After World War I, Germany became a constitutional democratic republic for the
first time. The country was in desperate circumstances subsequent to the war and
the early years of the Weimar Republic were laden with grave problems, including
hyperinflation and political violence. By 1924 much stability was restored, the
economy was prosperous, the sciences and arts flourished.

In 1932 there were three main political blocks. The Nazis comprised around 37%
of the electorate. It bears pointing out that this is around the same support that
Donald Trump has according to recent polls. The communist support was around 15-18%. The rest were the more centrist social democrats including mainstream Catholics, many trade unions, business aligned liberals, and fragmented supporting factions. Together the center and left parties comprised about 60% of the country and could have averted the rise of the Nazis if they had united. But they did not.

Paul von Hindenburg, the president, appointed Adolf Hitler chancellor thinking he
could be controlled in a coalition government. Then came the Reichstag fire and
the Enabling Act of 1933. Civil liberties were suspended. Democracy ended.
Last month Zohran Mamdani won the Democratic Party primary for mayor of
New York City, resoundingly beating his main opponent, former governor Andrew
Cuomo who had resigned in disgrace after the New York attorney general determined
that he had sexually harassed at least 11 women and accusations that his handling
of the COVID-19 pandemic had contributed to a great number of deaths in
nursing homes. Yet in the mayoral primary Cuomo was the choice of most people
with power in the party and had attracted millions of dollars of support from
wealthy funders. Former President Bill Clinton and former NYC mayor Michael
Bloomberg provided strong endorsements. Nonetheless, he was rejected by the
voters in his own party. Cuomo is running in the general election as an independent against Mamdani and the incumbent, Eric Adams, who has has become Donald Trump’s pet mayor.

Mamdani, a Muslim, is a member of the Democratic Socialists of America and ran
a dynamic campaign featuring creative progressive ideas and proposals such as a
$30 minimum wage, free busses, a freeze of rent, and having the city operate five
grocery stores in underserved “food desert” neighborhoods. Most controversially, he is also a supporter of the rights of the Palestinian people and has declined to condemn the phrase “globalize the intifada” although he does not use it himself and discourages its use by anyone because it is frequently misinterpreted to mean the promotion of violence against Jews.

Mamdani, along with anyone who is correctly informed about the Middle East,
knows that the term “intifada” is simply the Arabic word for “shaking off,” as in a
resistance struggle. The vast majority of uprisings labeled “intifadas” in the Arab
world have been nonviolent and they have primarily been directed at Arab
dictatorships, not Israel. “Globalize the intifada” is simply another way of saying
“Resist Oppression Everywhere.” The Arabic translations in Yad Vashem, the
Israeli holocaust museum, about the Warsaw Ghetto uprising, use the word
“intifada.”

Despite this, Pennsylvania’s Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro has attacked
Mamdani for failing to condemn what he calls “blatantly antisemitic” language
used by “extremists.” Shapiro insisted that it should be the New York City mayor’s
job to help improve Americans’ “understanding” of Israel and to “strengthen our
bond.” And former Democratic Congressman, Chicago mayor, and White House Chief of
Staff Rahm Emanual insists that “a politician unwilling to condemn use of the
phrase has no place in the party.”

Mamdani has the support of Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders and NYC
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. But most Democratic current and
former office holders are declining to endorse him. Prominent among these are
New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand who alleged, before apologizing, that he had
made references to “global jihad.” Gillibrand, known as a champion of women’s
empowerment, prominently participated in drumming out Minnesota’s Al Franken, maybe the most rhetorically effective member of the Senate whose voice has surely
been missed during the Trump years, due to allegations of sexism. Still, she declines
to endorse Mamdani over Cuomo whose resignation she called for when he was
governor for a far more egregious pattern of abuse. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, and and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, both from New York, have also not endorsed the nominee of their own party.

Bernie Sanders had a chance of winning the 2016 Democratic Presidential
nomination had party power brokers and nearly all of the super delegates not
colluded to stop him and thrown their support to Hillary Clinton, after which they
turned to the progressives within their own party and demanded support for
Clinton. Most obliged them. Sanders campaigned for her. Similarly, in the 2020 Democratic primary Sanders again the momentum until all of the more moderate candidates dropped out and coalesced around Biden in order to stop him.

This is the way it goes. Centrist Democrats tell progressives they must support the
corporatist candidates they provide. Then, when a true progressive manages to get
nominated, the party bosses and their bankers reject solidarity, even when the
alternatives are as odious as Cuomo and Adams.

You can’t appease a would-be tyrant; not in the Weimar and not here and now.
Mamdani is a 33 year-old, principled, charismatic, creative, progressive. If the tired
old guard in the party cannot unite against the MAGA coup that is underway to
support such as he, the precedents are ominous. There is little time left.

Jonathan Klate lives in Amherst.