Los Angeles is a city in crisis, governed by leaders who claim to be progressive but consistently serve the interests of the powerful. Mayor Karen Bass came into office promising compassion, collaboration, and a new approach to the housing and homelessness crises. But two years into her term, it’s clear she represents more of the same – a politics of cautious triangulation and deference to the same interests that keep LA unaffordable and unequal.
Bass has prioritized encampment sweeps over housing production and maintained a close alliance with police unions. Her administration has embraced progressive cover for fundamentally punitive policies, offering the language of care while criminalizing poverty and displacement. Instead of confronting the city’s housing speculators or curbing landlord power, Bass has focused on negotiations with developers and leaned on ineffective emergency orders. Her version of progressivism stops at the threshold of structural change.
That is precisely why Zohran Mamdani’s stunning victory in New York’s Democratic mayoral primary has resonated so strongly with organizers and frustrated residents in cities like Los Angeles. Mamdani, a 33-year-old democratic socialist and state assemblymember from Queens, defeated Andrew Cuomo, a former governor backed by the city’s business elite, by running a campaign rooted in working-class solidarity. He refused corporate PAC money and spoke plainly about housing injustice, police violence, and wealth inequality. And he won.
Los Angeles is also living through a moment of intensifying crisis, as Donald Trump’s return to power unleashes a wave of state repression targeting immigrants, protesters, and the poor. In recent weeks, immigration raids have swept through neighborhoods from Pacoima to Playa Vista, with ICE agents detaining street vendors in broad daylight as local police stand by. But instead of sowing fear, these attacks have sparked a wave of solidarity. Communities are organizing emergency response networks, holding rapid-response trainings, and showing up to defend one another. The cruelty of federal policy—and the complicity of local officials—has only deepened people’s sense that the system isn’t just broken, it’s working exactly as designed. In this context, the appetite for real change is growing. People are no longer content with symbolic gestures or reformist tweaks. The city is ready for a shift—not just in policies, but in power. Mamdani’s win shows what can happen when that energy is organized and given political expression. In Los Angeles, the conditions are ripe.
Mamdani’s campaign wasn’t built on vague promises or empty slogans like “locking arms.” It offered a real break from establishment politics. He called for universal childcare, fare-free transit, rent control, and new taxes on the ultra-wealthy. He built a multiracial, borough-spanning coalition of voters who felt abandoned by both political parties. At his election night party in Long Island City, the crowd wasn’t made up of donors or lobbyists. It was filled with nurses, street vendors, college students, and gig workers. In stark contrast to Karen Bass’s managerial approach to crisis, Mamdani embraced confrontation where necessary. He was unapologetic in opposing police union influence and called for shrinking the NYPD’s power. He didn’t try to appease real estate interests or soften his message for moderate voters. As he and his campaign made clear, they weren’t running to tinker with the system. They were running to change it.
Los Angeles desperately needs a figure like Mamdani. Not just a charismatic speaker or a new face, but someone who sees electoral politics as an extension of organizing and who treats government as a platform for movements, not an obstacle to them. Someone willing to name the enemies of working people, and build power to defeat them. In this moment of deep inequality, when the far right is on the march nationally and locally, cities like LA can’t afford more of the same polished, donor-friendly progressivism. They need leadership with backbone. Mamdani’s victory offers a glimpse of what that could look like. His win wasn’t inevitable but was earned through years of organizing, clarity of purpose, and a refusal to compromise on the core interests of poor and working-class people. Los Angeles has no shortage of movements, coalitions, and communities ready to mobilize behind that kind of vision, and we need a candidate bold enough to carry it forward