Gotta love The Guardian for those quotes from Europeans on #Mamdani's win in NYC:
"Verbeek backed this with a comment he had overheard in an Oslo cafe, in which Mamdani was described as an American politician who “finally” sounded normal."
“Normal. That’s the word,” Verbeek wrote in his newsletter, The Planet. “Here, taking care of one another through public programs isn’t radical socialism. It’s Tuesday.”
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/nov/06/europe-zohran-mamdani-policies-normal
Yup, in Europe he would be a typical centre-left politician. The American media seems to twist everything out of shape if it isn't right wing. Even centre-right people in America get labelled left wing.
Maybe it also helps that there are a genuine diversity of parties in most European parliaments covering the entire political spectrum. You can more obviously see where a politician belongs in politics because all the different parties are sitting alongside each other in the same assembly.
@FediThing @ilumium The bulk of the masses are constituted of middle range, therefore, Divide and Conquer strategy is still effective - especially in overextended duopolies like the US. Educational systems that focus mainly on Lowest Common Denominator further entrench polaric behavioral patterns, lending easy prey for abuse of power from the wealthiest.
It's a form of slavery, and the leaders that perpetuate such mindless regression, need to be replaced immediately, if not sooner.
@FediThing @ilumium
If that is true then "left of centre" has certainly shifted to the right since my political awakening in the 1980s.
Mamdani seems more of a centerist who understands that markets have to be regulated in order to function properly and that government (at all levels) has to take responsibility for that regulation.
Left-of-centre in my mind would be Mamdani enacting policies to take oligarch owned tenements into public ownership to create affordable housing for residents.
Jan Penfrat
FediThing 
Nu Modular
Eggs now in different baskets.