After New York City’s race for mayor catapulted Zohran Mamdani from state assembly member into one of the world’s most prominent progressive voices, intense debate swirled over the ideas at the heart of his campaign.
His critics and opponents painted pledges such as free bus service, universal child care and rent freezes as unworkable, unrealistic and exorbitantly expensive.
But some have hit back, highlighting the quirk of geography that underpins some of this view. “He promised things that Europeans take for granted, but Americans are told are impossible,” said Dutch environmentalist and former government advisor Alexander Verbeek in the wake of Tuesday’s election.
Verbeek backed this with a comment he had overheard in an Oslo café, in which Mamdani was described as an American politician who “finally” sounded normal.
They are veering right because of the blatant Russian propaganda that is trying to break up NATO and the EU by trying to make everyone more xenophobic.
Too bad for them EU countries have a much more robust political system that cuts out extremist views most of the time. We don’t have a “winner takes all” system. And plenty of political parties, even right-wing ones, want nothing to do with the fascists.
I’m hopeful, but I wouldn’t let my guard down.
Russia is bad but blaming everything on russia is ridiculous. Xenophobia is growing everywhere with or without russian influence
Far-right parties are winning in Europe because the European Central Bank forces countries to adopt ‘austerity’ policies. These policies destroy jobs and reduce people’s quality of life. So people vote for whoever promises to fix this - either the left or the far-right. But the ECB can’t permit an anti-austerity government, so they crack down on the left. The far-right is tolerated as long as it only targets random Syrian refugees.
It’s the other way around. It’s NATO propaganda that led us to the war with Russia.