Former President Barack Obama told Zohran Mamdani “your campaign has been impressive to watch,” and suggested that he was invested in Mr. Mamdani’s success beyond the election.
Former President Barack Obama called New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani on Saturday, praising his campaign and offering to be a “sounding board” into the future.
The private, roughly 30-minute phone call, which has not previously been reported, was described by two people who participated or were briefed immediately on what had been said. They spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe the private conversation.
Mr. Obama said that he was invested in Mr. Mamdani’s success beyond the election on Tuesday. They talked about the challenges of staffing a new administration and building an apparatus capable of delivering on Mr. Mamdani’s agenda of affordability in the city, the people said.
On one hand, Obama is a capable person with the right connections. On the other, he is still a neoliberal democrat, who likely wants to be a ‘steady’ hand on Mamdani’s policies.
I don’t want to trust the future to Obama, he has already proven himself to not be a supporter of “Hope and Change”. The opposite, really.
I suspect Obama sees a lot of himself in Mamdani. A brown kid with big dreams and a funny name, with Republicans calling him a Muslim socialist and frothing at the mouth to “prove” he’s not a real American? It’s like the 2000s all over again.
Also internment camps, and extraordinary rendition, and drastically expanded government surveillance, and the FBI going after Muslims and leftists, and manufacturing an excuse for regime change in an oil-rich country, EDIT: two oil-rich countries… Yeah, maybe it’s a little too much like the 2000s.
As opposed to letting the idiot masses hand the future over to a crybaby manchild being manipulated by proto-Nazi racists?
Trump is a symptom of First Past the Post voting. So long as American politics continue to be inbred, things will always become worse. Given enough time, Trump’s stupidity and malice will be the norm in our candidates for both parties.
This is slightly misleading. The issue isn’t voting for the two parties, it’s that we only have the two parties. Adding a third party never works. We need to figure something else out.
American Exceptionalism - ‘a third party never works’ is nonsense.
Trying to figure something else out means you will do nothing except entryism and be co-opted into the Democratic Party for your aesthetics.
That meme also applies to tankies that discourage voting and forming a third party.
Exactly. Obama is probably the best stump speakers America has ever seen and he’d be of great value to any campaign by doing more of that… but he really should not be shaping policy.
The American working class really does want ‘Hope and Change’, but Obama ain’t that
Idk. I feel like he really gave it an earnest shot.
We are all thinking and talking about health insurance and what that means in regards to the American dream. I think that’s good for people to think about.
In my view, one of the better Republican presidents that we’ve had in my life.
I didn’t see eye to eye with him, but that first midterm brought a lot of opportunists that may not have had the good of the nation as their goal.
Plus the economy was absolutely trashed and the poison pills inserted with the wall street bailout.
I can see a way to cut him some slack.
No flinch, calling Obama a Republican, i’m gonna think about this one.
Good recent video on the topic from Unfuck The Republic.
Obama isn’t a politician
Yes he is.
No. He was.