Hundreds of thousands have placed their hopes in the Mamdani Movement. How will that movement deal with the National Guard, which Trump is likely to send into NYC as he has done here in Washington DC.?

Come November 5 the Mamdani Movement will most likely be facing the following situation: Mamdani will have been overwhelmingly elected mayor of New York, possibly with an outright majority of votes; and Trump will be preparing to send the National Guard into New York if he has not done so already. The question is, how will the Mamdani Movement respond to this situation? Will it build a working class based movement of mass defiance, a movement that can, and must lead in the direction of a mass independent political organization for working class people? Or will it resort to the same safe legal channels to which the movement has been confined for many years now? This question is already rearing its head.

Let us start by giving some historical examples of what kind of movement will be required to defeat Trump. There has been a many decades’ long propaganda war to obscure the history of that kind of movement, but that history still exists. Here are two examples:

Minneapolis Teamsters Strike of 1934. Workers battled scabs and cops in the streets.

The great labor strikes of the 1930s
Nearly 100 years ago, the labor movement of the mid 1930s mobilized tens of thousands of workers, defied the courts and the police on the picket lines and physically shut down the employers. Those were the strikes from 1934 to 1937, culminating in the great sitdown strikes of 1937. 

The battle of Seattle, 1999. Tear gas filled the air of downtown Seattle.

“Battle of Seattle” of 1999
More recently there was the 1999 “Battle of Seattle”. That battle has also been largely written out of our history. It, too, took up tactics similar to the strikes of 1934-37. The “Battle of Seattle” was part of a wider movement against capitalist “globalization”. Millions of rebellious youth were protesting in the streets against globalization, which is a process that sets worker against worker, competing for who would work for less and under worse conditions, and which country would allow more environmental destruction in order to attract global capital. It is the infamous “race to the bottom”, which is still underway today. There were huge protests all around the world against “globalization”. In 1999 the body which led this globalization, the World Trade Organization, held its annual meeting in Seattle, and a mass protest was organized. Tens of thousands of youth were out in the street, and they were joined by thousands of union workers, primarily members of the Steel Workers union, whose industry was being decimated by globalization. The youth decided to march through downtown Seattle to disrupt the WTO, while the steelworkers union leadership tried to hold a largely symbolic rally on the outskirts of the city. However, the union membership wasn’t having it and they joined with the youth. Together they marched through downtown Seattle and were attacked by the police. Downtown Seattle was flooded with tear gas. The result was an astounding victory – the WTO had to adjourn their meeting and flee the city! The union leadership learned a lesson from that. They never again mobilized their membership in any serious way to join that or similar protests – not in the protests against Israel, not during the Occupy movement, not in the George Floyd protests. Once or twice they did call “one and done” rallies which they strictly controlled, but that was all. We have to learn a lesson from that also.

Now, to come to the present:

Illinois governor JB Pritzger. He gave a rip roaring speech, but what is his plan?

Democratic Party power brokers
Let us consider first the role of the main power brokers of the Democratic Party. On August 25, Illinois governor JB Pritzker, who will probably be a leading candidate for the Democratic Party nomination for president in 2028, gave a rip-roaring speech in opposition to Trump‘s threat to send the National Guard into Chicago. Pritzker almost sounded like Mamdani himself! But then a day or two later, he revealed what that speech really amounted to: he promised that he would sue Trump in court! Considering the composition of the US Supreme Court, the success of such a lawsuit stands about a snowball’s chance in hell. In other words, his speech was pure bluster. And he and the rest of the Democratic Party leadership will surely be trying to encourage Mamdani to take the same approach. They cannot influence Mamdani if they outright oppose him at this point, but let’s be clear where they really stand: in New York state, both Democratic senators Chuck Schumer and Kristen Gillibrand have not endorsed Mamdani. Neither has Democratic governor Kathy Hochul, nor House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries. What are they waiting for? According to ABC News, “one insider told eyewitness news that Mamdani is likely to get those endorsements, but he needs to broaden his base with Jewish leaders.“ Not the Jewish youth of New York, mind you, but the so-called Jewish leaders. In other words, the main pro Israel/pro Zionist leaders in New York City, which also means in the country. So what they are saying is that Mamdani has to at the very least water down his opposition to Israeli genocide and, in fact, his opposition to Jewish nationalism, which is to say Zionism itself. Then he can get their support as well as get the support and assistance in channeling the movement into lawsuits against Trump if and when Trump sends the National Guard into New York City. Both of these steps are absolute losers. They will confuse and demoralize his base and defang the Mamdani Movement.

Union leadership
In order to help bolster their influence over Mamdani, the representatives of the Democratic Party within the working class, which is to say the union leadership, is now in the main also supported Mamdani. SEIU 1199, which is the largest healthcare union in the country, endorsed Mamdani for Mayor after previously having backed Andrew Como in the primary. How that came about is quite significant. According to the city.NYC the previous leadership of that local had been ousted by the membership “for being too top down and out of touch with the ranking file.” But how different is the new leadership? Internal union polling showed that the rank-and-file supported Mamdani over Cuomo and an online petition of members called for the leadership to rescind this endorsement of Cuomo even before the

Helen Schaub, political director of SEIU 1199. She had to run to keep up with the membership.

primary. Helen Schaub, the political director of SEIU 1199 made lemonade out of lemons by praising the “passion“ of the membership. She admitted that it was that passion – in other words the pressure of the membership – that led them to endorse Mamdani. Nor is it just SEIU 1199. With the acquiescence of their leaders, a whole slew of different local unions and labor bodies jumped on board after Mamdani overwhelmingly won the primary in June. These labor representatives of the Democratic Party will be pressing the Mamdani movement to take the safe, legal route in opposing Trump. They will also be pressing Mamdani to water down his politics, especially regarding the genocidal state of Israel.

With friends, like these, who needs enemies?

The soft left
There is also another danger posed to the Mamdani movement, one that comes from forces more directly inside the movement itself. These are the forces that present themselves as being left forces who are independent of the Democratic Party, and independent even of the union bureaucracy. Let us look at who in fact they really are and what in fact they are actually advocating. Bear in mind that in politics often what is not said is at least as significant as what is said as we will see here. An example of this is an article written in the Nation magazine co-authored by Eric Blanc, an assistant professor of labor studies at Rutgers University, Emily Lemmerman, former staffer for the Teamsters Union, and Wen Zhuang, former staffer for SEIU 1199. (Before proceeding, we must point out the political role of the Nation magazine, which, on the one hand, never seriously criticizes the union bureaucracy, and on the other constantly apologizes for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.) Regarding the article in question:

Basically, the authors advocate a focus on “organizing training programs”. (I am sure they’d be happy to be hired to run these programs!) This includes “worker coaching of new drives…. And training working class leaders…. To develop a targeted strategy to push recalcitrant elected officials to fund mom Donnie’s proposal”. Nowhere in there is a hint of a suggestion of building the kind of movement of mass defiance that organized labor built in the 1930s and that the anti-globalization movement built in Seattle in 1999. Nowhere in there is there a hint of a necessity for a rank and file rebellion against the employer-friendly policies of the union leadership. Rather, in reading the article, the image comes to mind of some people carefully building a structure out of Legos, methodically and brick by brick. Movements do not develop that way.

Perhaps most significant is a reference the authors make to “a powerful alignment of community, labor, advocacy and political forces.” The authors are referring to this article in Convergencemag.com, and the so-called “powerful alignment” refers to something called “bargaining for the common good“ which is advocated in convergencemag.com. This is “a national network of union and community organizations.” However, when viewed more closely, it becomes clear that when they talk about union organizations they are talking about the unions as they currently stand, under their current leadership. This is the same leadership that is dedicated to the proposition that the employers and the unions are essentially on the same team, and that nothing must be done along the lines of nasty defiance. That means collaboration with the employers on the job and representing the employers politicians, meaning in most cases the Democrats, in politics.This same leadership’s policies have led to concessions after concessions and defeat after defeat. This has opened a huge sector of the membership to actually supporting Trump! One can make many arguments in favor of this leadership’s policies, but being successful is not one of them.

The NGO’s
The other wing of this coalition is some of the major nonprofits, such as in California the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment (ACCE), formerly ACORN. There may be well intended people in these nonprofits, but in the end, these alliances have been fighting a losing battle. For example, they are quite active in Oakland, where homelessness has steadily increased, and the homeless are increasingly being rousted from one place to another. The very same article talks about the Blackstone real estate company, which is apparently the biggest real estate company in the country, and they refer to Blackstone’s political successes in California. So if this alliance is so successful then how has Blackstone increased its political power in the state?

Unspoken question
Make no mistake, all wings and representatives of the Democratic Party will do their utmost to steer the movement away from a mass movement of defiance. The same applies to the soft left, which attaches itself to the “progressive” union bureaucrats. That is what the Nation article shows. This is not just because mass defiance tends to get messy and seriously damage profits. No, the deeper reason is that such movements, if they are to be centered on the working class, will have to start to organize something entirely new. It will inevitably tend to build its own organizing centers to consolidate and spread and lead forward the movement, while at the same time being centers of political debate and discussion. Such organizing centers can only move in one of two directions. Either be dragged into the Democratic Party, where it will wither and die, or build his own mass, working class organization, which means its own mass working-class political party. That is why all representatives and collaborators of the Democratic Party, including both the Democrats themselves and all wings and supporters of the union leadership are always trying to steer clear of such a movement – because it will tend to build a mass working class political party, which stands in opposition to the Democratic party, and would set loose a working class radicalism the likes of which we have not seen in over 100 years.

When that happens US, and therefore world politics will be transformed.

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Hundreds of thousands have placed their hopes in the Mamdani Movement. How will that movement deal with the National Guard, which Trump is likely to send into NYC as he has done here in Washington DC.?