The following article was published in the CUNY Anti-Capitalist Zine. Read the whole zine here.
In a context of the reactionary administration of Trump and the pardoning of Eric Adams, radicalized New Yorkers are searching for alternatives from the Republicans, Democrats and a government for the rich. This search gives the Zohran Mamdani mayoral campaign its political momentum.
He’s the first Muslim mayoral candidate, a first-generation immigrant with youthful fire, a Democratic Socialist who publicly condemned the border tsar Tom Homan and is presenting a progressive program that includes rent freezes. However, under the Democratic Party, he’s not presenting a program of class struggle and movement building. That, along with other limitations, is why I won’t vote for him. I believe instead, we must take steps to build a political alternative from the Democrats; a party for the working class and oppressed that fights for socialism.
There are attacks on labor with the firing of federal employees. Conjoined attacks on education and the Pro-Palestine movement. Attacks on free speech as we’re forced to witness a genocide. Trump is escalating the attacks of a repressive onslaught started by the Democrats.
With traditional legality siding with our attackers, we need more than good hearted people proposing progressive demands. In the electoral realm, we need figures that elevate our movement and its demands. Figures that use their electoral seat the public looks upon for political direction to agitate for a mass movement that can mobilize for what we want and against attacks.
Mamdani’s program has progressive elements that call for things such as rent freezes, a demand that will face harsh opposition by the capitalist class who control a great deal of legality. So winning such a demand, or something more like free housing for all, will require a mass combative movement. We must mobilize against Trump’s current attacks to win demands. While Mamdani goes to protests, he isn’t saying that the only thing that can bring about change is the organization of the working class and oppressed and he isn’t organizing in that direction either.
As a Democrat, he is beholden to the party that’s the graveyard of social movements. In 2020, the Democrats convinced the Black Lives Matter movement away from the streets and to the polls to vote for Biden who subsequently expanded the police and began the current repression of the pro-Palestine movement. Zohran is moving in a similar direction by coraling support for the party, adding a layer of charisma over a bleak graveyard, fortifying a party of repression by redirecting the movement from combat.
It’s worth noting other programmatic limits. First, there is little on protecting undocumented people. Second, it sees police as necessary due to societal failings instead of guard dogs of disparity. Further, he recognizes the state of Israel, which is based on the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians.
I will not vote for Zohran– and nor will my comrades in Left Voice, because the movement needs more than a charismatic person that proposes reforms, but a charismatic figure, independent from any capitalist party, that uses their platform to build support for an ongoing left movement and voices its will in the legislature. Figures like Myriam Bregman who are elected candidates from our sister organization/party PTS, are examples of what’s needed. Figures that see the working class, independent from the capitalists, as the strength of our fight. Figures that use their position to build the party we need—a party of the working class that fights for socialism.
