Godzilla Trump v Zohran Mamdani and the lessons for Chris Hipkins and Chlöe Swarbrick

Godzilla Trump: if Zohran Mamdani wins the New York mayoralty, will he go on the rampage? Cartoon / Rod Emmerson

THE FACTS

• New Yorkers are at the polls today to elect a new mayor, with the socialist Zohran Mamdani seen by many as the frontrunner.
• Mamdani has based his campaign on the cost of living, not identity politics.
• There are lessons for Labour and the Greens in his rise in popularity.

New Yorkers are bracing themselves: will life imitate art in their great city? They’re voting today and the polls suggest they will elect a Muslim socialist as mayor.

And many of them fear this could bring Godzilla stomping back to town. Trump Godzilla, that is, rampaging up Fifth Ave in a fury, eating cars and pulling the tops off the beautiful Chrysler and Empire State buildings.

Or maybe not? Zohran Mamdani slayed the Democratic establishment in the primaries this year and, a few days ago, the New York Times reported a poll that had him 25 percentage points ahead of his nearest rival. That person is former governor Andrew Cuomo, the same guy he beat in the primary, now standing as an independent.

The popularity of Mamdani contains some big lessons for New Zealand, especially for Chlöe Swarbrick and Marama Davidson, and for Chris Hipkins and Carmel Sepuloni. The threat of Trump Godzilla sounds a warning for us too.

The Economist acknowledged some important parts of Mamdani’s appeal last week, calling him “a new kind of politician, inspiring, optimistic and a rebuke to the tired, predictable Democratic party machine”.

What’s he being inspiring and optimistic about? It’s not “identity politics”. Mamdani is a Muslim Indian-American, he supports the people of Gaza and LGBTQ+ communities and has strong views on the climate crisis. But he has not based his campaign on any of this.

His main platform is simple. He wants to reduce the cost of living for ordinary working people.

And instead of wringing his hands about it, he has a plan to make it happen. It includes childcare reform, a significant rise in the minimum wage, a rent freeze, more affordable housing, free public transport and price-controlled city-owned supermarkets.

Oh, and comprehensive public-safety reform and higher taxes on the wealthy.

Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez endorsed Zohran Mamdani for New York mayor at a Democratic Party rally in June. Photo / Shuran Huang/The New York Times

It’s not a revolution. In policy terms, it’s hardly even radical. The minimum wage will take five years to rise to its new benchmark. The rent freeze will apply only to “rent-stabilised” apartments. Higher taxes will not apply to anyone earning less than a million bucks a year.

But it is extremely radical in another way: this is undisguised class politics. Instead of allowing his opponents to define him as an “identitarian lefty” – and they really have tried – Mamdani is all about the working class.

The big takeout from Mamdani’s campaign, for progressive politicians everywhere, is this: focus on good solutions to the issues that worry voters the most and let the other stuff find its place.

To put that another way, politicians shouldn’t let their core issues be undermined by other conflicts.

So the main reason you’re in politics is to help prevent the volatility and excesses of capitalism from ruining people’s lives? Okay, then you will want to win the support of everyone who agrees with that – even if they disagree about some other things.

This should have been more difficult for Mamdani than for almost anyone else in politics, because he’s a Palestinian supporter in a Democratic city proud of its long tradition of support for Israel. But he’s managed it.

It may surprise some people that the Greens’ Swarbrick has been saying some similar things. Critics who will never vote Green are determined to paint her as the leader of a party obsessed with identity issues and Gaza. But the Greens’ major policy announcements this term have been around tax reform, alleviating poverty, energy resilience and job creation, especially green jobs.

Greens co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick has delivered some major economic policy announcements this term. Photo / Mark Mitchell

Swarbrick and her co-leader Davidson have not been as successful as Mamdani at getting cut-through with this messaging. But that doesn’t mean they can’t be, or won’t be, in the months to come.

But what about Godzilla? Trump is so worried about Mamdani, the New York Times reported on Monday, he endorsed the rogue Democrat Cuomo. And he’s already mobilised the National Guard in other Democrat-controlled cities. Are those troops rehearsing a takeover?

If Trump can’t resist seizing his own hometown, it will not end well.

The threat of Godzilla is one of the biggest political problems facing the centre-left everywhere. How do you introduce the reforms you know are needed, the ones that really will make a difference, when you know they could trigger a deep, forceful, destabilising reaction from the right?

The answer depends on where you stand on the centre-left. Mamdani is avowedly a democratic socialist, which is not the same thing as a social democrat.

Hipkins, Dame Jacinda Ardern and Helen Clark are social democrats. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Swarbrick and the new British Green Party leader Zach Polanski incline more to democratic socialism.

What’s the difference? There are lots of ways to parse it, but one of them is this: for social democrats, change should be small enough not to provoke the beast, while for democratic socialists it should be big enough to work.

Example? A narrowly scoped capital gains tax versus a wealth tax.

Democratic socialists are prepared to fight the beast. Social democrats say you will probably lose that fight, which means your change won’t work after all, because it will not happen. So it’s better to avoid the fight.

And what is this beast? It might be corporates, determined to prevent meaningful reform of oligopolistic sectors of the economy, such as banking, supermarkets and energy.

It might be the markets: as I’ve noted before, the British Chancellor of the Exchequer, Rachel Reeves, provoked a near-collapse of the bond market this year when she abandoned proposed welfare cuts.

It might be the super-wealthy, determined to spend whatever it takes to keep you out of power. Arguably, the record $10.4 million donated to National in 2024 alone is the beast Labour should fear the most.

And it might be your political enemy. In the US, Politico has suggested that “every policy move the democratic socialist [Mamdani] makes could become campaign fuel for Republicans and a political headache for Democrats nationwide”.

Which means, in the end, the beast might simply be voters who don’t want to take the risk.

Labour leader Chris Hipkins (centre), with health spokeswoman Ayesha Verrall (left) and finance and economy spokeswoman Barbara Edmonds, on their way to announcing their new capital gains tax plans. Photo / Mark Mitchell

There have been a few howls of anguish over Labour’s new capital gains tax (CGT). But the plan is targeted, limited and cleverly tied to health spending that people can take material advantage of.

If ever a policy was designed to be electorally successful without provoking the beast, this is it.

It’s Labour standing nearer the centre than the left, with a policy that will open the door to equitable and productive tax reform.

This doesn’t please the Greens, who prefer a wealth tax because it will make a bigger difference to people’s lives and to productive investment.

But if a modest CGT wins votes for Labour off an inept and truculent National Party, that shouldn’t worry the Greens. Their political task is to soak up Labour supporters who wanted more.

Win-win for both of them. And if their combined efforts win them the next election, which is very possible, the relative strengths of their wins will, or should, determine the power of each in the new Government. A bit of Swarbrick and a bit of Hipkins, the size of the bits TBA.

It’s a great strength of MMP that voters facing moderate and more radical options know that both, to some degree, will be accommodated.

Labour and the Greens can learn from Mamdani. The path to winning is through focusing on the issues of most concern to voters and producing policies they will believe in. You wrap your other policies around that.

To be clear, I’m for Zohran Mamdani. But I’d want him to have a strategy for heading off Donald Trump before the rampage begins.

That strategy will need to be based on very strong public support. If you’re going to take on Godzilla, you need the people with you.