Jon Stewart (“The Daily Show) interviews Zohran Mamdani. His victory seems almost certain. The top capitalists are throwing millions at Cuomo in a desperate attempt to stop Mamdani, but at a certain point money has diminishing returns. The main reason: Mamdani claims 90,000 volunteers. That is the beginnings of a mass movement. What is most important is that it has the potential to transform the mood of the working class. Trump will throw everything he has at a Mayor Mamdani, meaning at the New York City working class. That will further enflame the mood. This, in turn, has the potential of shaking up the unions. There will also be a heightened struggle within the Democratic Party. The suggestions that the Mamdani Movement can “do to the Democrats what Trump and Maga have done to the Republicans” are false because at the end of the day Trump and company have been good for profits and have also weakened the working class, whereas the Mamdani movement will do the opposite. Top Democrats like New York governor Kathy Hochul and minority leader Hakeem Jeffries have finally endorsed Mamdani, in the hopes of being able to influence him. To whatever extent that they succeed (if they do at all), to that same extent they will provoke a reaction from the tens of thousands who compose the Mamdani Movement. The question is whether those tens of thousands will be organized. In other words, would this lead to the beginnings of a movement towards a working class party?
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Categories: politics, United States
Substitute Bernie Sanders for Zohran Mamdani. What happened to the mass movement?
In the first place, this period is entirely different from when Sanders was campaigning although most people who think they’re Marxists don’t recognize it. It’s the same blindness that led them to spend all their time last year attacking the Democrats with hardly a word of warning about Trump and MAGA. And today, along with the entire union bureaucracy, they ignore much of Trump’s attacks on democratic norms. Second, being mayor is quite different from being a senator. The former makes the person directly responsible whereas a senator is little but a mouth. But you question of course implies something that is valid. If you look at my last article on Mamdani, I made it clear that if he is to successfully ward off the attacks from Trump an independent movement of rank and file union members, a movement that opposes the union leadership and fights to transform the unions, will be necessary. Again, similar to the “progressive” union bureaucrats, almost all those who think they’re Marxists ignore that necessity.