Zohran Mamdani overturned the New York power structure because of a youthquake at the ballot box, but his battles with entrenched power are only beginning.
Mamdani is the Mayor-Elect of New York City, having won a majority of the vote in a three way race against Republican Curtis Sliwa and former governor Andrew Cuomo, who ran as an independent after losing to Mamdani in the Democratic primary.
The Results.
— Nat Wilson Turner (@natwilsonturner) November 5, 2025
The NY Times characterized the results as “the nation’s largest city (embracing) generational and ideological change.”
Previous Coverage of 2025 NYC Mayoral Race
Readers may want to review my previous coverage of this race as well as my piece on the two gubernatorial races decided yesterday.
- 2025 New York Mayoral Primary, Mamdani Vs. Cuomo
- Is Mamdani’s Win Over Cuomo The End of Democratic Party Neoliberalism?
- Andrew Cuomo Counting on Trump’s Support in New York Race
- 2025 Gubernatorial Races Provide Preview for 2026 Mid-term Elections
- Follow the Money Under Trump’s East Wing Ballroom and Behind Dem Progressive Campaigns
Record Setting Turnout, Youthquake Powered Mamdani
The race inspired turnout not seen in generations, per the NY Times:
In an era of low turnout nationwide, participation in Tuesday’s mayoral election in New York City was nothing short of electric, approaching numbers not seen in half a century.
More than two million New Yorkers cast their ballots. That figure was almost double the 1,100,000 people who voted for mayor four years ago. In some areas of Brooklyn, Queens and Manhattan, participation approached presidential election levels.
Unlike many American jurisdictions, New York historically has not allowed early voting in mayoral races. That changed in 2025.
Early vote data is public and gives analysts their first look at who voted in the election, although individual voter choices are confidential. Because demographic blocks tend to vote alike, these numbers also provide the best prediction of the outcome available.
Early vote numbers were enormous.
— Nat Wilson Turner (@natwilsonturner) November 5, 2025
The NY Times discussed Mamdani’s new coalition:
For decades, Democrats in New York City have prevailed with a fairly static coalition: white liberals in Manhattan and Brooklyn, Black and Latino voters, ultra-Orthodox Jewish communities and a smattering of other immigrants.
Early results suggest that Mr. Mamdani reworked the contours of that coalition, stitching together new alliances that could shift the city’s political outlook for years to come.
He ran up 40- and 50-point margins in Brooklyn’s affluent Brownstone belt, swept northern Manhattan and secured slightly more narrow margins in historically Black and Latino areas of Brooklyn and the Bronx.
Mr. Cuomo pulled away in Orthodox Jewish precincts, where he approached 80 percent of the vote, and clearly won large numbers of more liberal Jewish voters in Manhattan and Riverdale in the Bronx that typically back the Democratic nominee.
But Mr. Mamdani, who will be the city’s first Muslim and South Asian mayor, more than made up for those losses with two groups most Democrats have overlooked: the young residents of gentrifying neighborhoods like Bushwick and Williamsburg, and the taxi drivers, bodega owners and other working-class South Asian immigrants in Queens and the Bronx.
Mamdani also solved one of the problems that has dogged progressive campaigns in recent decades: an inability to connect with working class and minority voters:
During the primary, Mr. Mamdani struggled to win some working-class Black and Latino areas. He overcame those challenges in a major way on Tuesday night.
With almost 90 percent of the votes counted, Mr. Mamdani was winning the Bronx by 11 points, a striking turnaround from the primary when he lost the county to Mr. Cuomo by 18 points.
In working-class neighborhoods like Kingsbridge in the Bronx, Mr. Cuomo beat Mr. Mamdani by almost two points in the primary. On Tuesday night, Mr. Mamdani was winning the neighborhood by 14 points.
Young voters showed up in a way they never did for Bernie Sanders in his 2016 and 2020 presidential races. Say it with me, youthquake:
— Nat Wilson Turner (@natwilsonturner) November 5, 2025
Another NYT piece focused specifically on Gen Z voters (age 18 to 28):
Young people turned up and voted. The city’s roughly two-week stretch of early voting, which ended on Sunday, saw more than 735,000 residents cast ballots. The median age of these voters was 50, brought down by nearly 100,000 voters under the age of 35 showing up between Friday and Sunday.
The Times credits the Mamdani campaign’s ability to make organizing fun and providing a sense of connection for otherwise lonely and isolated young people.
Mr. Mamdani’s campaign did not want volunteering for him to feel like work, but like a chance to meet new people and discover new corners of New York. His vision of the city, the campaign said, is of a joyful place — one where New Yorkers can spend less time slogging and more time hanging.
…
That vision and the strategy began about a year ago, when Mr. Mamdani slid onto the social media feeds of Gen Z New Yorkers. He jubilantly crisscrossed boroughs, hitting beaches, road races and food stalls in a way that made people want to join in. He talked nonstop about the cost of living in a city where $18 cocktail menus and no-longer-one-dollar pizza slices are unsustainable on an entry-level job salary. He shared his pro-Palestinian views with supporters, who were confronted with videos of the deaths and destruction in Gaza.And Mr. Mamdani did something else that they weren’t expecting. He invited them to come out — to a scavenger hunt (with a prize of sour-cream-and-onion potato chips, a sly reference to a Mayor Eric Adams campaign controversy), to a soccer tournament, to do-it-yourself merch nights, to a social for shredding personal documents, to bars where people could drink $5 Miller High Lifes and debrief after door knocking.
This is probably the most hope inspiring sign from Mamdani’s campaign as real, in-person, face-to-face, organizing is the most powerful political tool of all.
Whether this model can be implemented outside the densely populated Big Apple will have massive implications on American politics going forward.
Mamdani’s Victory Speech
The NY Times has the full transcript, but I want to highlight a couple things.
He opened with a quote from Eugene Debs, America’s greatest socialist politician, then immediately characterized his victory as a victory for working people.
Then he turned to his vanquished opponent.
Tonight, against all odds, we have grasped it. The future is in our hands. My friends, we have toppled a political dynasty.
I wish Andrew Cuomo only the best in private life. But let tonight be the final time I utter his name, as we turn the page on a politics that abandons the many and answers only to the few.
He went on to thank “the next generation of New Yorkers”, “Yemeni bodega owners, Mexican abuelas, Senegalese taxi drivers, Uzbek nurses, Trinidadian line cooks and Ethiopian aunties,” and his 100,000 campaign volunteers.
Then he reiterated some key campaign promises:
We will hire thousands more teachers. We will cut waste from a bloated bureaucracy. We will work tirelessly to make lights shine again in the hallways of NYCHA developments where they have long flickered.
Safety and justice will go hand in hand as we work with police officers to reduce crime and create a Department of Community Safety that tackles the mental health crisis and homelessness crises head on.
He also addressed the spurious charges of anti-Semitism that have been relentlessly hurled at him by zionists throughout the race and his status as a Muslim New Yorker:
We will build a City Hall that stands steadfast alongside Jewish New Yorkers and does not waver in the fight against the scourge of antisemitism. Where the more than one million Muslims know that they belong — not just in the five boroughs of this city, but in the halls of power.
No more will New York be a city where you can traffic in Islamophobia and win an election.
He then reinforced his identity as a new kind of unapologetic progressive politician:
I am young, despite my best efforts to grow older. I am Muslim. I am a democratic socialist. And most damning of all, I refuse to apologize for any of this.
And he closed with a reiteration of his key promises in a call and response with his supporters:
Together, New York, we’re going to freeze the… [rent!] Together, New York, we’re going to make buses fast and… [free!] Together, New York, we’re going to deliver universal… [child care!]
Mamdani Defeats the Oligarchs
Mamdani also commented on the massive oligarch-funded campaign against him and issued a challenge in his victory speech:
Many have heard our message only through the prism of misinformation. Tens of millions of dollars have been spent to redefine reality and to convince our neighbors that this new age is something that should frighten them. As has so often occurred, the billionaire class has sought to convince those making $30 an hour that their enemies are those earning $20 an hour.
They want the people to fight amongst ourselves so that we remain distracted from the work of remaking a long-broken system. We refuse to let them dictate the rules of the game anymore. They can play by the same rules as the rest of us.
This chart from Drop Site News shows just how hard the oligarchs tried to beat Mamdani:
— Nat Wilson Turner (@natwilsonturner) November 5, 2025
The Guardian named anti-Mamdani oligarch names:
Bill Ackman, the hedge fund manager and prominent Trump supporter, gave a pro-Cuomo group a total of $1.75m; Michael Bloomberg, the billionaire and three-term former New York mayor, donated a staggering $8.3m to the same Pac. The makeup moguls of the Lauder family backed pro-Cuomo and anti-Mamdani organizations to the tune of $2.6m, while the Tisch family gave $1.2m to stop the young socialist. For a long time, an effort – the billionaire class acting in concert to secure a specific electoral outcome – would have seemed insurmountable for a progressive candidate. It does not seem insurmountable anymore.
National Political Implications: Democratic Civil War
Despite running as an independent, Cuomo represented the Democratic party establishment, AIPAC, the oligarchy, and POTUS Donald Trump, who endorsed Cuomo in the final days of the race.
When I first covered the race I wrote, “if Cuomo wins, the sclerotic Democratic establishment will write off the insurgent, younger branch of the part off as sure losers in the 2028 contest and Cuomo will be an instant front-runner in the presidential primary.”
Mamdani’s historic victory (more on that below) means Cuomo’s political career should be finished, although he didn’t explicitly say we wouldn’t have Andrew Cuomo to kick around anymore at his concession speech, hopefully the man’s political career is finally over.
Mamdani’s victory was also a triumph over the Abundance bros that articulate the “vision” of the Democratic establishment:
(Democratic) consultants – long the devil on the Democratic party’s shoulder – have fallen under the spell of “popularism”, a mode of politics advanced by pollsters like David Schor and bloggers like Matt Yglesias, which posits that Democratic candidates must refine their platforms by the median of public opinion; a prescription that has almost always, in practice, meant shifting right, abandoning vulnerable constituencies, and treating the public as implacable belligerents to be coddled, rather than as intelligent adults to be persuaded.
…the rapidly proliferating number of centrist and center-right thinktanks and consultancies looking to shape Democratic party strategy exist, in part, to channel the preferences of their own ultra-wealthy funders, and to signal what the billionaire class will accept. The result is a Democratic party that appears listless and unprincipled, unwilling to fight because they do not believe in anything.
Mamdani’s electrifying campaign rejected this strategy completely.
Alex Shepherd in The New Republic sums up the strategy of the Democratic establishment:
A year ago, the Democratic Party decided to tell its voters “no.” Its leaders, Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries, adopted a playbook written by a fossil, James Carville, who argued that the Democrats should do nothing: Sit back, don’t make a fuss, and let Trump wreak havoc—then swoop in and win back power. At the same time, Democrats began formulating a message that attempted to scale back what they now believed were the excesses of the previous eight years. The party would be more conservative on gender and immigration, in particular, but also economics.
Mamdani won by doing something completely different. He built a campaign around a message that understood people’s anxieties about rising prices and offered concrete, legible promises that addressed them. He spoke to people not from the remove of Sunday shows and press conferences but where they were: He talked to social-media influencers and went on podcasts and showed up at Knicks games and rap concerts. He resonated with voters because he offered a vision of a better future, not a series of warmed over compromises.
The single issue that Mamdani’s opponents and critics fixated on—his longstanding support for Palestinian self-determination—only served to distinguish him from a Democratic establishment many distrusted. He held true to his beliefs, but perhaps he also saw which way the wind was blowing: Democratic voters’ views on Israel have shifted dramatically over the last two years, but their leaders’ haven’t. That some prominent Democrats lodged baseless accusations of antisemitism against him—or even dabbled in Islamophobia over his Muslim beliefs—only served to remind voters that he represented a clean break from the party’s leaders.
The weakness of the Democratic establishment was most visible in their struggles over whether or not to endorse Mamdani. Governor Kathy Hochul endorsed Mamdani in September.
U.S. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, whose district is inside the city, dithered about whether or not to endorse Mamdani until mid-October when he finally made a lukewarm one.
U.S. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, one of New York’s two Senators, never did endorse Mamdani and wouldn’t state who he had voted for.
National Political Implications: Mamdani vs. Trump
Mamdani explicitly called out President Trump in his victory speech:
if we embrace this brave new course, rather than fleeing from it, we can respond to oligarchy and authoritarianism with the strength it fears, not the appeasement it craves.
After all, if anyone can show a nation betrayed by Donald Trump how to defeat him, it is the city that gave rise to him. And if there is any way to terrify a despot, it is by dismantling the very conditions that allowed him to accumulate power.
This is not only how we stop Trump; it’s how we stop the next one. So, Donald Trump, since I know you’re watching, I have four words for you: Turn the volume up.
We will hold bad landlords to account because the Donald Trumps of our city have grown far too comfortable taking advantage of their tenants. We will put an end to the culture of corruption that has allowed billionaires like Trump to evade taxation and exploit tax breaks. We will stand alongside unions and expand labor protections because we know, just as Donald Trump does, that when working people have ironclad rights, the bosses who seek to extort them become very small indeed.
New York will remain a city of immigrants: a city built by immigrants, powered by immigrants and, as of tonight, led by an immigrant.
So hear me, President Trump, when I say this: To get to any of us, you will have to get through all of us. When we enter City Hall in 58 days, expectations will be high. We will meet them.
For his part, Trump chose to make excuses for the GOP losses around the country rather than confronting Mamdani:
Mamdani Took “New” Trump Voters
Perhaps Trump was reluctant to attack Mamdani because he saw that the Mayor-elect cut right into the demographics that put Trump over the top in 2024 majorities: young men and ethnic minorities:
.@NBCNews exit polling on young men (18-29) in VA, NJ and NYC
VA: Spanberger +14
NJ: Sherrill: +10
NYC: Mamdani +40— Allan Smith (@akarl_smith) November 5, 2025
Note the difference between Mamdani and the two CIA centrists who won governships in Virginia and New Jersey.
He beat them among young women as well:
Young women are the story of tonight.
81% for Mamdani in NYC
80% for Sherrill in NJ
78% for Spanberger in VA
per NBC's exit polls.— Rachel Janfaza (@racheljanfaza) November 5, 2025
Mark Wauck broke down Mamdani’s success with those groups and speculated as to why they have abandoned Trump:
GOPers were losing with “new Trump” voters. Major parts of the traditional Dem base turned out for Mamdani—of course. On the other hand, the “new Trumpers”—Hispanics and Muslims and various Asians—who had defected from the Dems to Trump over domestic issues (crime, borders, economy) appear to have returned to the Dems. Why? The economy and Trump’s denialism has to be considered a major factor. But Trump’s strong foreign policy identification with the Anglo-Zionist targeting—ranging from tariffs and the accompanying rhetoric, to killing for sport on the high seas, to genocide—of, let’s see, Asians, Hispanics, and Muslims has to have been a factor, as well. I don’t see Trump – Mamdani voters voting GOP in the midterms at this point.
Now Mamdani Will Have to Deliver
Those readers who are having painful flashbacks to the “Hope and Change” of 2008 and burn at the memory of Obama’s failure to deliver anything resembling positive change are right to worry.
Ominously, the big BO himself is promising to be in Mamdani’s ear as a “sounding board” following one of two phone calls he placed to Mamdani during the campaign.
New York progressive netroots veteran Zephyr Teachout has a warning for Mamdani about Obama and his approach to politics:
Remember when David Plouffe and Rahm Emanuel did everything they could to destroy the grassroots that Obama 2007 built, actively stopping them from organizing for health care?
Making OFA a data operation with distributed tasks and radically centralized power?
I mean we are living with the horrific human costs of that now but one way in which Zohran is absolutely not Obama is that I am sure that he has no intention of throttling grassroots power.
Finally we will see what grassroots power built in a political campaign can do. I know a lot of people who don’t believe electoral campaigns can ever be the foundation of grassroots power but here’s a real chance to show them wrong.
Mamdani will face enormous challenges as mayor and I’ll be back next week to put names on those challenges.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Up9yLFL9tVs
Laith Marouf weighs in on the Mamdani win
I’m glad to see Laith is free to comment. His arrest a few weeks ago was very scary.
Thanks for sharing that. I didn’t realize that Mamdani’s wife was a big anti-Assad person in the Syrian Civil War.
At 50.4% no one can say it wasn’t legit (except maybe you know who).
Now the real fight begins; to counter oligarchic power, his supporters must understand and remember that the fight is theirs to win or lose. There must be a constant and continued demand for the oligarchy to recede, the many have the power if they have coherence, he is only a conduit.
It will be critical that he keeps his campaign organization active and powerful. Obama immediately crushed his campaign organization and the Democratic grassroots never recovered.
From your keyboard to God’s ears…
They will need to develop clear lines of communication with the grass roots. I say this as some one well aware that Democrats have spent decades making excuses for inactivity. Sometimes, like Obama and healthcare, those excuses continue to hold despite being nothing but smoke and mirrors. Especially as in those cases the media in its many forms have carried water for the false excuses. But not seeing progress or experiencing regression is disheartening. And there will be a great many seemingly insurmountable blocks to the stated agenda. The grass roots need to be told in clear simple direct terms the extent of the problems and the real reasons why things do not happen, be it the withholding of federal funds, Albany actively blocking things or even misinformation campaigns especially when done by so-called allies. And not fall back on the usual boogeymen stories that fall apart on careful examination. That leads to disillusionment. Avoiding those pitfalls is important both to marshall the energy for the current term, but also to expand that energy for the future. Real change must remain not just the goal for Mamdani, but possible even when blocked. And be available for other agents of change.
Perhaps in this case his campaign organization is a matter of principle, for Obama it was a chimera to delude the many. The O man was an oligarchic deception. I was not deceived.
“Perhaps in this case his campaign organization is a matter of principle…”
I agree with this.
I watched a lot of coverage of the New York mayoral election, especially yesterday, and, so, atypically, I can’t recall exactly where I saw the point but someone—a commentator, a Mamdani surrogate (I don’t think it was Zohran Mamdani himself)—said that Mamdani will be leveraging his grassroots campaign organization as he moves forward, which sounded like a concrete strategic move, rather than something purely aspirational, not that that’s an iron-clad guarantee.
I never really liked Obama, but I voted for (lol) Chris Dodd in the primary, so what did I know at the time? I caught on quick when his cabinet appointments were announced, then. I knew we were screwed.
Obama was, in the words of Tavis Smiley, “bought and bossed”. The second he was sworn in, he began working hard for his supervisors at the banks.
Hey news flash: Mamdani doesn’t own the grassroots movement and couldn’t dismantle it if he tried. DSA predates him and will be around to help him push the platform through and kick his ass if he doesn’t. Obama controlled OFA and thus could dissolve it. Big difference.
Well, the DSA beginning in 1982 had increasingly been rolled into the Democrat Party™.
They have recently have had a more distinct profile. Z ran as a Democrat.
The over and underlying material conditions, the disparity not comfortably acknowledged by the oligarchy, is in play.
What the DSA does toward the results of the conflict will further define their profile.
Inform and organize the many.
Unfortunately, the man who once promised to confront the NYPD head-on now caters to the police. This alone calls into question the sincerity of his commitment to reform.
I’ll get into all that next week. He’s in a pretty weak position vis-a-vis the NYPD and will have to step very carefully. His decision to keep Tisch on as police comissioner was an ominous one. I covered that a little bit a couple weeks ago as well.
You mistake the quality of his sincerity with the realities of the power structures which he, and the many, confront.
Big mistake.
Going to war with the PD head on is a losing proposition. I hope Mamdani will look at longer term bottom-up ideas for police reform. Seems like a problem that requires the effort of a generation. Would be good to get started.
Zohran needs to retrain the police to go after white collar crime.
Tell the NYPD they get a cut of the seized assets.
Now we’re talking.
(Raises glass) This is a good feeling win against the establishment. I do hope it lasts.
young women are the story of tonight,
Those are eye-popping numbers. Is this a rejection of team red or the status quo? Either way, that 19th Amendment is gonna have to go, lol.
Kamala Harris got 61% of women 18-29 in 2024, for comparison.
Fingers crossed indeed, otherwise at least still a bit of good news.
A very necessary bit of good news in these days. I’ve seen commentary to the tune of “be wary of Democratic sheep-dogs” i.e. who will gather the flock back to the party, most easily seen with AOC and Bernie. Here’s to hoping Mamdani will be more principled: if he maintains his campaign organization and uses it to build popular power, this could have powerful consequences for the rest of the US. Nonetheless, it’s for sure a much better result than Cuomo winning.
I agree with this comment totally. I know I’m very cynical to the Democrat party, but I remain open to Mamdani. The organization was impressive, but I think Teachout’s warnings are prescient as well. He’s definitely saying the right things.
Same here bro
I expect the next tactic from Democrats will be to embrace and neutralise, as they did with AOC. We’ll see how he handles it.
If Democrats ever start making supportive and positive comments about him that don’t sound like veiled character assassination, or like they’re being delivered through gritted teeth, that’s when we should worry.
His victory will offer a rallying point for the establishment ghouls.
He will be corbynised.
Get ready for him appearing in public with a tie not quite right, one subtly suggesting he favours the civilised savage over the native civilised. Obvious AS.
I think he should start his presidential run now, despite the high, low cause mortality risk that course seems to manifest.
He can’t run for president as he was born in Uganda.
Actually, my one question is when does the movement to amend the Eligibility Clause of the US Constitution begin? (Yeah, it’s somewhat tongue-in-cheek and, yes, I do realize how incredibly far-fetched that is.)
Hopefully he will concentrate his efforts on being the best mayor possible not looking for ever greater power no matter what political brokers give him free advice.
You forgot the $50 million [Open Society] from Soros funding the infrastructure that made Mamdani a viable candidate at all. Guess that doesn’t count.
I read the Fox News piece making those claims and found it too incoherent to include. Didn’t connect the dots but did type “radical Islam” a lot.
Here’s this summer’s NYPost article about the same funding source.
https://nypost.com/2025/07/12/us-news/soros-funneled-37-million-to-lefty-groups-backing-mamdanis-mayoral-run/
Thanks, we’ve gone from $50 to $37 million.
The Post article was written mid-July. So, another 3+ months to go before election day. Who knows how much more funding was given out in these 3 months? / ;)
But didn’t they spell out how Open Society stopped spending prior to his campaign and cut off everything and everybody else during his run?
Everyone with a fellowship or grant returned the money they’d recieved and said that candidate needs this money more!
If you think about, this is probably why no one got their Soris checks for No Kings and protests this year.
Benjamin Studebaker, whom I consider among the best and clearest social commentators, rejects the excitement, calling Mamdani’s social democratic reformism “aquiescence as resistence” in a convincing piece of criticism. A bit zoomed out from the focus of this piece, which is comprehensive and careful as has been your coverage of this phenomenon from day one.
Thanks, Studebaker is new to me. I will check him out. Thanks for the kind words about my coverage. I try not to be a sucker for these politicians. IMO the important part is what the electorate is expressing and who they are accepting and who they are rejecting. Regardless of Mamdani’s limitations, I’m darn glad to see Cuomo soundly rejected.
“Studebaker is new to me. I will check him out.”
Ben is easily one of the sharpest political analyzers out there and, invariably, incredibly clear. I’m not so sure I agree with his take, say, that Mayor-elect Mamdani’s campaign pledge of “free buses” is “about making the labor force more flexible”—although it might, in fact, do that—but, whether one agrees or not, he’s always worth reading.
I too, reject the excitement. For me, it is a constant terror of oligarchic power. Subvert it at all costs. It/they do not sleep.
They do not sleep, they live.
Thank you, I knew of that film but have not seen it. I will, at some point, the point was taken sometime ago, it endures.
I read your link to Benjamin Studebaker, but had great difficulty attempting to grasp the thread of even the relatively short essay you referenced. Perhaps you could draw a brief coherent sketch of what convinced you of Studebaker’s claim that Mamdani’s social democratic reformism is a form of “acquiescence as resistance”. I could think of a lot of concerns about why Mamdani might not be able to deliver on his promises of a rent freeze, fast and free buses, and universal child care … but I am befuddled in attempting to view these goals as Studebaker’s “acquiescence as resistance”.
Reaching here … is Studebaker concerned that Mamdani might be a reformer who saves our system from its excesses and thereby helps assure the safety of the power structures that might be ripped asunder without some blunting of their excesses and the anger those excesses generated … a role some have attributed to FDR in the claim that FDR saved Capitalism from its excesses at a time ripe for Socialist, even Communist reforms as Henry A. Wallace might have accomplished had he not been sandbagged by the Democratic party.
Laith Marouf says the same thing (from the video link in the very first comment here), where he makes the point that Americans are too comfortable to get off their butts and end America’s colonist behavior.
Make what you want with it.
I don’t think that’s a reach at all. There’s an article at scheerpost which I think could be read as a companion piece to Studebaker’s, expressing the same thing from the opposite perspective. It’s called “Why Capitalists Should Support Mamdani, a ‘Communist Lunatic‘.
I believe your second paragraph is what Studebaker is getting at. And he could be correct, but I thought the examples he used to try to make the point weren’t the best. For example, I don’t think subsidized childcare necessarily leads to people working longer hours for less money.
I’m not so sure Studebaker is saying that Mamdani is “a reformer who saves our system from its excesses and thereby helps assure the safety of the power structures”—he might agree with that but I read his specific point in this blog post differently. (And, although I praise Studebaker’s writing as nearly always being admirably clear, I didn’t find it that clear this time.)
He’s saying:
(1) The global economy relies on the citizens of rich countries continuing to have a high capacity to consume.
(2) This high labor force participation rate inside the rich countries will not be sustainable, given that more workers in Asia, Latin America, and Africa will be able to do service jobs remotely. (And, in the current state, “these debilitated, lumpen democracies really do have no choice but to beg and plead for jobs.”)
(3) So, either the global economy must transition away from its reliance on the rich countries for consumption, or some new political form must be developed that can sustain this consumption or transcend the situation that creates the need for it.*
Mamdani’s campaign promises for fare-free buses, subsidized childcare and a rent-freeze just adapt to the global situation—“their purpose is to help workers adapt to a worse situation”(presumably, by allowing workers to consume just a bit more within the current political form)—but it certainly doesn’t help labor “overcome” itself.
In referring to labor “overcoming itself,” Studebaker says
In private communication (because I just wrote to him and asked), in explaining “overcoming labor,” Studebaker referred to the related Marxist ideas of (1) the working class, through its political actions, creating conditions under which there no longer needed to be a working class and would no longer be a working class and (2) the exchange of human labor power for wages eventually producing conditions under which this exchange is no longer necessary and begins to appear irrational.
So what does Zohran Mamdani’s “acquiescence” mean in this context? I’d say, from Studebaker’s point of view, Mamdani is basically accepting the current labor relations, rather than working to create an environment whereby workers, at the very least, have more leverage (never mind ceasing to be a working class or rendering the exchange of labor for wages unnecessary—although we might need some change regarding that exchange, given the need to maintain the levels of consumption relied on by the global economy). There’s nothing that sets even the predicate for “labor overcoming itself”—his proposals “don’t point beyond themselves”—they’re all just, Studebaker’s words, “palliative reforms.”
*Themes like the need for consumption on the part of rich countries and, not mentioned in this post, capital mobility, are big ones for Studebaker.
I agree. In the past I’ve found Studebaker helpful, but not here. His argument isn’t quite as pared down as “no improvements on worker conditions, the worse the better” because he shows how Mamdani policies could be used to help employers. But in terms of general strategy he does sound abstractly maximalist, or accelerationist, and that sort of passive-aggressive approach to organizing tends to pin hopes on spontaneous upsurges by people who, governed by a fear of “accepting capitalist labor relations” and aiding capitalist rationalization, have had little experience with organized action.
Commenters who have raised the O specter, and O’s abandonment of his campaign organization are more on target. Mamdani’s election support network could turn into a network of community-based groups that could both support the fairly straightforward goals he’s emphasized and also innovate locally, e.g. organizing rent strikes, supporting unions (a Starbucks strike is looming) etc. The pretty much classic issue that then arises is how much autonomy they would have and whether, or to what extent, Mamdani central would try to rein them in to avoid upsetting the big money trying to limit Mamdani’s autonomy. I’m not that familiar with the track record of organizations like France Insoumise with its “action groups,” but they are certainly worth a look.
As you say, what M does with his campaign organization now and next will determine what space he creates for himself and is able to maintain to contend with what will be a well funded and organized (top down) opposition .
Even if the Soros funding claims are true, what you do with power once you have it determines who you are. The Democrats came down hard on AOC after her Tax the Rich dress at the Met Ball, this crap matters a lot more than it should, and she’s appeared useless since then.
LBJ was amongst the biggest pricks in politics and ultimately used that to push through the Civil Rights legislation and then see himself to the door. One never knows, but judge them by their actions.
Ho Hum.
Another “Democratic Socialist” aka another Democrat party politician promising hope and change.
At least Bernie and AOC will have some company next time they head out somewhere to sheepdog another group of ignorant kids into thinking this time its different…
What we, the many, have in lieu of a democratic socialist, is a vanguard of the proletariat.
What is to be done? asked Lenin. The fight against social and material inequality has many fallen heroes, some of them false. That does not mean that the fight must not go on.
Neither Sanders nor AOC has won this big a race. Neither has ever knocked off anyone as formidable (if damaged) as Cuomo. I’m sure Mamdani will disappoint in many ways, but he did defeat Cuomo.
Also, neither Sanders nor AOC hold executive power, like Mamdani will starting next year. Bernie was mayor of Burlington, VT, 1981-1989, but that’s a different world, Reagan years, before the fall of the USSR.
AOC defeated Joe Crowley. Not a really big guy like Cuomo, but Crowley was in the Democratic house leadership. Per Wikipedia:
Looking forward to Hakeem Jeffries being primaried out of the potential house speakership. Hochul’s endorsement was because could see the writing on the wall; next year she’s up for a primary and likely facing Stefanik.
The Crowley upset was a big deal, but this is a bigger deal. AOC’s biggest accomplishment was probably taking out Cuomo’s gang of 8 (or so) crypto-Republicans in the state senate 2 years after she got into office.
The upstate (north and west of Westchester) republicans are already advising Stefanik to stay elected in her Congressional seat as better for her long term viability. NYC produces the overall statewide number of votes. 2026* is already shaping up as a blue wave nationwide based on current results.
*New York – as a state – finally went Democratic this cycle. Evidence includes but is not limited to the fact that the largest suburbs of Buffalo (Amherst – Erie County) & Rochester (Greece – Monroe County) flipped from decades of Republican control to Democratic control in a single night along with Mamdani. The largest suburb of Albany (Colonie – Albany County) almost joined them.
Cuomo the corrupt grannie killer who resigned in disgrace just a few years ago?
But regardless of who he beat, at the end of the day we all know Democratic Socialists are just sheepdogs for the Democratic party so who really won here. Not the working class.
Enjoying the coverage muchly, but I don’t think you should be so quick to declare the Abundance Bro’s defeated; in fact, they won a big victory in NYC yesterday: pro-development, Abundance-type referenda, supported by Mamdani at the last minute after playing cagey during the campaign, all passed.
Good point. Those clowns will keep taking L’s and never shutting up as long as there are gazillionaires spending money to hear what they want said.
Between my skepticism of Mamdani and dislike of awful Cuomo, I decided the honest choice was not to vote. That said, a fair chunk of Mamdani’s promises resonate with me, so here’s hoping for the best.
Mamdani has something new. I had no idea there were a million Muslims in New York. Between that group and the Indians and Pakistanis he will have a solid and fast growing voter base that no dem has yet harnessed. No other ethnic group comes close. Trump got a little bit of that voting power in Michigan and it won the election. Demography is destiny.
Mamdani is at the Faustian bargain/AOC road fork now—-is he going to focus solely on NYC over the next four years, or will his ego and the draw of national media (and of course, $$$$$$) take over and appoint himself as the national opposition leader (at the expense of his borough-level agenda).
The last US president who was a mayor of a major city was Grover Cleveland
Mamdani can’t run for president; he was born overseas.
Socialism in one country, in one locale, is a perilous aspiration. The oligarchy will not relent until they are vanquished.
Back when Daily Kos was still relevant, I think I read there that the only politicians’ endorsements worth much were those from big-city mayors. Mayors unlike governors and senators could deliver a big campaign workforce to the endorsed candidate.
So maybe Mamdani is a good omen for AOC primarying out Schumer.
Ah Daily Kos. I remember when Markos declared the 2016 primary over months in advance. F___ him.
Fuck Kos
VIVA LA NC!
I was driven away long before that, when something that should have been a part of forcing the Dems to do real healthcare reform became a tool to spread misinformation about and crush dissent for the insurance rescue massive ripoff being done instead. So I missed that atrocity. Markos’ dissent into complete irrelevance has been taking far too long.
Opposition to the holocaust in occupied Palestine is reason enough to cast a vote for the candidate.
The financial structure which is the foundation that supports and encourages its prosecution will be much more difficult to “reform.”
It’s socialism or barbarism
I’ve been a “vote for something” not “against anything” voter since 2016.
Mamdani is my first vote cast since then, maybe he’ll disappoint, maybe not.
But at this moment, in this place to have a clearly articulated position on Palestine and the Gaza Genocide and a legitimate chance to win, well, that got my vote.
It still haunts me to this day when I think back to how excited I was for Obama’s election, only to then have it come crashing down for the hoax it was as he kept all the Bush economic advisors.
I saw this morning on Breaking Points that one of his transition advisors will be Lena Khan! I’m excited again!
*Inserts Guy Fawks Mask Emoji*
Remember Remember The Fifth Of November….
Guy Fawkes – the only man ever to enter parliament with honest intentions.
I cannot find it now, but there was an article at some point early in the Mamdani race which claimed that the single strongest correlation with “I live in NYC and I dislike Mamdani” was “I live in NYC and own a car”.
Exit polls show car owners went strongly for Cuomo.
How about “I live in NYC and have a driver’s license”?
As a non-American, I find it incredible that the Democratic Party’s Senate Minority Leader won’t say whether or not he voted for the official Democratic Party candidate in the election.
Is that normal for US politics?
No, it’s deeply abnormal.
I appreciate this coverage.
I celebrated yesterday that Cuomo lost, and I’m back to skepticism again this morning that Mamdani can make good.
As a renter in NYC, I will be relieved if he doesn’t allow the godawful NYC Rent Guidelines Board to jack up my rent as Adams, the self-proclaimed “mayor of real estate,” who packed that board with pro-landlord members, did. And I was heartened to see that Lina Khan is on Mamdani’s transition team.
I’m excited by Mamdani’s win; I even think he’s sincere. But (and there’s always a “but”) we tend to ignore that one person can’t change a city’s governance alone. He will need other elected officials and bureaucrats throughout the boroughs to be allies. As has been stated, officials at the State and Federal level can impede his plans. If he manages to implement a fraction of his agenda I’ll be impressed.