cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/5741
Zohran Mamdani’s opponent, disgraced former Governor Andrew Cuomo, has received the political and financial backing of right-wing billionaires
The post Socialist Zohran Mamdani set to win mayor’s office in world’s richest city appeared first on Peoples Dispatch.
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Look, from succdem to tankie, I think we can all appreciate seeing Cuomo and Adams squirm and the incoming crashouts are going to be legendary. Mamdani at least has my critical support.
Best of luck with dealing with the ruling class’ sabotage, and for any hogs leaving NYC. Feel like trading? You’d be a better fit in Ohio.
I think there’s a lot of unnecessarily strong opinions good or bad about Mamdani (not I the enlightened centrist lol). New York is a big city. Most of the time their mayors are dogshit. Even when a mayor is less shit, like De Blasio recently or La Guardia in the 30-40s they are hampered by the system, the fact the NY governor has so much influence on things, the fact that the NYPD are their own internal fascist police state etc.
But a progressive mayor is better than a reactionary. De Blasio achieved only one thing of any real note, free universal pre-K. But to many families that was a huge deal. It took a lot of pressure off them financially and was good for child development. It’s now basically untouchable.
So my expectations or hopes are that Mamdani achieves like one or two good things, sells out and is less shit than Cuomo. Basically it.
New York is a big city.
Inhabited by many New Yorkese. - Charles de Gaulle
congrats to Zohran and DSA
to all the comrades here, it’s time to seize on every opportunity this presents to radicalize and organize
Counting chickens before they hatch
What are the chances of this dude not being a careerist sellout like AOC? Seems to me like the cycle is repeating, I mean sure he’s probably do a bit better than Cuomo but is his election really gonna move the needle significantly?
The main difference, and the one that presents the best suggestion of this being different, is that this is an executive position. One of the problems with AOC and Bernie is that being in Congress/the Senate means they can’t unilaterally do things, everything is favor-trading. So it’s hard to produce a signature piece of “socialist” legislation and they get tainted easily by “you scratch my back I scratch yours” deals.
Zohran would be mayor in a city where that office holds a large amount of power, so he can both act unilaterally on a lot of matters and any policy he puts forth will pretty explicitly get treated as “socialist.” There’s also a paradoxical dynamic with the mayor of NYC where it’s simultaneously very high profile, but is also historically a political dead end; NYC mayors almost never end up gaining a higher office after their term(s). So ironically, there’s not much allure of ladder climbing for him.
Now, does that mean he’s going to legislate fully automated luxury communism into law? No. But even if it’s just, he does a good job, gets some nice things done, no major crises, there’s a value in that. It’s hard to get people to fight and die for a socialist movement if said movement can’t demonstrate that it has the organizational wherewithal to get the trash picked up. If Zohran can show that a nominal socialist can get the day to day done in the executive, it’s useful for agitation and growing the movement.
Oddly enough, I feel like even if he is a sellout, the establishment reaction to him is moving the needle a bit on its own. Trump is threatening to invade and the house Republicans are talking about taking measures to keep him from being seated. I’m trying to be optimistic, but it feels like this might radicalize people. If they overreach and try to remove him maybe that sparks a strike
He openly admits he is a demsoc so don’t expect much. Zohran’s politics is basically this:
democratic socialism isn’t social democracy though, social democracy is just capitalism with welfare (“the nordic model”) 🙄 but democratic socialism is just liberals reinventing socialism (because socialism is democratic)
Democratic socialism is just social democracy though in a literal sense. It is merely a difference in marketing. The social democrats historically have been revisionist and concessionary “socialists”.
Starting from its early usage, social democracy meant socialism. The Russian Social Democratic Labour Party, once supported by Lenin, considered itself socialist. And I’d say that social democrats today still consider themselves socialists much of the time, just not “communists” or “Marxists” in requisite scare-quotes.
Yeah that is one of the issues with reading What Is To Be Done, it was written before the adoption of the word Communist by Lenin and Co to differentiate themselves from the revisionist Social Democrats. You know, those silly Bernsteinians. Eventually it became clear that some of the Social Democrats rejected the idea of revolution and instead were more interested in shaking hands with former Tsarists and appointing them to key roles in the provisional government.
So not that different then our current Democratic Socialists.
Are they reinventing socialism or are they appropriating the term? Mamdani always goes back to King and talks about the distribution of wealth, about childcare and public transportation, about affording rent and food. That all fits solidly within the framework of social democracy
i think the problem here is also illiterate americans not knowing what words mean and using the terms interchangeably but I guess we’ll see if he does some socialism or if he does some capitalism with welfare and then we can call it
City-run grocery stores has a potentially socialist implementation framework. If that succeeds in lowering food costs for average New Yorkers, that’s only good for socialist messaging. Yeah there’s a lot of other undesirable potential with Mamdani, but continuing to open peoples’ eyes and see past the red scare tactics for the first time… Well, I think that’s why there’s cause for optimism that socialist messaging even being discussed is a hopeful sign.
Genuine question, what would doing some socialism in his position look like compared to capitalism with welfare? Does that mean more focus on increasing labor power vs focusing on things like healthcare and transportation?
I think becoming a careerist sellout is almost guaranteed for people in these positions, for the simple reason that they’ll be surrounded by careerist sellouts, and people are social animals who will eventually adopt views more similar to their peers. However, AOC took years to completely sell out, and if it takes Mamdani as long, he’ll still be able to accomplish a lot more as mayor during that time than a then-junior congressperson.
I’m convinced that the long arc of holding office bends towards turning to shit. Your class interests will change, the people you spend time with will change, the system will punish integrity and reward selling out every day for eternity until you’ve been conditioned like Pavlov’s dog to be shit. But the election is happening and someone has to win it. If it’s Zohran maybe more people join socialist orgs and read theory and when they get disappointed by Zohran maybe they become more militant in their convictions. If he wins I’ll be slightly happy and then move on because it doesn’t change a lot.
He can’t run for presedent, so that’s at least one key difference between him and AOC.
This guy seemingly doesn’t have higher ambitions than being a good mayor. That might change, but for now that is what it looks like.
EVERYTHING BELOW IS SPECULATION, IF I’M WRONG PLEASE DON’T DUNK ON ME. I KNOW HE’S SAID SOME CRINGE IN THE PAST FEW MONTHS, I’M IGNORING THAT RIGHT NOW
He has a very strong and dedicated canvassing operation. If he pulls a reverse obama by not killing the movement as soon as he wins, he can leverage it towards pressuring libs into backing his agenda. His platform will not usher in a socialist future (IDK IF HE’S A MARXIST IT DOESN’T MATTER RIGHT NOW) but if he manages to deliver he will objectively be the most successful demsoc in generations, help a lot of people, and develop a blueprint for other cities to follow
We are allowed to celebrate good things, and as communists we can celebrate when well-meaning socialists beat our enemies
Also if he manages to direct his movement towards other worthy goals supporting other socialists or palestine liberation that would be cool
This guy seemingly doesn’t have higher ambitions than being a good mayor. That might change, but for now that is what it looks like.
it helps a little that he’s ineligible for the presidency
It’s less about the results of Zohran himself and more about the political climate that allows him to win with a demsoc message. It shows that the power of media propaganda is limited and that people are willing to take a risk by voting for more leftist ideas instead of ‘stability’.
Which doesn’t mean anything if he isn’t actually talking abut socialism or the socialist/communist movement. He’s already called two of the most prominent socialist leaders in this hemisphere (and in the world) “dictators”.
I don’t think it’s an all or nothing matter, that seems silly. We don’t know if the movement would be the same if he hadn’t thrown Venezuela and Cuba under the bus. But we do know that there has been a change in the political climate in a somewhat good direction. Zohran as a person can only slightly impact this climate so it doesn’t matter all that much that he’s not a principled leftist. We should criticise him but that doesn’t mean that the movement associated with him is useless.
I mean he’s probably going to be middle of the road on most things, but even if he is, isn’t he better than that absolute piece of shit Cuomo? I’ve never understood this site’s disdain for him just because every other leftist “hope” has been a sellout. At least they’re knocking out the even worse options!
The vitriol is really excessive but I think a real fear people have over these types is that they garner so much popular support for their elections and end up betraying their core supporters in the end, turning people off entirely.
The vitriol in reference to Andrew Cuomo? Is it really excessive when talking about him???
No it’s regarding the latest demsoc mayor
Depends on what he does going forward
Just from looking at his history, he will completely fold like a lawn chair and do whatever they tell him to do. “They” could range from the NYPD to prominent Democrats to even other Republicans.
As far as I’m concerned, it doesn’t matter what ideology Mamdani personally subscribes to because he’ll cave in to pressure anyways, and since the forces pressuring him are acting on behalf of neoliberalism, he will de facto govern as a neoliberal.
I think people vastly underestimate how someone’s willingness to fight factors into this. In a way, even questioning whether he will be a sellout or not misses this point. Whether someone is knowledgeable about socialist theory is one thing and whether someone is principled is another thing, but there is also the question of someone’s tenacity of will and fighting spirit.
Gramsci called this “optimism of the will.” Palestinians call this “steadfastness.” People into combat sports call this “being hungry for the title.” But they all point to the same thing in the end.
he’s a democratic socialist, that’s the best kind of liberal and nothing more.
is NYC the world’s richest city? somehow I really, really doubt that. It doesn’t even have ONE high speed train
In the financial capitol of the United States, the fortunes of a few dozen billionaire hoarders are counted as the city’s wealth despite no one else benefiting
Hey! That we have trains at all, and they cover the majority of the city, is better than the rest of the US’ car-focused nightmare :(
Congratulations USA!
This is a huge step forward. Take the W and relish in the moment. Don’t be weird about it please.
Drodzy amerykańce, don’t fuck this up and use the situation to the best of your abilities. Z pozdrowieniami, Super_Łumało
Look there’ little doubt that he’s going to win, but as far as I know there’s been no results yet.
Can’t turn to wait a few hours…
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