From Mamdani to Corbyn: Democratic Socialism as a placeholder

As of writing it is the 5th of November 2025 and after many months of campaigning, Zohran Kwame Mamdani has won the New York City Mayoral election, meaning that he and his "Democratic Socialist" agenda will be entering office on the 1st of January 2026. But what actually is Democratic Socialism in this context and how does Jeremy Corbyn also tie into this for Brits across the pond? Well to put it simply, Democratic Socialism is a relatively simple philosophy, but what's being done with the term "Democratic Socialism" is less of an ideology as Mamdani or Corbyn would put it and more of a placeholder.

Both Britain and the United States have a history of Socialist Activism dating back to the early 1900s for the United States and way further back for Britain with Proto-Socialist ideas floating around the intelligentsia since at least the early 1800s. But what they have is a more complicated history with is with

Red Scare propaganda, the United States had two Red Scare's, the first being from 1917-1920 and the Second being around 1947 to 1957, with the Second being the most important to explaining what is going on here. During the Second Red Scare, Socialism, Communism, Anarchism and anything left of Liberal was effectively criminalised under Joseph McCarthy's Influence. McCarthy was a Senator representing Wisconsin, from 1947 to 1957 and his main "issue" was combating what he saw as growing sympathy towards the Soviet Union, Sympathy that he didn't just see as an ideological shift but a state-backed attempt of turning the United States into a satellite of the Soviet Union.

To give McCarthy his dues, the Soviet Union absolutely did propagandize to specific demographics and even hire civillians to start grassroots socialist or even socially democratic groups in hopes of improving relations between themselves and another country. But there was no substantial evidence that the Soviet Union was actively doing that in the United States, and that remains the case today. So for what it is worth, it would be an understatement to say he was being a bit of a hypochondriac. During the Red Scare, Pioneered by McCarthy, anyone seen to be sympathetic to Social Democracy, Socialism, Communism or Anarchism could be effectively imprisoned or subject to intense surveillance, or even state sanctioned assassinations at times. The media was incentivised to create adverts, TV shows, Movies, etc often exaggerating what Communism was or instead portraying a Fascist Government as being Communist. Which again to be fair, the Soviet Union could either been seen as State Capitalist, Communist or Fascist depending on who you ask and when you asked them.

The media portrayal of Socialism and Communism from the McCarthy days continues on to this very day, with villains in movies having some kind of Socialist or Communist backstory attached to them, first one that comes to mind is the Joker from the DC Universe who is supposed to be the embodiment of Anarchism, even though he's just mentally ill and has no real tangible ideology behind him, or at least not one that is consistent throughout his portrayals. Point is, Both the British Public (due to influence from American media) and the American populous have been inundated with Anti-Socialist and Anti-Communist propaganda for most of their lives. Both Education systems often portray Socialism through a purely Capitalistic lens and build their Populus's to believe that they are temporarily embarrassed millionaires, just waiting for the day they make it big, and thus Socialism is something that must be avoided at all costs.

This is despite the fact that Socialistic policy often actually helps people develop class mobility, and allows them to climb and descend the social ladder throughout their lives far more than more Liberal economic policy will ever allow them to do. As things like free healthcare, more unions, socialisation of key sectors like water, energy, etc reduce the costs of living on the populus and in return they pay a modest level of tax for the benefit of having a lower cost of living and lower barrier to entry into the upper classes. Some of the greatest levels of upward social mobility in the UK is directly tied to the Post-war consensus, wherein the NHS was created, public investment into infrastructure was increased significantly, the government played a much greater role in the overall economy and the welfare state was expansive. With much of this being ground to a halt during the golden era of Neo-liberalism in the 1970s wherein taxes were reduced, public investment tanked and public assets that were helping the public on balance were privatised.

Despite all of this, Socialism or Social Democracy is demonised as being Communistic in the west, and still is to this day. So what's the deal with Mamdani and Corbyn, and most importantly, why do they put an emphasis on the term "Democratic Socialism"?

Well, it has to be said neither Mamdani or Corbyn have actually put out a robustly Socialist platform that calls for the absolute dismantling of the Capitalist super-structure, and at most have put out platforms that are varying levels of Social Democracy. So why do they call themselves Democratic Socialists? Well first, because they ideologically are. Democratic Socialism is a liberal democratic way of achieving socialism through gradual reforms, but that's not the only reason. They are trying to normalise and de-stigmatise the word Socialism by tying it to policies that are popular and most importantly, aren't scary to a generation who has been lulled into fearing policies that would actually help them.

Secondly, in the UK, "Social Democracy" was historically watered down during the Blair years (1997-2007) wherein "New Labour" attempted and was very successful at making Social Democracy unappealing to the populus the term used to benefit. Blair shifted Social Democracy back towards the centre and started to tie in pro-corporate policy which also included the quiet watering down of trade union rights, last ditch investments into the NHS, to which the NHS would start to be ground down by years and years of underfunding which led to the issue we have today, as well as Blair being a war-hawk who sent the UK in to Iraq against the will of the public.

By calling themselves something other than a Social Democrat, Corbyn and Mamdani are not only normalising but shifting the definition of Social Democracy away from the bastardization of the early 2000s, and back towards something that historically matches the Social Democracy of the post-war era, as well as normalising the use of Socialist language, so that rather than having decades of just Socially Democratic policy, which does grind itself down over time due to lack of legal and systemic maintenance, you are able to have a progression of an economic system that serves the majority of people, progression, progressivism, Progressive? Do you get it yet?

Progressive in the case of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Mhairi Black in Scotland, Zack Polanski, Ross Greer, etc is synonymous with Democratic Socialism in the way I outlined before. Progressivism is this exact situation, its a placeholder for Democratic Socialism or Social Democracy. The only real difference is Progressivism see's societal, economic, cultural and social progress as being endemic to a functioning society. True ideological Progressives do not have a end goal, meaning that they aren't Communists, although most modern Communists are progressive. Progressives understand that with every economic and social progression there are new issues to be fixed, and thus society will progress till the end of time because they acknowledge that no system is perfect, but one that actually progresses is far better than the one we have now.

So to put a long story short; Corbyn and Mamdani are using the term "Democratic Socialism" as a anchor to pull their respective countries back towards the left as well as to right the wrongs of red scare propaganda whilst also acknowledging the failures and catastrophes of previous "Socialist" states or experiments.