You ask a New Yorker off the street why they’re excited about Zohran Mamdani for mayor and you may get a different answer each time. You might hear from a Bronx parent about Mamdani’s plan for free, universal childcare, or a Brooklyn renter hopeful about his promise to freeze the rent. They may be grateful for his defense of pro-Palestinian student protesters, and his promise to fight ICE raids and defend NYC as a sanctuary city. And it’s very likely they’ll tell you how good it feels to support a candidate who isn’t an indicted criminal or serial sexual harasser.
His Democratic primary victory has created a wave of hope among working class residents while striking fear in the hearts of the hedge funders and billionaires, and prompting the party bosses to run Adams and Cuomo as independents to try and defeat him. It’s no mystery why his campaign won such broad support. Zohran Mamdani’s rise can’t be separated from the deep frustration many feel with the Democratic Party’s utter failure to confront Trump and the far right in any meaningful way, while rent and inflation rise, wages drop, and living conditions worsen.
The promise of electing a socialist mayor is clearly exciting, and Mamdani is promising to bring movement demands into the halls of power. But can we really win socialism at the ballot box?
As is true across the country, in the Big Apple rich donors run the Democratic Party. And megarich funders have gone into overtime, spending millions trying to ensure that Mamdani doesn’t get elected. He seeks his position in an apparatus dominated by landlords, hedge funds, and police unions with their paid-off political allies ready to do their bidding and thwart his every effort.
A party set on sabotage
There are countless examples of how the Democratic Party machine has ground progressive efforts to dust. Countless bills from traffic safety to housing reform and taxing the rich have been stalled and killed by big money.
A police reform bill to establish an elected civilian review board with the power to fire abusive officers was killed by City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams who refused to even bring it to a hearing. The bill’s sponsors, one of whom is in Mamdani’s own organization, the Democratic Socialists of America, dropped the bill and were unwilling to stand up to the speaker and fight for it.
Democratic leaders will undoubtedly use procedural tricks, backroom deals, and outright intimidation to protect their rich funders’ agenda. Without an independent movement behind Mamdani, his boldest initiatives will meet the same fate as so many other progressive efforts in New York — neutralized, stalled, or gutted beyond recognition.
That’s why funneling our movements into supporting Democratic party candidates is so self-defeating. It’s taking the one force that has been able to win demands and reforms — mass movements — and giving them over to politicians who, even if well-intended, can’t transform the corrupt system they are a part of.
The stakes are high, and getting higher
What’s facing the working class is not just the need for housing, transit, and childcare relief. The current and incoming fascist attacks, from ICE kidnappings to Trump’s threats of a National Guard invasion, can’t be stopped by a mayor, no matter how brave. The only force that can check the far-right onslaught is an organized working class, led by unions and workers’ organizations standing together. It will take tactics like street level self-defense and a general strike to stop Trump in his tracks.
What we really need
Mamdani’s success in taking on the old guard of the Democrats shows that people are ready for something new, and now is the perfect time to start organizing it.
Unionists and activists are starting to call for a labor party to represent working people, and this is exactly the type of formation that could be built with the historic campaign operation of over fifty thousand campaign volunteers that helped Mamdani win the primary. His popularity proves that people are ready to fight and follow new leadership.
Now is the time to start building a working class party to fully seize the moment.
Send feedback on this article to FSnews@socialism.com.
