Schmoozalism: The Radical Etiquette Behind Mamdani’s Appeal
Zohran Mamdani’s campaign captivated New Yorkers not only through its demands and discipline, but through its atmosphere. What drew so many to his side was not just policy, but practice: a way of being with others that we call schmoozalism — a radical etiquette that resists managerialism and reopens politics to human encounter.
Why Mamdani Felt Different
When supporters talk about Mamdani, they don’t begin with bullet points from a policy platform. They talk about his presence. His availability. The sense that when you encountered him, he was there to listen and engage, not to manage you as a constituent or a volunteer.
The campaign reflected this ethos. Tens of thousands of volunteers joined not because they were given marching orders, but because they felt part of a living conversation. Tasks were clear, yes — but always framed in relation to one another, never in the top-down language of a corporate team.
This was not accidental. It was the felt difference between Mamdani’s campaign and the managerialism of establishment politics. It was the everyday practice of what we are calling schmoozalism.
What Is Schmoozalism?
At its core, schmoozalism is a radical etiquette.
It is not about grand gestures or personal charisma. It is about the ordinary practices of encounter: greeting, listening, adjusting, deliberating, joking, telling stories, giving recognition.
Schmoozalism thrives at the schmooze-level of politics — the ongoing human traffic of conversation, care, and collective sense-making. Where managerialism prioritizes procedure, and charisma prioritizes aura, schmoozalism prioritizes relation.
It is radical because it insists that these everyday encounters are not superficial, but the very heart of democratic life.
Schmoozalism vs. Managerialism
- Managerialism: defines competence as control, efficiency, and reassurance to markets. It is technocratic and aloof.
- Schmoozalism: defines competence as the ability to cultivate relationships of mutual recognition, to host deliberation, and to sustain collective effort. It is intimate and attentive.
Managerialism seeks to suppress disruption in the name of order. Schmoozalism sees disruption as deliberation: a chance for voices to be heard, for disagreements to be worked through, for community to be renewed.
Not Charisma, Not Cult
It is important to be clear: schmoozalism is not a new name for charisma.
Charisma is the aura of a singular figure. Schmoozalism is distributed practice, reproducible across thousands of encounters. Where charisma risks cultism, schmoozalism resists it — because it depends on multiplicity, not centrality.
Mamdani’s success does not come from his personal magnetism alone, but from his capacity to host and model this radical etiquette in ways others can take up and carry forward.
Why It Matters Now
Politics in the United States has been suffocated by two models: managerialism and spectacle. One reduces politics to spreadsheets and bond ratings; the other reduces it to personality cults.
Mamdani’s campaign pointed to something else. What people experienced was politics as a shared conversation with purpose — one that could scale to tens of thousands without losing its human texture.
That is schmoozalism. And that is why it resonated so widely.
But schmoozalism is not itself socialism. It is the soil from which socialism grows. Without this ethos, socialism too easily withers under pressure. With it, socialist possibilities take root in the everyday life of a community.
The Road Ahead
The lesson of Mamdani’s campaign is not only that schmoozalism works electorally. It is that schmoozalism is the social fabric from which a new politics must be woven.
The next question, then, is how to sustain it beyond a campaign — how to prevent it from dissolving under the pressures of managerial office, or being misread as the aura of a single figure.
Our answer: civic communitaria. They are the living formations that can carry this ethos forward, making it durable enough to support a socialism rooted in shared life.
Takeaway: Mamdani’s appeal comes from more than policies. It comes from a radical etiquette of encounter — schmoozalism — that reminds New Yorkers what politics feels like when it is ours.
➡️ Read the companion essay: Why Mamdani’s Success Depends on Civic Communitaria
➡️ Read the clarificatory essay: Schmoozalism: A Clarificatory Introduction
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