The main difference, and the one that presents the best suggestion of this being different, is that this is an executive position. One of the problems with AOC and Bernie is that being in Congress/the Senate means they can’t unilaterally do things, everything is favor-trading. So it’s hard to produce a signature piece of “socialist” legislation and they get tainted easily by “you scratch my back I scratch yours” deals.

Zohran would be mayor in a city where that office holds a large amount of power, so he can both act unilaterally on a lot of matters and any policy he puts forth will pretty explicitly get treated as “socialist.” There’s also a paradoxical dynamic with the mayor of NYC where it’s simultaneously very high profile, but is also historically a political dead end; NYC mayors almost never end up gaining a higher office after their term(s). So ironically, there’s not much allure of ladder climbing for him.

Now, does that mean he’s going to legislate fully automated luxury communism into law? No. But even if it’s just, he does a good job, gets some nice things done, no major crises, there’s a value in that. It’s hard to get people to fight and die for a socialist movement if said movement can’t demonstrate that it has the organizational wherewithal to get the trash picked up. If Zohran can show that a nominal socialist can get the day to day done in the executive, it’s useful for agitation and growing the movement.