Opinion: To Claim that Mamdani "Normalised" Trump is to Live in an Inverted Reality.

Kevin Ovenden, London UK

11-22-25

 

To claim that Mamdani "normalised" Trump is to live in an inverted reality. 

Trump won the majority of those who voted a year ago. Not just the electoral college, but a majority of the popular vote. 

He and outriders have denounced Mamdani as a communist, a jihadi and a threat to America. 

Trump was not and is not requiring of "normalisation" by Mamdani. 

In fact what happened is that Trump, despite all the bluster and the concerted *billionaire push* to destroy the incoming mayor of New York had to normalise him. 

There are debates about tactics and such things as to how you handle the invitation to such a meeting. They are tactical. The answer is not found in some ideological line argument. 

But I will say this:

The media tried to bring it to theatrics all the time about what Mamdani had said about Trump (and vice versa) in the press conference. Mamdani kept ruthlessly bringing it back to the life of the majority of New Yorkers. The media wanted US political theatre of "red and blue". Mamdani refused it. 

In the election he won 9% of those who had voted Trump last year and it was on a systematic basis of cutting into Trump's base on a class cut that also makes no concessions to racism and divide and rule. 

The campaign put class war over culture war. That is what won. 

Now, there are all sorts of strategic dilemmas and questions over how to proceed politically now and over what the radical and anti-capitalist left do to advance that. 

But in order to address those constructively we on the left need to be anchored in the social and political reality and have some sense of humility when it comes to our own role. That doesn't mean deference, but it certainly doesn't mean arrogance. 

To claim that Mamdani has normalised Trump is a flight from reality. Trump won a majority across the country. 

What Mamadani has done on a national stage is signal again and again to Trump that in the political space of NYC he is going to cut into his base and not just rely on an oppositional one defined by culture-war issues and habitual voting for one or other of the billionaire parties. 

Can Mamdani do that? I don't know and there are huge challenges. Can the radical left help address those challenges? 

Let's see. And good luck to those who have a sense of reality about all this and some energy to do so.

But siloed propagandism will not help anybody.