Zohran Mamdani, the mayor-elect of New York City, is a democratic socialist, thus making him a member of a political organization whose adherents often regard mainstream liberals as the pussy-hat-wearing, softheaded tools of a corrupt two-party system.
“Democratic Socialism defeated the Democratic Party status quo,” read a statement by the Democratic Socialists of America on Tuesday night. “The people defeated the oligarchy; the working class defeated major corporations.” In other words: Socialism won, and liberals lost.
So why, exactly, had scores of Mr. Mamdani’s supporters gone online and declared that, of all the ways to celebrate the victory, they had decided to “lib out?”
For the uninitiated, the “lib” part of “libbing out” stands for liberal, a political label sometimes used as an epithet by voters on the left, many of whom consider the traditional mainstream of the Democratic Party too devoted to the country’s norms and institutions and, also damning, too earnest in their affect.
For swaths of the online left, cynicism and irony have for years been the more appropriate posture toward American politics. To hope, especially out loud, in the jaded precincts of social media, is, in some ways, to be let down. But on a night that notched wins not just for Mr. Mamdani but for Democrats in New Jersey and Virginia, even the most jaded leftists found themselves indulging in romantic hopes about the utopian possibilities of representative democracy.
“We’re allowed to lib out for 24 hours,” wrote Bailey Moon, a legal analyst and D.S.A. member, on X.
“1% to 50% how can you not lib out a little,” wrote Edward Ongweso Jr., a writer, referring to Mr. Mamdani’s polling numbers at the start of his campaign through the final results of the race. (Mr. Ongweso’s X handle, @Bigblackjacobin, gives some sense of his political leanings.)
In a phone call, Mr. Ongweso — still a bit rough around the edges from the previous night’s “libbing out” — explained.
“When I think about ‘libbing out’ as a leftist, I think of embracing or getting excited about Democratic politics the way a Democrat might, despite having a lot of cynicism about party politics and democratic process,” he said. “It’s getting incredibly excited about a candidate winning and getting caught up in the celebration.”
To cheer for liberals, as Ms. Moon explained, is to cheer for “the establishment that screwed over Bernie.”
But to cheer like a liberal is something slightly different.
To “lib out” or “libbing out” has been part of the political lexicon of the very online for several years. According to Know Your Meme, the encyclopedia of internet virality, the first to use the phrase was Max Collins, the lead singer of the rock band Eve 6. He meant it derogatorily, to refer to those who characterized 2021 food shortages in Cuba as a result of the failure of communism, rather than as a consequence of American policy.
The phrase took on a different meaning, though, when Joseph R. Biden dropped out of the 2024 presidential race and Kamala Harris became the party’s nominee — a cause for celebration for Democrats who worried about Mr. Biden’s fitness for office and ability to defeat President Trump.
Many on the left wing had their criticisms of Ms. Harris, but some set those aside, at least momentarily, to “lib out.” In other words, to role play as hopeful naïfs.
Libbing out means temporarily quieting the underlying awareness that politics involves compromise and disenchantment. And for some, hopefulness in the arena of American democracy was a foreign feeling.
“This is the first time I’ve seen the promise of democracy in action and not had to settle for something that is pure depression and disappointment,” said Meredith Dietz, a 28-year-old comedian and writer who lives in Bushwick and says her views align with the platforms of the D.S.A.
For Ms. Dietz, who said she was too young to have voted for President Obama and couldn’t remember a time before Sept. 11, liberal politics hadn’t offered much to root for. Now, with Mr. Mamdani, she said that had changed.
“Sorry to lib out, but for so many of us this is the very first time we cast a vote that wasn’t framed to us as ‘the lesser of two evils,’” she wrote on X.
Of course, like any inside joke, much of the punch of “libbing out” depends on who tells it.
For some of Mr. Mamdani’s supporters, the quip did not quite land when, for instance, at 9:55 p.m. on Tuesday, after gubernatorial wins in Virginia and New Jersey, as well as Mr. Mamdani’s victory, the official X account of the Democratic Party — prominent members of which did not endorse Mr. Mamdani — tried to get in on the act.
“LIBBING TF OUT,” read its post.
Joseph Bernstein is a Times reporter who writes feature stories for the Styles section.
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