British prime minister Margaret Thatcher's election in 1979 was a surprising setback to the socialists in the Labour Party. New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani's election in 2025 was a triumph for American socialists. There is a telling difference in just how the media, whether in Thatcher’s day or right now as Mamdani runs New York, treat the right versus the left. Not to mention a female candidate versus a male candidate. (For that, see Sarah Palin, John McCain’s much media-disparaged vice presidential running mate.)
Margaret Thatcher was a decided free-market capitalist who foreshadowed the rise of Ronald Reagan. The media of her day dubbed her “the Iron Lady”. Meant not as a compliment although, in fact, it became one!
In 2013, Robin Harris, a former speechwriter for Thatcher wrote a biography of Thatcher in which he said this of the woman who famously was the daughter of a grocer:
More perhaps than any other British Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher was made what she was by her upbringing; and she knew it. She never forgot her origins or early life.
Indeed. In her own memoirs, when it came to discussing socialists and communists, Thatcher writes this - which surely had media types wincing:
I had always believed, during the long struggle with the Soviet Union, that my firmest allies were the ordinary people of the Eastern bloc. Although real differences divide people from different nations and cultures, our basic needs and aspirations are very similar: a good job, a loving family, a better life for our children, a country in which a man can call his soul his own. I knew, simply knew, that communism and socialism either denied or corrupted these aspirations, and so the people living under them would always be in a state of rebellion. My friends in exile from Eastern Europe had assured me this was so.
While Thatcher insisted that “communism and socialism either denied or corrupted” the aspirations "for a better life for our children, a country in which a man can call his soul his own,” the New York Mayor is a thorough-going “democratic socialist.” And the media lap it up.
As noted at NPR, Mamdani is a staunch socialist supporter who "won with a progressive platform focused on making the city more affordable, through free bus service, frozen rents, universal childcare and a higher minimum wage, among other ideas.”
NPR also reported this of the one-time New York State legislator:
The state assembly member represented both the Democratic Party and the Working Families Party on the ballot. He quoted prominent late-19th and early-20th century socialist Eugene Debs in his victory speech Tuesday night. And he is a longtime member of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA).
Somewhere up in political heaven Mrs. Thatcher is doubtless rolling her eyes. Suffice to say she heard this kind of socialist nonsense many times in her lifetime. Quoting five-time socialist U.S. presidential candidate Eugene Debs in particular would doubtless have her eyes rolling. Both the learning of socialist doctrine -- not to mention seeing the not-good results it produced -- made Thatcher a devoted opponent of that socialist doctrine. And a decidedly successful opponent at that, even in spite of the zillion slings and arrows coming her way from the media of her day. Much of which loathed both Thatcher and her conservative philosophy.
That socialist Mamdani is having a negative effect on New York can be seen in headlines like this (rare!) one from the conservative New York Post:
Mayor Zohran Mamdani defiantly vows to stick to socialist agenda in fiery inauguration speech
And once Mamdani was elected, sworn-in and had the controls, there was this from I24 News:
Not just the Jews: Mamdani is driving the wealthy out of New York
NYC’s radical mayor is driving billionaires and corporations to the competitor state of Florida, while a massive $6 billion project and 21,000 jobs are at risk due to a publicity stunt
This gem of a story reported:
Mamdani, a democratic socialist who finds it hard to suppress outbursts of sheer communism in his many speeches since being elected to office in November 2025, is in a position of absolute confrontation with New York’s business community….
Safe to say, Margaret Thatcher would get it instantly. She would understand a socialist/communist when she saw one, and she would know exactly what kind of policies to expect from this Mayor of New York.
The question is why doesn’t the media get this? Or, in fact, perhaps the real point here is that the media gets Mamdani’s socialism exactly, and is on board with it.
Which is perhaps why Mamdani skates above it all when it comes to serious media criticism. It should be remembered that being Mayor of New York -- which is not just the financial capital of the country but the media capital as well -- has proved devastatingly bad news for various of Mamdani’s predecessors.
A look back and one recalls the lavish admiring headlines that, in the immediacy after the assassination of an idolized President Kennedy, virtually swamped the handsome New York GOP Congressman John Lindsay in his winning race for mayor. But as time moved on and Lindsay faced a controversial re-election and disastrous run for president as a Democrat, the media love for him vanished entirely.
Not to mention there were the accolades centered on the crime busting New York (and Republican!) U.S. Attorney Rudy Giuliani when he became Mayor. Accolades that only lasted until his political adversaries found ways to target him. With disbarring him at the top of their list. In a blink, Giuliani went from being “America’s Mayor” (memorably he was the decidedly heroic Mayor when the 9/11 attack on New York took place) to becoming a favorite media punching bag.
The point, of course, is that accolades from the media can be turned on a dime. A hero today, a villain tomorrow.
And a media villain in a not inconsiderable way because he, or she, has been revealed as a dedicated conservative.
The list is long of once favored-by-the-media political figures whose media popularity plummeted as their conservatism became apparent.
While some things change in the political world, one can reasonably expect that this pattern never will.
