The global ripple of the Mamdani effect

fifty years. But this isn't just an American story. The energy around this movement, It's bold ideas on justice, economics and climate change is resonating with jen Z far beyond the US. So what exactly is the Mamdani effect and what does it tell us about the future of politics today? On the Front Page, Victoria University of Wellington se lecturer doctor Mona Quiel is with us to discuss how this kind of politics could redefine the power and purpose of

the next generation of leaders. So, Minor, when people talk about the Mamdani effect, what do you reckon that actually means?

actually a phenomena or an academic term. So he's a member of the Democratic Party, he's identifying as a socialist, he's young, and he is Muslim, and so this is the opposite of the reactionary republican Trump politician type that the US has recently mostly seen. So he's also the opposite of the moderate oldies that the Democratic Party has

presented in the decades, such as Joe Biden. So that someone like him could still get elected was actually a symbol, i would say, of hope for all those who are more progressive in the country. And so it got coined at as the Mandami effect because it showed that politics or the politics that he stands for, that those are still successfully drawing voters. And so more than it being an actual effect, it tells you something also about the journalists in the US who came up with that term

and their hopes for the country and for themselves. Because the media is under a lot of pressure in the USA from the Trump administration at the moment, and the freedom of present independent media coverage is actually at stake, So for journalists, they had high hopes for him, and so I think this was one of the reasons why they took quickly came up with that term, the Mandami effect, and they hoped it would be kind of a trend,

and of course it's very catchy. So the Mandami effect as a headline gets you more clicks than thirty four year old socialists and Muslim elected mayor of New York. So the fact that he was an unlikely candidate with unlikely politics and then he that he can get elected already has a lot of news value per se. But when it coincidence with the fact and the hope of many journalists who are also more on the left side, leaving Vox News aside, then basically media hype is born,

and of course that quickly gets named. So in other words, I would say the Mandami effect tells you at least as much about journalists in the US who are currently under pressure as it tells you about voters preferences.

or raising the minimum age. So literally opposite of what the Trump administration stands for, and so it's also the opposite of the so called He's also, I think the opposite of the so called Washington elite, and he effectively uses this in a sense that surely makes him a little bit more left wing populist, and left wing populism is more known for redistributional politics, and so that stands out in the USA at the moment because it's different from the right wing populism that they have seen in

recent years.

And I think that that expression gives a really good US versus them mentality, And like you said that that kind of Washington elite per se, and especially in New York as well. You can imagine nineteen eighty three. You've got Trump Tower, you've got Golden toilets, you've got Wall Street, you know, and it gives you those kind of a real picture of what he was kind of fighting against. And people resonated with that, really, didn't they.

So I did live in upstate New York for a long time so and spend all of my weekends in New York, so I can relate to what you are describing or what the line in that article has been describing, and I mean like it really resonated with people, and probably particularly also with like Gen Z voters, who stand like for it's a different generation, different from previous generation in many important ways. So they are more racially and

ethnically diverse than any previous generation. So I think they're even like projected in by twenty twenty six to become

a majority non white generation. And so basically they are also on track to be the most well educated generation ever and so highly educated people and also very much support redistributional politics more than people with like lower education, and of course this has like better chance to resonate with people and that generation then it has like probably had previous generations, and so in New Yorkers are also known as much more progressive than the rest of the country.

So I think it is still an open question if this would have been flying with the rest of the country or nationwide. I know some people were quick to say this is a nationwide movement, but I think urban voters are in general more progressive than rural voters in New York are also known to be very progressive, and given that it's a very polarized country, I have some doubts that he could have gotten elected elsewhere in the US.

And we are also still talking about the same country who in twenty to sixteen and twenty twenty four was not ready yet to elect a female president. So one progressive mayor does not fully turn that around overnight. And the electorate is also not made of of gen zs and urban population alone, but surely his like platform of equity and affordability he resonated a lot with urban voters, progressive voters, and in particular I think gen.

very conditions that allowed him to accumulate power. This is not only how we stopped Trump, it's how we stop the next one. So, Donald Trump, since I know you're watching, I have four words for you turn the volume up.

the US for a long time. And so even Gen Z Republicans differ from older Republicans in their attitudes, and they are, for example, much more acknowledging racial inequalities. They are also less likely than older generations to see the USA as superior over other countries. And so in this sense,

I think Mandami's politics surely have resonated with them. They are also digital natives, and so if you think of a generation that has no or just probably the earlier ones little memory of an area before the smartphone, and so they can very well approach through social media, which was a cornerstone of his campaign. So whenever ask so, yeah, so, I think when asked about political issues, they do not

differ that much from millennials. So I wouldn't expect a huge revolution with all of them becoming eligible to vote. But surely a candidate like Mandani has like a much better chance to resonate with them than like older candidates like Joe Biden, for example.

right was gaining more and more voters. And so for a long time the media has actually spreading the stock that the social democratic parties and the labor parties have lost voters to the far right, and it was particular the working class who ran away. But if you actually do look into the data of the European election studies, and we do have a lot of data on that, you see that the young voters and highly educated ran

away to the green parties. They think like Green is the new rat or is the better left party, whereas the far right actually gained its voters from the non voter bloc and the conservative parties. But these phenomena happening at the same time, and is looking like a scissor in a graph. A lot of people thought these phenomena

were related. Not so much the case. So why did the young voters run away to the green parties Because they embraced climate change and politics sustainability, education that matters for them, making education for free in a lot of countries, and LGBTQ pluss rights a lot earlier and more like believable than the social democratic parties did, who were late

adopters of these things. And so meanwhile, the best predictor for voting for the center left in Europe is age, which means that these parties are dying like a dinosaur.

And so I would actually recommend to LEF parties around the world, if they want to win back like young, highly educated voters, to embrace those left progressive policies more and not what parts of the European media has been suggesting to them for a long time, anti immigration policies and left nationalism, because that will drive those young voters even further away from them. And so actually it would be advisable and they could take a page from that,

from that playbook and probably yeah, embrace that trend. I think actually in New Zealand this might have just been a little bit delayed what we have been seeing with social democratic parties in Western Europe, so that they have not been part of that global decline yet because it has been brushed over a little bit, like with an attractive young author like to Sinda Adirn and so, but also the Labor Party here would be advised to go

more for those progressive policies. I would say. However, the US is still a highly polarized country and so progressiveness at least progressiveness at least I think on the national level must be prescribed to them in like pretty careful doses,

or just sprinkled into a Democratic campaign. So because getting a Mandami like president elected is proborty, still too much of a move for this country, But you I could imagine a moderate presidential candidate with a more progressive, younger VC choice, maybe so, or at least having people like Mandami or Alexandra Ocasio Corotest play a bigger role in

the Democratic Party in the future. I think this would resonate a lot, with the gen Z voters in particular, more and more of them becoming like voting age.

I mean, it was just it. There must be parties around the world studying those Instagram feeds and those TikTok fades and seeing what they did, because it did speak to current generations and people entering the voter base.

content to his offline campaign. So he talked, for example, to ordinary people on the streets why they voted for Trump and presented his agenda to them, and then he put it on TikTok and so offline and online were very well connected. The second thing, it was believable, so he was using social media naturally so as people of his generation do so. With older politicians, it has been very in the past. So think of Joe Biden joining with like in his late seventies snapchat and he got

ridiculous by gen Z voters for that. So authenticity matters a lot on social media. And this is also why influenzas influenza have such like huge followers following ships. So for example, Trump is also successful with his audience because he is authentic, so even his typos in his social media posts are authentic. And I think the third reason why his social media campaign was so successful is probably he embraced this everyday celebrity politician style as it's called

in political communication research. So this is like more trying to make yourself relatable and very much including influenza style elements in your campaign. This is in stark contrast to the super celebrity politician of the past that we have been seeing in the past, which is more traditional personalization streatch and portrays politicians more as like extraordinary charismatic leaders.

So most politicians these days already mixed post strategies. We have seen this from Christopher Luxan in a twenty twenty three campaign, who tried to balance that out and presented this traditional super celebrity politician more on Facebook where you have an older audience, and the everyday celebrity politicians he

saved for his tiktoks with a younger audience. So I think in like the social media age of campaigning, you will see this more and more from politicians, and Mandami is probably surely one of those who's like at the

forefront of this. I would think that is actually like a really good point that campaign managers do usually watch trends all over the world, and so campaign contacts differ between countries, of course, and you cannot always fully copy campaigns because you cannot transplant them into different campaign contacts because would be incompatible. But they surely shop and we have seen this in all campaigns all around the world from successful examples around the world, and they really study

them and they even go there for exchanges. So also Marine le Pen's campaign visited his Trump's campaigners and they have been sitting together in the Trump Tower. There are pictures of that kind of stuff. So in particular between like parties of the same ideology, we see them like exchanging campaign knowledge.

on a two thousands digital camera. That is very trendy right now, even down to the very you know, the placement of things is very so I think that it's it's more than I've no just it, more than I ever have before, I think with the men Danny one, and that's why I was so interested in taking aback with it.

You can read more about today's stories and extensive news coverage at enzidherld dot co dot nz. The Front Page is produced by Jane Yee and Richard Martin, who is also our editor.