Because it has to look like socialism failed completely on its own, because of policy, or else it will create some sort of backlash. If socialism is seen to fail without public meddling from his admin then they can say, "well that's socialism, it always fails," the implication being on its own.

It also makes Mamdani look bad to certain crank liberals and certain crank radical leftists if Trump is seen approving of Mamdani. As a member of DSA I can't overstate the effect of his win, we went from 80k to 85k members in one day.

Making socialism look bad to all those people in the middle to whose opinion of socialism and social democratic policies is starting to trend much more positive, has always been a top priority for the ruling capitalist class. If you're seen fighting something that people think is good and practical, you look like a villain, which angers people into wanting to act.

Unfortunately a lot of those people in the middle are under the influence of illusions about capitalism. Maintaining those illusions is a multi-trillion dollar industry. Even when middle class people have positive opinions, they aren't doing practical organizing. Basically they are more split on these issues than a lot of polling suggests. Keeping those people in a state where they will believe that the status quo is still better for them than the struggle for democratic socialism and liberation, is the ur-policy of the ruling class, and has been since FDR.

You've eloquently captured why I, a random chick who is on the other side of the world, is super excited by Mamdani's win. It might not end up amounting to much, but there's real cause for hope.

In my country (the UK), Labour (the largest party by far) keep pandering to the right in a manner that is just yielding more of the discursive battleground to the right wing bigotry of the Reform party, and it drives me mad to see them shoot themselves in the foot like this. It reminds me of how in the 2010 election, Labour presented themselves as pro-austerity, but not as severely as the Tories. By accepting the Tories' premise that austerity was good and necessary for reducing the deficit (and that eliminating the deficit was necessary for the UK's economic wellness), Labour simultaneously disappointed people who wanted an alternative to austerity, and weren't appealing to people who were pro austerity (why vote for Tory-lite, when you can just vote Tory instead?). Now they're doing the same with immigration rhetoric instead of investing in our systems. Most people aren't actually pissed off at immigrants, but at the fact that it's increasingly difficult for normal people to afford basic living costs. The best antidote to fascism are policies that speak to the way that people are suffering.

Mamdani's campaign (and his subsequent victory) showed that he understands this, and it could set a precedent for places far beyond the US. I'm tentatively hopeful.

Bingo

He will, with the people in the know, the only people he might actually care about: rich assholes of the capitalist ruling class. The rest of us are all just rubes and fools to be manipulated and dispensed with.

It is a strategic calculation, and whether it will work or not has yet to be seen. But Trump has enough power that negative consequences don't quite stick to him, especially when negative perception is drawn to him. The fact that this is so out of character for him should be a sign of how serious this is.

Our job as socialists and progressives is to wipe that fucking smile off his stupid orange face

Socialism isn't a set of static policies, it is the real struggle for the liberation of all people from the oppression of a few. That struggle has taken many different forms and character throughout history. It isn't a set of policy goals we suddenly reach and then we are socialist. The struggle never ends, even when we reach that point, we will still struggle to make sure the liberation we win doesn't harden into some soulless bureaucracy that develops and sustains power for itself.

It is possible to look at Mamdani's history as an organizer, his historic win for mayor and say that he is someone who is struggling for socialism. We can be critically supportive of him, and unfortunately there already is much to be critical about. But there is also much to support.

But categorical objectivism, which you are espousing, is not socialist either. Identity is not static, socialism defies categorization since it represents a historically contingent dynamic relation between the masses of people, the means of production, political power, cultural development, and much more. Anything that delivers verifiable, material, sustained improvement in the lives of the growing mass of people is socialist.

Zohran isnt even mayor yet and he has grown our movement by a considerable amount.

If Mamdani is able to deliver on any of his promises that will be a kind of socialism. But in order to be successful he will need support from not just New Yorkers but from all of us in the struggle, all over the country and the world.

Distilling socialism into a set of policies rather than an active practical movement of the working class organizing for our best interests commits the same dehumanizing contextualizing as any soulless neoliberal. Stop thinking statically and start thinking dynamically so you can join our movement rather than sitting on the sidelines poo-pooing actual progress.