏽!

And he did it the same way Obama won in 2008, AOC won in 2018, and Stacey Abrams nearly flipped Georgia in 2018: He expanded the electorate.

He didn’t beg moderates to come back. He didn’t water down his politics to appeal to swing voters. He mobilized people who’d been written off as “unreliable” — young people, renters, immigrants, working-class New Yorkers who don’t usually vote because nobody’s ever fought for them.

Meanwhile, Canadian politicians and parties in the non-right have been using playbooks that are certifiably vintage, relics really, doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. So we ask again — u up?

From Our Post Titled “The NDP Can’t Win This” Early 2025

The majorly annoying part of this is that the other side, the Modern Right, does STUDY and ADAPT from their counterparts. So clearly, this is a tried and true practice in the political realm. It’s just one that Canada’s non-right parties and politicians (none of you are truly the left or progressive by today’s standards, so you’re the ‘non-right’) are choosing not to do.

So, help us out here; help us understand why you’re not willing to do your job to the best of your abilities to protect people, the planet, and the principles of democracy?

Is it that you’re too lazy to do your homework?

That you don’t have the skills to adapt any findings, and are unwilling to create job opportunities/space for people who are different from you in your inner circle tables?

Or maybe you're unwilling because you’re comfortable in a system where you collect a paycheque whether you form government or not? After all, party executives, consultants, candidates — you all get paid. Losing is still profitable—but winning requires sharing your power.

Or is it that you are too biased (read: racist) to study 2008 Obama, AOC’s 2018 primary, Stacey Abrams’ 2018 organizing, or Zohran Mamdani’s 2025 NYC mayor win — all of which used the same playbook: mobilize disengaged voters, center material needs, reject donor capture, build mass movements.

As someone who has spent years systemically working to understand why the right keeps winning not just elections but socially and culturally, including doing deep campaign synthesis — dissecting what actually drove insurgent wins, bridging theory to grassroots tactics, and customizing strategies for the political moment we’re in — I can tell you this for free: The pattern is not hidden. It’s documented. It’s replicable.

• Obama 2008 didn’t flip Republicans. He registered 15 million new voters — young people, Black voters, Latinx communities who’d been written off as “unreliable.”

• AOC 2018 didn’t win by courting moderates. She knocked 120,000 doors in a district where half the residents had never been contacted by a campaign.

• Stacey Abrams didn’t beg for white swing voters. She registered 800,000 new voters in Georgia — disproportionately Black, young, and low-income.

• Zohran Mamdani didn’t play nice with real estate or the Democratic establishment. He ran on rent freezes, free transit, universal childcare, and taxing the rich — and won with record youth turnout and zero corporate money.

These wins have something in common:

• They expanded the electorate by meeting people where they are

• They centered material survival issues (housing, healthcare, wages)

• They rejected the myth that you need to moderate to win

• They were led or heavily supported by organizers of colour

• They didn’t ask permission or pander to the party elites and establishment.

So here’s what we think is happening:

Either you don’t know how to run these campaigns (in which case, hire people who do),

Or you know, but you’re too scared to try because it would mean admitting the strategy you’ve been running for decades has failed (in which case, quit because your fear isn’t important — stopping global rising trends of authoritarianism in Canada is)

Or — and this is the part nobody wants to say out loud — you’re ideologically resistant to learning from BIPOC-led movements because it would require ceding power, changing who’s in the room, and centring the voices you’ve historically marginalized.

👉🏾public service announcement: a reminder that skin folk aren’t necessarily kin folk— hiring a person of colour who talks, walks, and acts exactly like the social/cultural/political norms you already have in the toom but packs biryani for lunch isn’t what we’re talking about — at best it’s more of the same bullshit, at worst it’s tokenism.

But here’s the thing:

The people you’re failing to mobilize? They’re not ignoring you because they’re apathetic. They’re ignoring you because you’ve given them no reason to believe you’ll fight for them.

— And before you say it: claiming to be a better option than the other guy is not enough. inspire us! make us hopeful! make like a season of Bridgerton and court our vote — not just after the writ drop but everyday in-between.

The right wing is studying these exact same case studies — they have learnt how to mobilize disengaged voters, how to build movements, how to win without institutional support— how do you think grab em by the p*ssy Trump still got elected — twice? They’re just using it to do fascism instead of liberation.

So the question isn’t whether this strategy works.

The question is: why are you so committed to losing? And when will you remember your job isn’t about you, it’s about us—so wake up, and get to work.

www.ocpevents.ca