The two most famous Democratic Socialists in America, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Zohran Mamdani, the Democratic candidate for Mayor of New York City, sat for a filmed exchange in Astoria, Queens — the New York City borough often touted as the most diverse place in America, where no racial or ethnic group holds a majority and reportedly over 200 languages are spoken.
[NOTE: Queens is, depending on one’s political standpoint, either an optimistic portrait of America’s vibrant multicultural future or an aberration that represents a cautionary case against swelling immigration and cultural heterogeneity.]
Sanders and Mamdani, both of whom rely on grassroots support and can be thorns in the side of the Democratic Party they mostly align with, are part of a movement in American politics focused on empowering working class citizens and dismantling the “oligarchy” — the powerful coterie of wealthy plutocrats who tacitly control health care, national politics, corporate media and most facets of American life.
Sanders and Mandani share a conviction that this dismantling — however challenging — will be attractive to the many MAGA/Trump voters who are less interested in culture wars and far more concerned with gainful employment, affordable housing, groceries and education, and access to medical care.
Before he was a Senator, a candidate for President, and our greatest champion in the fight against oligarchy, @BernieSanders was the four-term Mayor of Burlington, VT.
— Zohran Kwame Mamdani (@ZohranKMamdani) September 17, 2025
I sat down with Bernie in Astoria to talk about the lessons he learned—and the work ahead. pic.twitter.com/ILLQAZ1uzk
Sanders, who was a four-time mayor of Burlington, Vermont before his long tenure in the Senate, spoke to Mamdani about what will be expected of him if he wins the New York mayoral race.
Recognizing that the Mayor of New York City is a figure of national prominence, Sanders told Mamdani that “the importance of your election and your governance is that from a moral perspective you’re going to be in sharp contrast to the President of the United States.”
It’s important, Sanders said, that “we cherish our kids, the elderly who helped raise us. If we can say it, we believe in compassion and love…Oh my God it’s a radical thing. According to the President of the United States, you’re a communist because you want to improve child care in the city of New York.”
[NOTE: Sanders twice laments that his positions, which he frames as compassionate and sensible, are denigrated as “radical” by those on the right — emphasizing the characterization (“radical left lunatics”) Trump often hurls against his opponents as a slur.]
Sanders cautions Mamdani that “the bottom line — that falls on your shoulders — is an enormous responsibility to show the world that our value system can govern well and efficiently.”
The Senator asserts that the current “system” which gives “so much to so few and denies so many people the basic necessities of life” has “taken away our dreams.”
In another video he posted this week (see below), Sanders made his pitch to MAGA/Trump voters in West Virginia, a state where financial hardships continue to wreak havoc — and where the citizens he talks to share painful stories about high levels of addiction and low levels of economic opportunity stifling their lives.
I loved my time visiting with the people of West Virginia. pic.twitter.com/zRIhilDtoi
— Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) September 16, 2025
(West Virginia, until the last decade a Democratic stronghold, voted nearly 70% for Trump in 2024, though only 55% of eligible voters participated, 10% below the national average.)
Mamdani faces three major opponents in the Mayor’s race — Republican Curtis Sliwa, incumbent Eric Adams and former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, who has also painted Mamdani as a radical — in opposition to his own proclaimed centrism.
