The opponents of the Mamdani Movement are powerful. The movement is potentially even more powerful.

Zohran Mamdani already looked like he was going to win the Mayor race in New York City. His chances look even better since his two main opponents, Andrew Cuomo and Eric Adams, are both committed to staying in the race. In fact, Gotham Polling show him having 41% support overall vs. 26% for Cuomo and 16% for Adams. Even were one of these two to drop out, up to half of their respective supporters say they would not vote for the remaining opponent anyway. That is why corporate New York, which is really corporate America, is moving to Plan B – try to make Mamdani safe for them.

“Partnership for New York City”. The pinnacle of finance capital in New York and the nation

“Partnership for New York City”
Recently “Partnership for New York City” held a private meeting with Mamdani. This group represents the very pinnacles of the capitalist class in New York. Included amongst their members are the CEO’s of JP Morgan Chase, Black Rock, Citibank, KKR, Goldman Sachs, Google, JetBlue Airways, Kirkland and Ellis real estate investors, as well as various life, insurance companies and similar types. The Moderators of the event were Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla and Rob Speyer, CEO of the mega real estate from Tishman Speyer. They did not come away very happy. “It could have been a lot worse“ was the best that one attendee could say. A big issue that they tried to put Mamdani on the defensive over was the phrase that he has used in the past “globalize the intifada“. “Intifada” simply means a mass uprising, and yes, that is exactly what is needed – a global mass uprising against both the genocidal state of Israel and the people who populate Partnership for New York and “partnership” for the world. That is what the Mamdani Movement hopefully represents – one small beginning in that global uprising.

Anyway, who are those hypocrites in Partnership for New York to complain about that phrase, even if it did have an antisemitic tone to it, which it does not? They are, they haven’t said a thing about Israeli genocide, about the horrific crimes against humanity which Israel is committing every day, and they have the nerve to complain about a phrase, a mere couple of words? They should be put on the defensive over that!

So while, on the one hand they work towards the Mamdani movement’s outright defeat, on the other hand, they are working to undermine that same movement.

N.Y. State governor Kathy Hochul. She represents the same forces s Partnership for Mew York City and will do what she can to stymie Mamdani.

Albany
In Albany, the state capital, they will do everything they can to try to prevent a tax increase on them, in order to deprive New York of the finances that it needs for Mamdani to carry out the reforms that he and the Mamdani movement advocate. The answer to that is for the Mamdani movement to spread to the people of Buffalo, Albany, Troy, Schenectady, and every village and city, large and small, throughout the state with the call to join them. The movement can explain that what we need is needed throughout the state. It can urge working people, poor people, and youth to join and build a similar movement wherever they are in order to win the same reforms and put pressure on their representatives in Albany. That is the way to deal with the opposition to the Mamdani Movement led by New York State Democratic governor Kathy Hochul, who says she will oppose any tax increase on her backers in partnership for New York and similar types.

National threats
There are also the threats against the Mamdani Movement at the national level. On the one hand, it is hard to see how the federal courts, including the US

The runaway MAGA majority on the Supreme Court will rule against Mamdani if they can gt away with it.

Supreme Court, will not intervene to rule out some of Mamdani’s proposed reforms. Nothing that Mamdani proposesviolates the constitution or the law. That is irrelevant. The US Supreme Court’s Maga majority has already shown that they don’t care about either the law or the Constitution. All they care about is what serves the interest of Trump and company.

There is also Trump himself, who most certainly will have a laser beam focus on New York City, especially after Mamdani comes into office. It is hard to see how he will not send in the National Guard and even the US troops in order to back up huge ICE raids. Trump has even threatened to put Mamdani in prison. If he were to do that, it seems likely that he would face a real “intifada” in New York City and possibly around the country.

In our article “Better to break the law than to break the poor.” A lesson for the “Mamdani Movement”: The Battle of Liverpool, 1983-’85“, we described the citywide rebellion that happened in Liverpool in the early 1980s. Our point was that the strategy of that rebellion, to shut down the city through a citywide general strike, is applicable today. We pointed out that we must not accept the lie that “the money is not there“ to finance what we as workers and youth need. The money is there. It is in the hands of the people like those in Partnership for New York. The whole point is how to build a movement to take the money from them and put it in our hands. In Liverpool, the idea was to shut down the city through a citywide general strike if the national government did not come up with the money that Liverpool needed. That strike did not happen because the union leadership opposed it, So after two years running of getting the money they needed, ultimately that struggle was defeated. But that lesson lives on today, and the slogan they used applies today: “it is better to break he law than to break the poor”.

So this is the time. The Mamdani movement is winning. Let’s start to build a movement to reverse the entire drift of US and world politics. For starters, take back from them just some of what they have been taking from us for decades now. And make no apologies about it.