Hopefully some schadenfreude will lighten up your Friday. A Wall Street Journal exclusive account describes how billionaires and Zionists are besides themselves with the prospect that simply throwing money behind opponents to Zohran Mamdani in his bid to become New York City mayor is not likely to succeed. But that isn’t stopping them from trying.
Mind you, this desperation is clarifying. The odds are pretty good that the moneybags could stymie a lot of Mandani’s plans, like putting rent freezes on rent controlled apartments (which do provide for increases but only roughly in line with inflatIon). Keep in mind that New York City mayors have much less autonomy than other big city mayors. As a result of the New York City bailout of the 1970s, many measures require the approval of the State Assembly, such as the pricing and management of the MTA.
And he’s never been in an executive position. He might turn out not to be very good at the job.
So the freakout seems to be over the very real prospect that New York City voters will again confirm that they was government intervention to shore up living standards for the poor and middle income, and are additionally disgusted with the genocide in Gaza. And of course, if Mamdani wins, even if the opposition to his initiatives proves to be insurmountable, he’ll still have a highly visible bully pulpit for hammering home his messages.
The disproportionate reaction to Mamdani’s primary success is having a Streisand effect, calling attention to how AIPAC is used to calling the electoral shots and revealing who is on their meal ticket:
One of the biggest benefits of Zohran Mamdani's mayoral run is that it is a masks off moment for the NY Democratic Party machine in front of the millions of normie NY Dems who support Mamdani. I'm seeing people talk about AIPAC who never mentioned it before. pic.twitter.com/K6hdjHyZSB
— Prof Zenkus (@anthonyzenkus) July 10, 2025
It’s also exposing the extent of Islamophobia in some circles:
Wow 100s of Silicon Valley folks signed an open letter saying they support demonizing Muslims and Islamic culture. Masks off, hoods on. https://t.co/qvONX0z7Ix
— Mehdi Hasan (@mehdirhasan) July 10, 2025
But what this Wall Street Journal piece shows in particular is the enormous consternation with the fact tha a political candidate and voters are so far successfully defying their divine right to rule, and their usual remedy, of throwing money at the problem, is unlikely to work. Another impediment is that so many big egos are involved that too many can’t bring themselves to give up on their preferred alternative to Mamdani in the interest of settling on one champion so as to improve their odds of beating him.
Key bits from the Journal’s account, New York’s Financial Crowd Rushes to Build Anti-Mamdani War Chest:
A new independent expenditure group named “New Yorkers for a Better Future Mayor 25” is launching a campaign against Mamdani, with at least $20 million….
It is far from the only group that donors are mobilizing to defeat Mamdani, with several more targeting millions of dollars. Those considering funding, or raising money, include some of the biggest names in politics, including Pershing Square CEO Bill Ackman and former Trump adviser and New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani.
“How do we stop this guy?” said Bo Dietl, who’s planning on raising about $10 million with Giuliani through a separate group….
JPMorgan Chase Chief Executive Jamie Dimon at an event Thursday called Mamdani “more a Marxist than a socialist” and said the campaign’s talking points were “the same ideological mush that means nothing in the real world.”
To translate: in right wing/corporate Democrat parlance, Marxist is pretty much the same as Communist except a stronger presumption of craziness.
Back to the article:
Political strategists and financiers say the opening weeks of the general election have been chaotic. They complain the anti-Mamdani bulwark lacks a positive message. And a candidate. And enough voters to win. They worry the flood of outside money could backfire, and make voters suspicious of special interests…
Amid all this confusion, strategists and backers say, donors don’t want to blow their money on a dead-end campaign.
“You have to turn out people to vote. This is the only place in which people without money actually have the same influence in the outcome,” [Columbia professor] Fuchs added.
The article does not point out how low turnout is in mayoral primaries and their general election. Mayor Adams won with only 11% of the votes of registered voters.
A slew of donors are scrambling on anti-Mamdani efforts behind the scenes to find a path to block his path to City Hall, normally all but assured for the Democratic nominee.
Ackman, who had supported Cuomo and President Trump, had already pledged on social media to back current Mayor Eric Adams in the general election and looked to rally anti-Mamdani forces. The Pershing Square CEO has talked to the New Yorkers for a Better Future Mayor 25 about donating, according to people familiar with the matter, and had previously donated $250,000 to an affiliated organization with a similar name that opposed progressive New York City Council candidates.
Real-estate developer Gary Barnett, who said he is supporting Adams has pledged $250,000 to the group. Its treasurer, Jeff Leb said the group is “currently polling the race to assess the most effective strategy.”
Even with the smoke of a corruption scandal, the bigger issue with Adams is that he ran on the promise of improving policing and instead seems to have spent most of his time at nightclubs. So his appeal is questionable. A fresh article in THE CITY also points out Eric Adams’ Chances of Getting Public Campaign Matching Funds Just Got Worse.
The article continues:
Even though Mamdani, a 33-year-old assemblyman from Queens, won the primary, he still faces serious challengers in the general election. Cuomo was his most potent threat for the nomination, but Mamdani now faces three independents—Adams and former Assistant U.S. Attorney Jim Walden as well as Cuomo—alongside Republican nominee Curtis Sliwa, a perennial candidate….
Both Adams and Cuomo have so far refused to drop out of the race, making it difficult to form a unified front against Mamdani. Cuomo, for instance, has been ahead of Adams in polls since the primary election. But as the incumbent, Adams has still been considered as a better candidate by some in the wealthy donor class.
Aside from Cuomo carrying the taint of his sexual harassment allegations, he’s also under a cloud for sending old people during Covid back to nursing homes and probably hastening their demise, with those suspicions heightened when Attorney General of New York Letitia James found that Cuomo had understated New York nursing home deaths during Covid-19 by as much as 50%. That generally does not sit well with their children and grandkids.
The article finally gets around to the policy idea that the big moneybags find most threatening, further rent restrictions.
Major investors in the real-estate industry, which are most to be impacted by policies like a rent freeze on regulated apartments, have been raising money for Adams in Manhattan and the Hamptons.
Dark horse proposals are another sign of desperation:
Some donors are hoping for a write-in campaign, floating business-friendly names like Dimon. (He wasn’t interested, according to a person familiar with the matter). Other donors, though, are taking a wait-and-see approach.
The long-standing, not sufficiently well-recognized conundrum is that New York City’s tax base has long been unduly dependent on a comparatively small number of very rich people. Barrons reported in the early 1980s that 10,000 provided 1/2 the city’s tax revenues. But it was still the place to be for the securities industry and for many other professions, as well as for the arts and arts patronage. And one part of the deal was that the taxes were high to pay for a good public transportation system (to get all the worker bees in, such as back office personnel) and robust policing, as well as, by US standards, generous social services. The rich tolerated a certain level of anti-wealthy rhetoric because they knew their fundamental deal with the city was not set to change much.
Now there’s not much reason for financiers to operate from New York City. Big hedgies have their servers so-located with the NYSE’s servers in Mahwah, NJ. Work from home has greatly thinned out the vibrancy of midtown, and with it, revenues like sales tax proceeds from small businesses that depend on commuter traffic. Yet the deal for those on the bottom has eroded as not just rents but other expenses, particularly health care, keep creeping up, making it even harder to be not just a modest income person but even what was once middle class in the five boroughs. So Mamdani is pushing for a better deal from a comparatively small number of super-rich who don’t want to share and can whinge about the fallen state of New York City as justification.
Scott Greer (hat tip Li) gave a longer-form explanation:
Mamdani’s core supporters are drawn more from the “post-college professionals” rather than the immigrants. His victory party was filled with young, college-educated whites. There weren’t many fresh-off-the boat migrants in the crowd. These immigrants voted for Mamdani, but they aren’t the vanguard of his revolution. It’s an element that I would call “lumpenbourgeoisie.”
These are middle-class types who feel thwarted in some way. Some may have decent jobs, but still struggle to pay rent living in NYC or another big city. Others are NEETs (not in employment, education, or training) who live with their parents and have no job at all. They think they will not obtain the level of security as their parents, and they don’t see much of a path to advance. They may have a college degree, but it’s no ticket to the American dream. They’re in a precarious position and are open to radical ideas. They don’t have much to lose, so why not try socialism? It will at least own the chuds they despise.
Marxists have deployed the term “lumpenbourgeoisie” before, but they use it to describe native elites who back colonial rule. It’s derived from “lumpenproletariat,” which connotes the criminal and vagabond elements of the working class. These are people alienated from the rest of the proletariat and turn to dishonest work or no work at all. Marx and Engels took a dim view of this element, viewing them as a counter-revolutionary force against the proper proletariat. Later leftists, such as Frantz Fanon, saw these elements in a more positive light, claiming they would be the leading agents of the revolution. “It is among these masses, in the people of the shanty towns and in the lumpenproletariat that the insurrection will find its urban spearhead,” Fanon declared in The Wretched of the Earth. “The lumpenproletariat, this cohort of starving men, divorced from tribe and clan, constitutes one of the most spontaneously and radically revolutionary forces of a colonized people.”
Gangbangers and hobos don’t seem to be leading socialism today. It’s rather the alienated elements of the bourgeoisie most eager for it.
We’ve left aside the Zionist hatred of Mamdani which is serving as an excuse for some for the ferocity of their sentiment; it might look unseemly otherwise.
In typical France circa 1788 fashion, the Mamdani-haters don’t seem to recognize the degree to which he is has become the focus of deep-seated frustration with Democratic party incumbents generally:
CNN's chief data analyst says the takeaway of Mamdani's win is that "Democrats right now are out for blood — they want to take out their party leaders."
"Democrats who say they want to replace their party leaders, 62% nationally say yes, compared to just 24% who say no." pic.twitter.com/Rm5sqEfUGA
— Ken Klippenstein (@kenklippenstein) June 29, 2025
Admittedly the rich plotters against Mamdani do recognize that their campaign could backfire, but still seem unable to contain their worst impulses:
Looks like Mamdani is finished. pic.twitter.com/T5JvhD2dYl
— Nassim Nicholas Taleb (@nntaleb) July 9, 2025
26 comments
Comments are closed.
His first mistake and it might be his last & only one.
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2025/07/11/qcsf-j11.html
Oh. No kidding. I believe Obama still enjoys broad support amongst the rank and file. I wonder if this comes with his endorsement. Interesting, thanks.
I have no qualms in saying that I expect to see an Obama endorsement on the same day I win millions in the lottery.
I may have given up hoping that the public will recognize Obama for the snake he is. That crazed Democrats will begin to understand that his policy decisions lined his pockets, undermined pretty much everyone outside of the top 2%, and primed much of the nation to vote for Donald Trump. But I really do continue to cross my fingers that the few Democrats now and in the future that lean more socialist than oligarchy will get it and reject all “help” from both his and Clintons’ teams for the poison pills they are.
#JFC … it’s over.
When. Will. They. Ever. Learn.
Heh heh heh. This guy can’t be too far away from aipac.
Yeah, I saw that elsewhere a day or two ago, shrugged, and realized this one’s done too. Maybe next time.
Yves, you posted the same Klippenstein tweet 2x.
Friggin’ Twitter…this happens all the time, a new embed does not take on the clipboard.
Fixed!
I am sure that the Democratic Party has some sudden rule-change up their sleeve that they will use to disqualify Mamdani’s candidacy or use lawfare to tie up his candidacy in favor of his Republican opponent or some last minute entry in the race just long enough to where the results of the election will not matter as the race will have already ended by then.
If they can’t take him out politically, I am sure that Mamdani will get arrested or even get the JFK treatment.
>>>If they can’t take him out politically, I am sure that Mamdani will get arrested or even get the JFK treatment.
This will be an excellent opportunity to destroy a political party and start a war. Even if it is not a direct trigger or result of a Sanders or JFK kind of event, as with Epstein’s “suicide” the blowback will be epic.
Filters
Pre-Election
. Prevent him from getting the nomination for his party.
. Media campaign to sink him.
. Funding to alternative controlled candidates.
. Rule-change to disqualify his campaign.
Post-Election
. Infiltrate his team with establishmentarians to gradually erode his positions.
. Money, quid pro quo.
. Arcane procedural sludge to slow action.
. State assembly to block policies.
. Courts to block policies.
. City bureaucracy drags its feet implementing.
. Soft coup (scandal, corruption charge, etc.)
. Wait for next election to undo anything that passed.
. JFK treatment when all else fails.
Good luck sir.
“Some donors are hoping for a write-in campaign, floating business-friendly names like Dimon.”
This actually made me laugh out loud. Dimon vs. Mamdani would be perfection.
Epstein client list Dimon according to Larry Johnson. Surely if the Dems were smart they would be trying to co-opt Mamdani rather block him (see first comment above). After all it didn’t take long for AOC to start calling Pelosi “Mama Bear.” This refusal to accept reality smacks of recent Trumpian petulance. Something in that Catskills supplied water?
In his most recent talk Hudson lays out the proposition that current billionaire oligarchs are committed to full spectrum dominance of the rest of humanity. Whatever it is it certainly isn’t rational.
There have been numerous threads here about the fact that GOP voters are far better at upending the apple cart when their pols p*ss them off. Perhaps enough Dem voters have been pushed to their limits by feckless Dem politicians.
#HereForIt #LuvTooSeeIt
I’ve seen a few articles and posts about how Mayor Brown up in Buffalo won a write in campaign when he lost to a ‘radical leftie’ in the primary.
They are hanging their hat on the wrong comparison there.
Somewhat on topic–Los Angeles Times just had a big backgrounder on the history of homelessness in LA.
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2025-07-10/how-a-century-of-short-sighted-decisions-wrought-las-homeless-crisis
I believe it says NYC is still homeless city number two. In LA the real estate industry has had much to do with homelessness along with NIMBY blockage of affordable housing. Perhaps LA can in turn give NYC some competition re the number of billionaires. But it could be both cities have similar issues.
I’m pretty tired of the “affordable housing” bone. Our industrial policy is in two parts for keeping housing costs high. First with stagnating incomes the high home price balances out the flat income for the middle income Americans, costs might be high but I have an asset with a huge number attached to it . Second after the Great Financial Crisis the Fed worked night and day to avoid price discovery for mortgage related paper products. The Obama led bank bail outs forced dehousing Americans rather than resetting the value of mortgages, the underlaying asset for paper products.
“productivity” in the usa is making rich peoples assets worth more by fleecing the commons
No housing is “affordable housing” when you don’t have a job that will pay the rent. California downtowns lost manufacturing and light industry to the suburbs during the 1960’s. If you didn’t move from the city you’d be out on the street in no time.
In the SF East Bay I can remember far enough back to when Ford Richmond and GM Oakland/Bancroft moved to greenfield sites in Milpitas (now an outlet mall) and Fremont (now Tesla). Middle class urban neighborhoods and the businesses they supported went over a cliff. The same thing happened in LA, NYC, and all around the country. In the 2000’s manufacturing and light industry moved overseas.
I’ve said it before:
You can’t have a market economy without buyers. This is why Our Billionaire Overlords want us all to go die. Empathy is Mamdani’s secret weapon.
Cough … regardless of past history … when Brooksley Born head of CFTC warned and was smacked down by – no other than the “rational agent” model boys Greenspan and Levitt and Rubin and Summers over “unregulated” derivatives. Hence private parties could lower credit risk and thus expand borrowing for short term yield in financial products without any social productivity. Thus escaping the risks that being a human is exposed to via job income or health.
On that the RE sector was financialized as an income stream to absentee investors via MBS, which incentivized the sector from the bottom up in getting people to borrow as post past retirement systems were off loaded onto the individual – 401K, Equities, REIT – as a never ending ATM without any social productivity.
In that all RE is now looked on by both insurance and building quality as a white good e.g. first buyer gets a bit of warranty, post selling on its almost nothing. Nothing is build too last, its just a short term physical asset to gain income off and nothing more.
I digress … ymmv
This is amusing. One of the quirks of US politics is that even if money drives voting and the candidate with the largest bankroll often wins, voters don’t like it when you put it that bluntly. They want you to at least pay lip service to the idea that it’s their choice. Any suggestion that you win by amassing the biggest war chest, and the actual vote is a mere formality, tends to rub them the wrong way.
Bloomberg found this out during his primary run in 2020 when he outright offered to buy the election with hitherto-unprecedented levels of campaign spending, provided of course that he was the nominee. This went down like a bag of cold sick, not just with voters but with the other primary candidates, who united to savage him in the debates. Oddly the most virulent attacks came from the bought-and-paid-for swamp creatures, who apparently didn’t like what his candidacy said about the party (and, by extension, themselves). It seems that part of being a shill for big money interests is a hefty dose of self-delusion, so that you can convince yourself that your position is based on principles, and the fact that they happen to align with those of big business is sheer coincidence.
The same dynamic looks to be playing out here, with all the scheming in plain sight to thwart the will of the voters (who, after all, chose Mamdani over the others) by throwing large enough sums of money at him. The more canny operators are trying to stay out of the fray and get others to do their dirty work for them, but I think voters are increasingly not fooled by this.
Although November is a long way off, there are signs that the oppo to Mamdani is caving. Pro-Cuomo unions have migrated to him, and expert wind chime Rep. Espaillat, a total party hack, recently endorsed him in a joint appearance. (Perhaps persuaded by his heavily Dominican and black district voting for ZM in the primary by a wide margin)
Another element not fully appreciated IMO is how the anti-genocide movement, attacked and repressed by the Democrat establishment, funneled itself into the perfectly legal Mamdani campaign. Gaza was downplayed in his platform, but everyone knew it was there.
Dimon isn’t actually wrong on socialism vs. Marxism. Socialism as we know it today descends mainly from a failed aristocrat’s labor cult with a creative class in charge. These systems more or less conserved the labor theory of value, industrial relations, and the mental/manual class division that eventually hardened into Taylorism-Fordism. It’s not really all that incompatible with neoliberalism.
Marx, on the other hand, denied designing a “socialist system” in Volume 1’s front matter and elsewhere; he only provided a scientific review of the then-current socialist ideologies, bending them into tools and vague sketches for emancipating humanity from the will of the dead. Because neoliberalism, however it may scramble relations, is bound to remain in some contact with the traditions of the English Calvinist mercantile classes, Dimon nor anyone else who objectifies labor has any use for such an ideology of liberation.
If Mamdini can make it there, then he can make it …anywhere.
Yea Mamdani! There are two classes in NYC that oppose him. One, of course, is the owning class and the other are owners’ servants, the PMC. At least, that is what should (and might) happen. Owning class money might buy some votes, but hopefully, not close to enough. Democracy! I don’t think a Marxist would disagree.
Of course, “Jamie Dimon at an event Thursday called Mamdani “more a Marxist than a socialist” reveals how poorly the owning class understands Marxism, thinking it is something else than socialism. It is not. Marx called his brand of socialism ‘communism’ to differentiate from the utopian socialism of his day. He was convinced that socialism would fail unless workers owned the means of production, and that is still true.
Peter Turchin, elite overproduction. Here we go …