Mamdani, Debs, and the Rise of Democratic Socialism

American Thinker ^ | 15 Sep, 2025 | A.F. Cronin

[MtnClimber]

“The dawn of a better day” for New York City will not be what they imagined.

Zohran Mamdani, mayor-elect of New York City, quoted Eugene Debs in his acceptance speech last week. “The sun may have set over our city this evening, but as Eugene Debs once said: ‘I can see the dawn of a better day for humanity.’”

The Debs quote is, to most people, obscure. It is deliberately so. Most Democrat voters have no idea who Eugene V. Debs was, what he did, or the ideology he espoused—but that ignorance is paving the way for hardcore socialism.

Debs was the Socialist Party of America’s candidate for President of the United States during the early years of the 20th Century. He ran five times: 1900, 1904, 1908, 1912, and 1920. A vocal opponent of the First World War, Debs had publicly called for resistance to the draft. In 1918, Woodrow Wilson’s administration arrested, tried, convicted and imprisoned him for sedition. Debs had to run his 1920 campaign from his cell in a federal prison. He didn’t win, but he was hailed as a socialist hero by fellow socialists the world over.

The quote Mamdani used was lifted from Debs’s statement to the court upon his conviction, excerpted in part below:

I never so clearly comprehended as now the great struggle between the powers of greed and exploitation on the one hand and upon the other the rising hosts of industrial freedom and social justice. I can see the dawn of the better day for humanity. The people are awakening. In due time they will and must come to their own.

It is interesting to note that Debs used the term social justice—remember, this is 1918. He also used the words “greed” and “exploitation”; words currently (and continuously) used as

[NonValueAdded]

oh, not debutantes :)

[cowboyusa]

Debs was more pf a Utopian Socalist then a Marxist Socalist.

[Maine Mariner]

Good observation!

[Maine Mariner]

Good observation!

[cowboyusa]

I know because my Great- Grandfather loved him. He founded an Ironworkers Union in NYC, and then helped form the Liberal Party in NYC. It was formed because Commies were trying to take over the Laubor Movement.

[MS.BEHAVIN]

Oh, New York!
What have you done?
What have you done?!!

[Maine Mariner]

I have friends in the Ironworkers union-it has an excellent world-class apprentice program. Most of the blue collar union members and leaders were anti communist.

I understand that Harry Lundeberg, long time president of the Sailors Union of the Pacific was Dwight Eisenhower’s first choice to be Secretary of Labor. He was a militant concerning benefits and safety for his members but was also a very strong anti-communist.

[x]

Milwaukee had Socialist mayors from the 1910s to 1960. They were “gas and water socialists” who were able to deliver services without the corruption and cronyism of the Democrats. The Republicans, then as now, weren’t that good at urban politics. People who voted for McCarthy and Eisenhower might well have voted for the last Socialist mayor. Of course, the DSA is more radical than the old Socialist Party, which largely closed up, thinking that FDR had given them what they wanted.

[x]

“Debsian” was a poster here in the very early days. I guess as a socialist he didn’t feel very welcome here.

[dfwgator]

Milwaukee had Socialist mayors from the 1910s to 1960.

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I learned that from Alice Cooper in “Wayne’s World”.

[AZJeep]

All the above are Ok in my book!

In my book, socialism is terrible not just because material suffering.

There are those 100 millions who perished, the gulags, the lack of freedom, constant worry about not being arrested, the obvious mismanagement of economy, but despite of that, one is forced to applaud and thank the leaders, ...
The happiness is not the measure of capitalism vs socialism. There are so many unhappy persons in America, even though everybody is going great economically, compared to the rest of the world.
And, I suppose, some people were happy even in gulags.