Why Can't Berlin Have Its Own Mamdani?
German politicians are scrambling to capitalise off Zohran Mamdani’s success in New York. Problem is, they’ve got no interest in engaging with his actual politics.
New York City mayor Zohran Mamdani's charisma reaches all the way across the Atlantic. It’s left many Berliners, and the German media, asking the same question: Why can't Berlin have a cool mayor, instead of our reactionary, tennis-playing bumpkin? "We have Mamdani at home," politicians say. But at home, all we find is dollar-store knockoffs.
The German politicians tripping over themselves to appear as Berlin's equivalent don't seem to understand the appeal at all. You tell them that New York has a young, Muslim, immigrant, socialist mayor with a long record of supporting Palestine and criticising the police, who picks fights with landlords and is good at TikTok. And they hear: "Good at Tiktok!"
This has brought us a parade of cringy videos with poorly copied aesthetics and no substance. The worst is from Steffen Krach, the social democratic robot that the SPD has flown in from Hannover to lose the Berlin elections. In one video, he asks what he has in common with Mamdani, and answers… that he bought a soccer jersey from NYC? I’m not sure if that’s core to Zohran’s allure.
Krach says Berlin already has things that Mamdani demands, such as free childcare. He seems to want people to get fired up for… maintaining the status quo. Krach also shows himself dribbling a Fußball — maybe not as fun as Mamdani as Young Cardamon rapping in Luganda.
After the NYC election, politicians scrambled to capitalise on the Mamdani momentum.
It’s rare to hear a German politician speaking any foreign language other than English. You never hear them employ even a simple phrase in languages spoken by millions of residents, like Turkish or Arabic. In contrast, Mamdani appealed to the multilingual city of New York with charming videos in different languages. In one, he starts by reading from a script in Spanish, but then cuts to scenes of the director berating him for messing up the grammar. Like many New Yorkers, Mamdani really does speak Spanish with pleasure, just not very well ("Lo siento, yo no hablo español muy bueno!").
In Arabic, he's also full of self-deprecation: "I might look like your brother-in-law from Damascus, but my Arabic needs some work." In Bengali and Urdu videos, he's talking with supporters who speak those languages.
Compare this to the attempts by Jan van Aken, co-chair of Die Linke, to appeal to voters in Turkish, Arabic, Italian, or sign language. It's good that he's trying! But he's reading a script phonetically, without really interacting with the community. I guess it would be too much to expect humour from a German politician.
After the NYC election, politicians scrambled to capitalise on the Mamdani momentum. They slapped images of their faces next to his and repeated his slogans on warmth and affordability. But their rush to associate elides the fact that their political convictions are nowhere close to Mamdani's.
The Greens invited political strategist Morris Katz from Mamdani’s team to give them advice on how to appeal to voters. Their only reported takeaway was "micro-targetting" of interest groups. But this approach risks missing the forest for the trees, as they only seem to be willing to learn the messages that suit their existing beliefs. (Note here that Mamdani denounces an "illegal war of aggression" against Iran — whereas Greens blame the Iranian government as the "root cause" of the war.)
Caren Lay, a member of the Bundestag from Die Linke, posted a fun meme: “First we take Manhattan, then we take Berlin.” Lay, however, seems to have missed the fact that Mamdani has a long record of supporting Palestine, co-founding a chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) at college. He is critical of Zionism, and during the campaign he refused to distance himself from the slogan "globalise the Intifada" (though he since backtracked). Despite unsubstantiated accusations of antisemitism, Mamdani won the enthusiastic support of New York's enormous left-wing Jewish community. Mamdani is popular in part because he has spoken up against the genocide in Gaza.
Die Linke's Lay, in contrast, was associated with a tiny counterdemonstration against Berlin's massive Gaza protest last year. Her party has expelled a series of pro-Palestinian activists for the crime of opposing the genocide. It’s hard to believe that she’d support Mamdani if he hadn’t achieved an enviable victory.
Zohran Mamdani is popular because he speaks to the large majorities who sympathise with Palestine. These majorities exist both in the U.S. (where 50 percent of voters think Israel is committing genocide) and in Germany (where it’s 62 percent). Yet in the upcoming Berlin election, no one — except for some people inside Die Linke’s Neukölln branch — is trying to get the Palestine vote. All the big political parties remain steadfast in their support for Israel, creating a huge crisis of representation.
The reason Berlin can't have its own Mamdani? Because Die Linke would have expelled him years ago for his Palestine solidarity. Because the Greens would have denounced him as an antisemite. Because the SPD is talking about denaturalising people like him. (Yes, the Trumpian fever dream of taking away citizenship for criticising Israel is government policy in Germany.)
So, speaking to Steffen Krach directly: the kids do not care if you can kick a soccer ball! The kids are concerned that your party is supporting imperialist massacres and wants them to die in new wars. If you were to talk about that, you might come across as cool. No promises though.
