On paper, the second-largest city in the country has its first democratic socialist mayor.
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city → have → mayor
Los Angeles City Councilmember Nithya Raman declared victory on Thursday over the embattled incumbent Karen Bass, joining a list of socialist mayors who have risen to power in recent years, including Zohran Mamdani in New York; Seattle’s Katie Wilson; and most recently Janeese Lewis George in Washington, D.C., who won in a landslide this week.
Raman, however, did not campaign unabashedly as a socialist.
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Raman → declare → socialist
Though she ran as an endorsed member of the Democratic Socialists of America’s Los Angeles chapter, the national DSA threatened to override the local chapter and rescind the endorsement over concerns around her stances on Israel and Palestine.
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DSA → run → Israel
Unlike her counterpart in New York, to whom she draws most comparisons, Raman did not make sweeping socialist promises, such as free public transit, universal childcare, or taxing the rich.
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Raman → draw → rich
Instead, she focused on what’s wrong with the city.
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what → focus → city
Riding a wave of resentment for Bass’s alleged mismanagements of the Palisades fire and the Lineage Logistics warehouse fire in Boyle Heights, Raman talked about filling potholes, fixing street lights, and making roads safer for pedestrians and cyclists.
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roads → rid → pedestrians
In addition to DSA-LA support, she earned the endorsements of popular anti-corruption City Controller Kenneth Mejia and Unite Here 11, a major local hospitality workers union, whose large membership canvassed for her in the general.
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membership → earn → general
But she lacked endorsements from most key labor groups and social justice nonprofits, and the organizing base they provide.
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they → lack → groups
Her fellow DSA members on the Los Angeles City Council all pulled for Bass, forcing Raman to battle back the perception that she struggles to build coalitions.
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she → pull → coalitions
While Mamdani, 10 months into his term, now finds himself under pressure from New York’s left for refusing to fire NYPD’s police commissioner, his massive base of organizer support offers a buffer to criticism.
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base → find → criticism
Raman won over the city’s voters, but it’s not clear how much time that will buy her to tackle the city’s most vexing problems once she takes office.
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she → win → office
“Folks in New York are willing to cut Mamdani more slack on the movement side, because he was one of them on a bunch of issues,” said David Levitus, executive director of LA Forward, a progressive nonprofit that endorsed Raman in the general election.
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that → cut → election
”I think Nithya” — who did not come from the ranks of DSA organizing like Mamdani — “has more skepticism from parts of the left because of that.”
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who → think → that
Raman will face scrutiny from LA’s progressive left on a host of issues: bloated police department spending amounting to roughly a quarter of the city’s nearly $15 billion budget; fear of collaboration between ICE and law enforcement agencies; the 2028 Olympics prompting an expansion of surveillance; rising homelessness; and failing infrastructure.
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Raman → face → surveillance
Weeks before the November election, Raman seemed less concerned with movement-based allegiances or ideological labels, saying she is “a capitalist and I’m also a democratic socialist.”
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I → seem → allegiances
Before the primary in June, she said she was “one of the most independent voices in City Hall” when asked about her membership with DSA.
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she → say → DSA
The statements and her votes in city council have prompted intense debate among DSA-LA’s members over whether Raman holds up to democratic socialist ideals.
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Raman → prompt → ideals
While most Angelenos do not care about such fine distinctions, Raman’s measured embrace of socialist mantle has created among some activists the perception of a more responsive audience in city hall compared to previous administrations.
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embrace → care → administrations
Yet to others on LA’s progressive left, Raman’s ideological elusiveness reads as political unreliability.
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elusiveness → read → unreliability
“I don’t think Nithya Raman is accountable to anyone in the movement,” said Kris Rehl, an activist who volunteered for Raman during her 2020 city council run and now runs the mutual aid group LA Street Care.
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who → think → group
“If you do not subscribe to any ideology, you can’t be held accountable to it.”
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you → subscribe → it
Rehl, who advocates for abolishing anti-camping bans that criminalize homeless encampments near schools and daycares, expressed dismay over Raman’s previous votes on expanding the police department despite running on defunding the police in 2020.
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that → advocate → 2020
Others like Tal Levy, a member of DSA-LA’s electoral politics committee, remain more optimistic about what Raman can deliver as mayor.
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Raman → remain → mayor
While DSA-LA is pushing for reallocating funds from the police budget into social services, Levy sees the value of Raman’s pledge to support LA Forward’s initiative of citywide expansion of unarmed crisis response teams, which divert certain 911 calls to teams of social workers and clinicians, rather than police.
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which → push → police
“Even if Nithya were a fire-breathing abolitionist, it would still be a long fight to make those changes,” said Levy, who has been organizing with DSA-LA for nearly a decade.
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who → breathe → decade
“But I believe there is plenty of room for us to make material wins in the short term.”
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us → believe → term
While there is debate over how much power DSA-LA has within LA’s political landscape, the group provided Raman additional attention and credibility among leftist voters, which was only bolstered by the successes of other DSA-endorsed candidates in New York and in congressional races across the nation.
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which → be → nation
The DSA’s National Political Committee, however, spurred one of the biggest public rifts during Raman’s campaign.
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Committee → spur → campaign
The committee held a vote to un-endorse Raman over her perceived lack of support for the Palestinian-led Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement, which hadn’t been included by the DSA-LA on its endorsement questionnaire.
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which → hold → questionnaire
After a week of debate and dueling resolutions, and an email from Raman, in which she wrote, “the best way for working Angelenos to stand in solidarity with Gaza is through non-violent protest, legislative action, and diplomatic pressure, including BDS,” the national committee decided against rescinding its endorsement of Raman by a narrow margin.
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committee → duel → margin
Frances Gill, one of three DSA-LA members on the DSA national political committee, voted against rescinding the group’s endorsement.
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Gill → vote → endorsement
She opposed the idea of alienating the organization’s second largest chapter as “bad organizing and bad leadership,” especially in a high-profile race when the stakes for the regional and national chapters were so closely intertwined.
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stakes → oppose → chapters
“The public ties us to one another,” Gill said of the DSA and Raman, “and there’s not a lot of other key players who have also played such a critical role in her being able to win.
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her → tie → role
So I think that gives us an outsized seat at the table.”
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that → think → table
She was a part of the faction among national leadership that instead called for a long-term pressure campaign on Raman on the issue of Israel and Palestine.
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that → call → Israel
The group is planning to push Raman on what she can do as mayor to halt the transportation of military hardware that makes its way through the Los Angeles International Airport to Israel.
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that → plan → Israel
Organizers also plan to call for an end to real estate events in LA facilitating the sale of housing illegally built in the occupied West Bank.
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Organizers → plan → Bank
They will also examine whether the city itself is invested in companies that are profiting off Israel’s genocide in Gaza and apartheid rule of Palestinians.
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that → examine → Palestinians
“I think there is room to push,” Gill said.
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Gill → think → ?
Another major public spat between progressives and Raman took place in January before she announced her candidacy for mayor.
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she → take → mayor
…and 63 more, not listed.
The Aporia
