Social and political convulsion in the US only increases. The Trump administration is widening its use of administrative ‘bonapartist’ powers, engages in militarised methods and attacks on the “violent left” in the aftermath of the Kirk assassination and shootings. This includes the incitement of military leaders, large-scale anti-immigrant terror operations by an unleashed tooled-up ICE and sending troopers to the streets of major US cities. Vice President Vance encourages corporations to fire workers for simply criticising Kirk and his politics. All this encourages the far-right and the visibility and presence across the country of armed militias.
Meanwhile the cost-of-living crisis and working class Americans struggle with price and insurance premium rises, cuts to Medicaid and food stamps. This and the threat of job losses and further insecurity are exacerbated by the federal government shut down, at the time of writing, for which the two corporate parties blame each other.
This is the back drop to the 4 November New York City mayoral election, with Zohran Mamdani, whom the President and Wall St. bankers accuse of being a “communist”, currently leading the polls, has attracted the attention on the left internationally.
Mamdani, from an immigrant background, albeit financially privileged, identifying as a “Democratic Socialist” and an activist in the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), shook the establishment with his victory in the Democratic Party primary in June, winning half a million votes. His campaign, with 44% of the vote, defeated the current mayor Eric Adams, and the former governor of New York state, a darling of Wall St. and the hedge funds, Andrew Cuomo, a member of a long-standing, corporate political dynasty and who is backed with a Super Pac’s multimillion dollar funding. Currently Mamdani is leading in the opinion polls but does not yet have majority support, meaning he could still be defeated. However he has become a pole of attraction against Trump.
The primary vote and interest generated by Mamdani’s radical reform programme, which he says is to be funded through taxation of the rich, ranging from setting up five city owned grocery stores, affordable housing and a $30 minimum wage, currently $16.50 an hour, reflects the desire for change from corporate two party politics in a city where homelessness has rocketed since the great recession and the pandemic, while the rich have never been richer.
This and his sharp attacks on Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians, have made Mamdani’s campaign a reference point far beyond New York. In New York City, according to multiple press reports, Mamdani is mobilising tens of thousands of activists, mainly radical youth from a college background, outside the corrupt New York Democratic Party and is also increasingly seen as a threat to it.
Zarah Sultana, a British MP and a leading figure in the “Your Party” initiative in Britain, visited Mamdani’s campaign at the end of August and has held it up, with its elements of mass canvassing and links to community campaigning, as a model. It has also been a point of discussion in Die Linke in Germany and across the left internationally.
Struggle
No doubt many of New York’s millions of voters will be inspired by his programme to vote for Mamdani. Many radicalised youth and worker activists are also being inspired to go out and campaign for him, despite their hatred and opposition to the corporate Democratic Party for which he is running.
However, voting and even campaigning for Mamdani, by itself, will not be enough to win radical, let alone, socialist change in New York and nationally. The article by the Independent Socialist Group explains how socialists built movements like the struggle for “$15 Now” that were then the basis for winning elected positions. However Mamdani, while active in some campaigning, does not have the same record of struggle.
We raise ideas here for youth and workers, including in DSA, to discuss about the way forward not just for winning the demands of Mamdani’s campaign but beyond. A victory for Mamdani would lift the confidence of radical workers and youth and the left generally in the US and internationally, but what kind of programme and methods are needed to defend, deepen and win his programme and, at the same time, strengthen the socialist opposition to capitalism? Socialists have opposed working in and standing for capitalist parties like the Democrats who, by their very nature, defend capitalism and aim to prevent the growth of socialist movements. This issue has for decades been a central one within the US left and Mamdani’s success in becoming the Democratic mayoral candidate will, for some, be another test as to whether to stay within the Democrats or, as we argue, work now to build the basis for a genuine worker party with a socialist programme in the US. We call on Mandami to break with the Democrats and assist in this process.
While the term “communist” is being used by sections of the capitalist press, Trump and Mamdani’s opponents, in a CNN interview in early October he explicitly said he was not a “communist”, but a “democratic socialist” and quoted Dr Martin Luther King saying, “call it democracy or call it democratic socialism there must be a better distribution of wealth for all of God’s children”. Mamdani was clear he had more of a “critique” of capitalism today, that he wants to reduce income inequality and give New Yorkers dignity rather than actually advocating an end to the economic system. It must be explained socialism is not a “better distribution of wealth”. A section of his supporters, or at least those whom he has caught the attention of, can be won over to a real position of fighting for a socialist democracy, with the working class decisively removing capitalism and taking over the key and major parts of the economy and democratically running and planning for society’s needs.
It is not just authoritarian Trump, who threatens to use federal powers, a further escalation from his militarisation and conflict with the Los Angeles and Washington city administrations to shut down a Mamdani administration in the city, who will wage a war on his campaign. In effect the completely pro-corporate Democrat party leadership are blocking with opposition candidates to undermine Mamdani. The likes of Schumer and Jeffries, the leaders of the Democrats in the federal Senate and House respectively, can’t even face appearing with him in public. At the time of writing Mamdani leads Cuomo by a double digit margin, now that corrupt Mayor Adams has dropped out of the race only Cuomo and Silwa remain. According to the Guardian US “Sliwa, the Republican nominee, said last week that he had turned down multiple offers of millions of dollars to end his own campaign”.
Cuomo stated after Adams withdrew, “we face destructive extremist forces that would devastate our city through incompetence or ignorance, but it is not too late to stop them.” Cuomo used the flexible ballot line during the primary in New York to register his own “Fight and Deliver” party and is now running as an independent claiming, “I’m a Democrat running independently, he is a socialist using the Democrat line”. Mamdani will need to deepen and widen his base which is currently largest among young college grads in areas like parts of Brooklyn to win over unionised workers and black voters who voted by majority for Cuomo in June’s primary.
It must be remembered how the Democratic leadership and the Democratic National Committee (DNC) did everything they could, utilising major resources, to succeed in beating Bernie Sanders in the 2016 Democratic New York primary against Hilary Clinton, which was key in her winning that year’s Convention and the presidential nomination. They are well practiced in defeating left populism. In the run-up to 2016 primary 200,000 Democratic voters just in Brooklyn were dropped from the list of those entitled to vote in the primary. Although this is now an election in a situation of polarisation both in the city and wider US society, the machinations of the Democratic corporate machine are still in play.
Radical workers and youth must, independently from the Democrats, organise now, to not just defend the radical parts of Mamdani’s programme, but to build support for their extension while arguing that socialist change is necessary. Mamdani’s reforms on wages and housing are limited to being phased in over a period of years when there is no reason that they could not be implemented with New York’s considerable mayoral and municipal budgetary powers, immediately after he takes office.
This reality also exists in Portland, Oregon, where DSA council members elected as Democrats, say that want to make “progressive change” in the city and have made reforms on a small scale but have not put forward a general programme on fighting the “fiscal constraints” they raise are being imposed by the state and federal governments. In a similar way to the reaction towards Mamdani the liberal press including the New York Times, has termed the four council members “peacocks” for trying to suggest any alternative to the status quo is possible.
Mobilise
Key to this will be organising workers, labor unions, tenants’ organisations, students and all who want to fight, preparing a programme for struggle not just with the Trump administration but the pro-capitalist Democratic Party at city and state level, and crucially to hold Mamdani to account. Politically this will mean in the future running independent socialist candidates against the Democratic Party machine at city council and state levels to stop radical reform being blocked and strengthen the opposition to capitalist rule.
Mass assemblies in neighbourhoods, colleges and workplaces should be organised during the campaign to discuss the way forward and draw up an emergency socialist budget for New York City, demanding the funding the city needs. The historical struggle, that included widely supported local general strikes, of the Liverpool city council in Britian under socialist leadership which created homes, jobs and facilities and defeated the Thatcher government should be discussed and closely studied. In the end pro-capitalist British Labour Party and trade union leaders were able to isolate the socialist led Liverpool council, opening the way to the socialist councillors being removed by the courts. Thus a Mamdani administration, if it seriously took such a fighting approach, must also appeal to the wider working class across the US to join the struggle to prevent NYC being isolated. This would include encouraging the building of movements across the country to force city councils to fight and, if the councils don’t, work to replace those councillors with labor backed councillors, independent of both Democrats and Republicans, who will. The experience of city councils fighting back, or even the idea being raised is of course not commonly known or understood in the US but an openness to the idea could develop as the crisis politically for the capitalist parties deepens and independent fighters with a working class based socialist strategy gain influence.
Sections of the US left, such as Jacobin, have raised that Mamdani, like New York mayor LaGuardia in the 1930s and 1940s should enact pro-labor legislation in the city. We would support pro-labor policies, but in a different way from the Republican LaGuardia who did this partly under working class pressure and also to maintain the support of the leaders of the then American Labor Party who, with President Roosevelt’s support, sponsored La Guardia in opposition to the local Democratic leaders. La Guardia at other times attacked Labor.
Inevitably such, policies currently, would invoke the ire and end up in a confrontation with the corporate Democrats and the Trump administration. But workers and labor unions and city councils cannot just rely on Mamdani and wait for him, they should convene mass meetings now and begin to make demands over wages, the democratic right to strike and conditions on whoever is the new mayor, along with plans for labor action, campaigns and strikes to win such demands.
Renters must organise on a mass basis with occupations of empty properties, rent strikes and protests to force the issue of rent freezes and more public housing immediately. Independent campaigns should be launched for state ballot initiatives on these issues like the current rent control ballot in Massachusetts.
The young protestors who have faced police violence over Gaza encampments at universities like Colombia should organise now and demand Mamdani with his potential powers over the NYPD refuse to attack and dismantle their protests and defend democratic rights.
Significant gains, let alone socialism, cannot be won in New York alone, the US capitalist class and particularly an authoritarian Trump administration will not tolerate even Mamdani’s limited radical economic programme that is why preparation for mass struggle is necessary. Of course, the economic power of New York and its political importance can also be utilised by a mass movement to win concessions from US capitalism.
Pressure
Mamdani, if he wins may try and take a middle road of implementing parts of his programme while trying to avoid a battle with the state, the council and Trump. But under this Trump administration with its authoritarian stance, this could only last a matter of days or weeks as they would want to stop an example of resistance developing. When asked directly about the National Guard being used by Trump, Mamdani said New Yorkers should prepare for this to be an inevitability but he gave no sign in his answer he would mobilize a fightback, merely pointing to the judiciary stating that Trump’s intervention into cities was illegal, after their corporate Democrat administrations went to court. New York, like most US cities, faces financial problems and a defeat of Mamdani by Cuomo or the Republican Silwa, can also mean major attacks.
Even an initial attempt to implement Mamdani’s programme would be major departure from the neo-liberal hell unleashed on the city, with Wall St, the rich, big business and the property developers unleashed since the mid-1970s from the days of mayor Koch. While profits and rents have soared, there has been an onslaught on the once considerable power base of the Labor unions and tenants’ organisations, although New York State still has the second highest union density, 20.6%, of all federal states. Of course, one of the forces also to dominate the city unfettered, was the Trump business and property empire. This is precisely why the reaction to Mamdani from Trump and America’s elite both Democrat and Republican has been visceral, and the stakes are so high.
Since his primary win Mamdani’s campaign has tended to moderate and retreat on statements like “Billionaires shouldn’t exist” that were popular with youth and workers but not the Democrat national leadership.
He also has made inroads into sections who previously voted for Trump, including young men. The president’s handling of the economy has disappointed this layer most with his approval rating falling 23 points. Mamdani is also seen as principled over Gaza, even by those who disagree with him economically, seeming to defy the common idea politicians in America can be brought. There is a clip of him debating during the primary where he says he will visit boroughs of the city rather than going to Israel which all the other candidates pledged.
On the other hand, he has met with corporate representatives and Wall St bankers seemingly to attempt to reassure them and has distanced himself from the DSA’s radical official programme on defunding the police. The opposition campaign’s advertising harks back to the perception, based partly on reality, of the decay and rising crime in New York when the city had a fiscal crisis in the 1970s and “graffiti covered every subway”. Mamdani under pressure as he is from the majority of the Democrat party establishment has failed to raise how his social programme could cut crime and he has not called for working class democratic control of the police. He has also been unable to put forward an alternative to the planned rebuilding of prisons, when the infamous Rikers Island is closed.
Socialists warn clearly that Mamdani could retreat from key parts of his programme during the election, and if he wins, when colossal pressures will be unleashed. There is an underestimation of the pressures from the ruling class on Mamdani, in DSA and the Mamdani campaign. Some, perhaps like Obama, may attempt to soften Mamdani’s programme and draw him closer to the Democrat establishment. It is clear sections of the corporate Democrats such as Kamala Harris, who initially was hesitant about publicly supporting Mamdani, are seeking to influence and neutralise his campaign. This is in the interest and context of falling support nationally for the party, but also to try and use the base of his campaign for their own interests and careers. Mamdani, has been happy to court their support and may well moderate his programme to suit them further. An idea raised in some Democratic Party circles and sections of the wider liberal press is that a future for the party lies with young representatives and the voters who are attracted to them and this means coopting and moderating figures like Mamdani and AOC.
If Mamdani is blocked or betrays there will be intense discussion in DSA, and pressure for the organisation to correctly fully break from the Democrats may increase. We reject the argument put forward by sections of the DSA, including its right-wing from which Mamdani comes, and the left that Mamdani should attempt to build coalitions with, to water down his programme to appease the corporate Democrats to win the election. This danger is shown by his endorsement by the New York state governor Kathy Hochul, a corporate Democrat with an anti-working class record.
On the contrary a mass movement needs to be built and the Mamdani campaign must stress that the struggle will continue even if he loses in November. It cannot simply be an electoral campaign but has to attempt to both win immediate improvements and to start to build a movement to change society.
There is precedent of mayoral candidates raising populist programmes in elections in New York and then retreating from them, as they face opposition not just from Federal government and Wall St, but from the city council and state administration. Before corrupt Eric Adams, there was Bill De Blasio who has endorsed Mamdani, who failed in two terms from 2013, to fundamentally end wealth inequality and homelessness in the city. His campaign told of a “tale of two cities” and promised free early years childcare like Mamdani to be funded by taxation of the rich, but while this part of the programme was partially implemented the state blocked the wealthy being taxed and the city was left with the bill. In the early 90’s New York’s first black mayor David Dinkins, was a member of DSA although less public and radical in programme than Mamdani, displayed a similar tendency.
Mass Workers’ Party
The left populists such as Sanders and AOC will not be able to divert workers and young people’s desire for political organisation and representation into the Democrats or their orbit indefinitely. Socialists need to be clear that there is no way that the Democrats can be transformed into a socialist force. The Democrats are not even really a democratically run party, they are a machine-run organisation who, when faced with an upset like Mamdani’s primary win, do all that they can to either neutralise or ignore the result. This reality has to be faced.
If Mamdani were to take up the kind of mass struggle we raise above he would quickly find himself and his base, and possibly others, isolated from the Democrat machine and then the question of building a political vehicle to represent workers and youth would be sharply posed on a mass level and understood by significant numbers. Of course Mamdani betraying the hopes invested in him and his programme would disillusion a layer, it can also lead to the best workers and youth looking for a combative independent socialist alternative.
Ultimately the mayoral contest and the run up to the 2026 mid-terms with MAGA fracturing and the Democrats having historically low popularity shows the vacuum that exists. While the Democrats may pick up some electoral support as the “lesser evil” to Trump they have no answer. What is needed for the US working class and youth, a mass party, with labor union power central that fights for their interests locally and nationally. A party that, unlike the Democrat machine, is fully democratic, membership based and with leaders who are regularly elected, have no privileges and are paid, as a maximum, the average of a skilled worker.
The forces for this will mainly be the millions who are not currently politically affiliated but there can also be splits and ruptures in the support base of America’s two parties that feed into this process.
Such a mass workers’ party would, if it adopted a socialist program, raise the idea of an end not just to Wall Street’s power in New York but across the US. This means a fight for real socialist change bringing vast resources into public ownership and working class control.