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NYC ELECTION - Why has Zohran Mamdani “already won” in the City of New York? Yes, the elections are being held in just a few hours, on Tuesday, November 4th, but he will surely be the great victor, facing off against former governor Andrew Cuomo and Republican Curtis Sliwa. How did he manage it, in a city that has traditionally been ruled by the Right? Because, let’s face it – the Democrats are a right-wing party in America, or, if you prefer, they became a right-wing party ever since Clinton. A party of “corporate Democrats,” partners of Wall Street. Clinton himself is backing Cuomo in this election. Within the Democratic Party, Bernie Sanders and AOC are bright exceptions. Let some remember how the Democratic establishment sabotaged Sanders in the 2016 election and rallied behind the warmonger Hillary Clinton. Bernie would have won then, and Donald Trump would never have been elected as the 45th president of the United States, even though he correctly diagnosed the collapse of the middle class.
New York has become a city for the superrich. A city that was once a “mother of the poor,” with cheap rent, cheap bread, cheap milk, and decent daily wages. In the city of myth –‘the city that lives’ in the American imaginary– about 400,000 millionaires now reside. For them, the cost of living isn’t an issue. (I just read a Wall Street Journal headline that says quite a lot: “Big spenders are keeping the party going in NYC.”) But for everyone else, the cost is an issue… New York has become far too expensive for the working class. Yes, I know – not many people use that term anymore, working class. It sounds a bit outdated. But that doesn’t mean it no longer exists. And it is precisely the working class that keeps the city running like a Swiss army knife, yet at the same time, it’s the one that groans under the weight. It barely keeps up with the bills…
Thus, a young politician, Zohran Mamdani, untainted, free from “heavy memories,” good-looking, and with solid family roots, comes as a surprise and stirs the waters. How did he do it?
He went out into the streets, embraced people, took photos with them, and posted those pictures on social media, in posts, in stories, and on zohranfornyc.com. And so, ordinary people –taxi drivers, shop clerks, cooks, bus drivers, teachers, homemakers– began to see their own faces on Mamdani’s accounts. Right beside him. People connect when you ask for their names and remember them the next time you meet them on the street. They can feel if you truly empathize with them, if you show real understanding, and then, they “kneel out of respect,” perhaps even out of awe. When you ask them what they would change if they were mayor for a day, what kind of work they do, how many children they have, and so on – that’s when the bond becomes real.
And by speaking to everyone, over time –as if he never tired– about the struggles they face, struggles that are both implied and made explicit in the images and thoughts above. As an example, to convince them that he would freeze rents for four years, he himself dove, fully dressed in a suit, into the icy sea. Who else would have done that? American society is exhausted by professional politicians (let me emphasize this again, even Trump bet on that very fatigue and won himself a kind of imperial throne). And when professional politicians underestimate you, that’s when you come out ahead.
Thus, in Mamdani’s face, the young, the poor, the outcast of New York –the writers, and the working class that built the city and crowned it as a modern Florence– found their own person. A friend who truly listened to their pain. A friend who would hear them out and fight for political changes at the local level, changes that might bring them some relief. Alright, if a billionaire has thirty billion and is “forced to give back” one through taxation, the world won’t exactly end… Mamdani’s idea of free public buses is what gave him his momentum. Where will the money come from? By slightly raising taxes, just 2% more, on the city’s 123 billionaires. (Of course, that could only happen with the agreement of the Governor of New York State.) And so, the billionaires began to band together, fighting furiously against this “emerging revolution.” He also spoke of free childcare and a thirty-dollar minimum wage.
The Governor of California, Gavin Newsom, said it would be important for “Mamdani to carry the excitement of his campaign into city governance.” Because citizens want to see results. Already, Mamdani has smartly announced that he will keep Jessica Tisch as NYPD commissioner, and she herself was appointed by the current mayor, who, unfortunately, “had his hand in the honey,” accepting gifts from Turkey without question. This decision demonstrates political strategy and competence, despite Mamdani being only 34 years old.
Mamdani is the future of the Left in a country that, for understandable reasons, has an “allergy” to the words socialism and socialist. (He himself, of course, calls himself a democratic socialist, while many others call themselves democratic capitalists.) And he represents the future of a Left that listens to the people, that speaks plainly about the interests of the poor rather than those of the billionaires – who have begun to control political power in America. Whereas, in China’s version of capitalism, for example, the Party still controls the billionaires. The Right, which deserves respect for its resilience over recent decades, should now stop blaming the people –instead of the elite– for all the problems society faces.
In conclusion, a society cannot continue into the future when the majority is left with mere crumbs. The outrageous accumulation of wealth in a few hands –a hallmark of capitalism– must somehow be curbed. Taxation is one way to achieve that. Mamdani’s rise is a sign/a proof, that capitalism is failing. And when capitalism fails, what happens? People move either right or left. Societies swing to the extremes, as they did after the Great Depression. Back then, societies chose two very different paths: in Europe, Germany “went right” (and from there, straight to the cliff), while America was “pushed as far left as it had ever gone,” and under Franklin D. Roosevelt enacted changes that made capitalism work, at least somewhat, for everyone. Along the way, of course, FDR’s legacy began to fade... In this way, Zohran Mamdani reminds us all that New York society has made its choices, personality matters, intelligence matters… and history doesn’t end as long as glaring social inequalities persist.
(Dimitris Eleas is a political scientist, writer and independent researcher living in New York. His e-mail is: [email protected].)
