Red Statement: Socialist Breakthrough In New York Still Chained To Ruling Class Democrats

“Afford to live, Afford to dream!” read the banner behind “democratic socialist” Zohran Mamdani as he welcomed the news he’d won the race to be Democratic Party nominee for New York City Mayor.

His campaign had electrified voters by focusing on issues that mattered to working class New Yorkers. The former music producer stood on a platform that included: A rent feeze, affordable homes, city owned food stores, no cost childcare and free public transport.

He didn’t dodge difficult questions when asked them but he kept the conversation on the question of affordability - working class New Yorkers from every background just can’t afford to live in the city anymore.

Almost 50,000 volunteers helped door knock for Mamdani and he used short snappy social media videos to capture the imagination. He was supported by Shawn Fain the head of the United Automobile Workers union.

The union leader said: “What we need is a national movement that unites the working class to take on the oligarchs and rebuild our democracy."

Although this is the same union bureaucrat that said he’d sit down with Trump: “We do not agree with Trump on much of his domestic agenda, but we hope to find common ground on overhauling our devastating trade policies and rebuilding U.S. manufacturing.”

Mamdani comes from an upper middle class background: “I would say I’ve had a priveleged upbringing” he said. His father is a professor at Columbia University and his mother is a famous Oscar winning Hollywood film maker. This is what gives him his confidence.

He takes home $142,000 a year as a state legislator and makes a small amount of royalties from his time as a rapper.

His rival in the race for Democrat nominee Andrew Cuomo, reeling from a sexual harrassment scandal, was backed by corporate donors and the Clintons. They spent millions attacking Mamdani using his opposition to Israel as an attempted slur that just didn’t work.

“Cost of living is the issue of our time,” Neera Tanden, chief executive of Democratic think tank Center for American Progress wrote on X in response to Mamdani’s win: “It’s the through line animating all politics. Smart political leaders respond to it.”

US President Donald Trump posted: “It’s finally happened, the Democrats have crossed the line. Zohran Mamdani, a 100% Communist Lunatic, has just won the Dem Primary, and is on his way to becoming Mayor.”

But this is far from the truth not just because the Democrat Party is a party of the ruling class but also because Mamdani’s politics aren’t that extreme. He said that he was interested in “the politics of collaboration” in a interview with Stephen Colbert.

In an interview with the New York Editorial Board he said: “My ability to build coalitions across the political spectrum is one that would serve our city well.”

He told the New York Times that he was in favour of the private market in housing and said “I clearly recognise that there is a very important role to be played and one that the government must facilitate.”

Although a Muslim and very strong supporter of BDS and Palestine solidarity, when asked if Israel had a right to exist he replied: “Yes … like all nations, I believe it has a right to exist and a responsibility also to uphold international law.”

Although he has argued that New York should “arrest Netanyahu”.

Mamdani’s promised reforms need about €10 billion to fund and the state legislature has already said they will reject his proposals but he doesn’t call for people power, protest or any kind of popular mobilisation to force the establishment to back down.

He’s proposed a flat 2% tax increase on the 1% of New Yorkers earning more than $1 million per year and raising the corporate tax rate from 9% to 11.5% to match New Jersey’s rate.

Mamdani polled worst among the lowest-income residents of New York though, at 38% to Cuomo’s 49%. The decisive shifts were in gentrified areas where young Democrat voters shifted over to Mamdani.

His “democratic socialism” is not actually socialism. It’s what we’d call “Social Democracy” in Europe. It’s capitalism with some modifications.

It’s about candidates using the structures of the current US state machine to win some reforms. That’s not to say these measures, like rent freezes, aren’t very important but if you win them by mobilising protest they are more secure and you raise the combativity and consciousness of the working class.

We’ve seen this story play out before - Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez captured the imagination of voters before returning to supporting the Democrat establishment.

Mamdani talks about reform on the one hand and on the other tells the New York Editorial Board that he’ll be “fiscally prudent”.

His website featured a list of popular reforms but no description of the kind of society he wanted, what socialism is or a call for any kind of popular protest or strike. The message was: get him elected and he’ll use the machinery of the state to get some crumbs.

Under 21st Century capitalism the kind of concessions that were available during the post-war boom years just cannot be won without confronting the system. Concessions have to be torn from the hands of the rich.

The Democratic Socialists of America, to which Mamdani belongs, are currently a part of the Democrat Party which means they are tied to the apron strings of the capitalist class.

The Republicans and Democrats are just two wings of the same corporate imperialist class, that not only rules the USA but tries to dominate the world.

Whatever Mamdani’s individual beliefs his campaign helps to pull a layer of radical people into the orbit of the weakened Democrat Party and will ultimately disappoint the expectation of change.

That’s why the Democrats are called the “graveyard of social movements”.

Here in Ireland we can take a lesson from his ability to capture the imagination of voters, the focus on unifiying class issues being key to success. He didn’t dodge difficult issues but he got the conversation back onto housing, the cost of living and the unimaginable wealth of the ruling class.

But we need to tie that attention once won to a political project that wants to end capitalism not coalesce with a dying system.