- cross-posted to:
- progressivepolitics@lemmy.world
- cross-posted to:
- progressivepolitics@lemmy.world
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/11/nyregion/mamdani-police-apology-floyd.html
Zohran Mamdani, the Democratic nominee for mayor of New York City, said on Thursday that he intended to apologize for comments he made in 2020 calling the New York Police Department “racist, anti-queer & a major threat to public safety.”
He said that the remarks, which he wrote in June 2020 in a social media post in support of the defund the police movement, were made after the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis a month earlier.
The comments were made “at the height of frustration,” he said in an interview with The New York Times, and were not reflective of his current campaign or “my view of public safety and the fact that police will be critical partners in delivering public safety.”
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He believes his left flank is unbreakable, so now he’s trying to shore up his right.
Except that’s not how it works. The left flank won’t just sit idly while their candidate appeals to their right, usually when this happens it caused reformers to hemorrhage their left. Without a clear party line on rightist deviations it’ll just make voters lose faith.
And then when they lose, the left will be the ones to blame: not the rat fucking happening in the elections, not the candidate making bonehead moves, but the voters somehow.
If the left flank will throw him out for saying “I’m sorry I called the police racist” then no wonder the Dems keep trying to win the center.
If even an inch of pragmatism is a step too far then even I would give up.
But it’s only “pragmatic” because there are non-leftist voters who might throw him out for saying “cops are racist”.
It’s more pragmatic because the NYC police are a legal mafia. Be a shame if there was a “lapse” in his protection because some officers were a little upset at his bluntness.
No, it’s pragmatic because frankly the police (even as corrupt and racist as they are) are necessary and making an enemy of them will undermine anything else he’d try to achieve.
How is anything supposed to get better if we’re expected to swallow our representatives denying the institutional racism present in our society, especially when we’re the ones targeted by the violence and selective law enforcement?
that’s demsocs for you. you can’t promote actual socialist policies without a strong mass movement to back it up.
“You won’t change them, they’ll change you.” The ultimate lesson of any reformist.
to all dear Americans : you are not voting yourself out of this
not sure where i heard it, but we don’t elect our saviours, we elect our opposition.
it’s better to have him as opposition than anyone else.
In the US, the left typically doesn’t win at the ballot box. It’s all about what happens between elections.
The very video about Palestine he got famous for, he was already full of shit in. “Israel has a right to exist… (as a state with equal rights)”? No. It doesn’t. States don’t have a right to exist and that state is predicated on claiming to have equal rights while being institutionalized apartheid.
This is more of the same. I left NYC, among other reasons, because it’s a miniature police state, with the NYPD leading the charge. The fuck is he even going to do as mayor if he’s not going to rein them in?
I did not really mind the Palestine comments because he basically denies the state of Israel in the way he framed it. But at the pace of Zohran is going now, all that will be done when he gets in power is building like 3 government ran supermarkets.
It’s not Zohver yet but it is going downhill.
I did not really mind the Palestine comments because he basically denies the state of Israel in the way he framed it.
But stated the opposite. His words (maybe slightly paraphrasing) - “Israel has a right to exist as a state with equal rights”. That’s not denying it. That’s defining its “right to exist” within the same terms they themselves use to describe it. The correct, truthful answer is “states don’t have a right to exist”. We don’t have time for clever riddles that play both sides.
I don’t care about any words anymore I care about policies. Look at Turkey shouting big words and then supplying with Israel 30% the oil they use.
If Zohran does BDS I don’t care what lip service he puts on.
The doubletalk before he gets elected is advance warning that his policies won’t reflect his pre-office behavior.
he’s running to the right and; if he has any staying power; he will become another aoc or bernie.
By AOC or Bernie, are you referring to two people that have done a thousand times more to shift the Overton window left than you and a dozen friends will ever achieve?
I just love all the ineffective edgy leftists constantly telling the only people making progress that they’re doing it wrong.
This is funny because the Democrat party has been going to the right despite the non-existent efforts of these two to move it leftwards and indicative of reasons why the Democrats keep losing to the likes of Trump… Over and over again
If you don’t even know the name of the party, I’m really not optimistic about your insights. The party at large has clearly shifted left, even if the old guard hasn’t lost their grip yet. There is a long way to go, and this edgy bullshit is nothing but distraction from the real work.
all groups within the democrat caucus are captured by billionaires and this is such a foregone conclusion that it’s become less edgy than pineapple on pizza.
Pathetic
Don’t apologize
“…I’m sorry that I didn’t call them that in 2019.”
Hopefully he’s just saying what he needs(in that regard) until in power. I won’t hold my breath though.
I don’t see why he would need to say that. He’s leading plenty in votes. And the statement is factually accurate.
And his original statement was made in 2020 after George Floyd’s murder. Like come on man, pigs are f***ing racist and it was the right time to say that
Tbf, he could legitimately be fearing for his life.
But that’s the generous take here.
We don’t vote for our saviours, we vote our opposition.
and Mamdani is still better opposition to have than Cuomo
This guy is folding like origami. Democrats will let you down every time.
I don’t see him saying he was wrong, or that he’s changed his intentions.
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You should work on your skills at interpreting political speech. It’s about positioning yourself in terms of sentiments, not making explicit, accurate statements. The fact that he’s even engaging in this kind of thing shows you he’s false, right off the bat.
The condemnation he’s getting here for saying this is absurd.
This is the New York police we are talking about. They are extremely racist and they are incredibly corrupt. These are some of the last people we would want to see Zohran cozy up to. Especially since he is far ahead in the polling and there seems to be no reason to say this.
As I said in another comment, the reason to not get on their bad side is the fact they’re a highly insular and powerful gang that just so happen to be in charge of his protection detail for his entire (hypothetical) term.
It’s easy to tweet the truth to power until that corrupt power is the only thing stopping the next Maga nut from taking a shot at you. Whole situation is completely unsurprising and not a mark against his character for me.
How dare you suggest Mayor Adams is anything other than of exemplary character?! 🥊
