NYC Mayor Mamdani and the Illusion of Change

Hope is Not Power here ♦ Letter: Not a Win for the Working Class here ♦

Hope Is Not Power

LOS ANGELES (USA), January 2— “What do you think about Mamdani?” a comrade asked his friend Amy as they stood waiting for the train. “Even in LA, we see him all over social media.”
“I’ve been following him since the leadup to the election,” she replied. “I think he’s a great person. I bet Republicans aren’t too happy he was elected.”
That sense of excitement is widespread. Zohran Mamdani’s election as New York City Mayor has ener gized many workers, especially Gen Z and Millennials, who are desperate for change. But his victory doesn’t represent a win for the working class. At best, it offers hope. At worst, it creates dangerous illusions.
“What do you feel will change in New York now?” Amy asked the comrade.
“Not much of anything,” he answered. Mamdani’s election will not rescue workers from capitalist crisis. Instead, it benefits liberal imperialists who want to capture the energy of frustrated youth and redirect it back into voting and the Democratic Party.
We’ve already seen enough of Mamdani to know this. Even before the election, he pledged to keep racist, Zionist police commissioner Jessica Tisch. He’s already appointed a demographically diverse group of advisors, but most are firmly tied to the very system that we’re trying to change.
For example, Ramzi Kassem, his chief legal adviser, and Julie Su, a deputy mayor, both served in the Biden administration. First deputy mayor Dean Fuleihan, Julie Kerson, and Jahmila Edwards were all part of former mayor Bill DeBlasio’s team. Mamdani may genuinely want to help people. But good intentions do not override political function. He operates inside the Democratic Party, a party that supports US empire, militarism, and capitalism. That role inevitably pulls movements away from revolutionary change and back into reforms. Even though Mamdani condemned Trump’s capture of Venezuelan president Maduro, he has said that he doesn’t have a problem working with fascist Trump.
Near the end of his inaugural speech, Mamdani declared: “Many of these people have been betrayed by the established order. But in our administration, their needs will be met. Their hopes and dreams and interests will be reflected transparently in government. They will shape our future.”
It is, undeniably, a beautiful statement. But it rests on a profound untruth. Capitalism cannot be re shaped to serve the working class. Those who attempt to reform it from the inside inevitably end up managing exploitation, not ending it.
We’ve seen this before. Barack Obama. Bernie Sanders. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Each inspired mil lions who wanted real change—and each ultimately helped funnel that energy back into the Democratic Party. Chanting “tax the rich” does not change the fact that capitalism rules over the masses and enforces wage slavery. What will change it is communist revolution.
Of course, most of Mamdani’s supporters are not our enemy. Amy and others like her want dignity, stability, and a future that isn’t de fined by debt, war, racism, or exhaustion. Their desire for change is real and justified. But their hope is misdirected.
We take hope from the fact that millions of people want change. We see so many putting their bodies on the line to defend immigrant neighbors. When we go to rallies to talk to the masses demanding change in the system, lots of them take Red Flag and are interested in our communist politics.
In this moment of crisis, fascism, and expanding war, illusions are dangerous. That’s why the rulers need Democratic Socialists like AOC and Mamdani: not to end the system, but to convince us it can be fixed. It can’t. Only a complete break from capitalism- – mobilizing the masses for a communist revolution.

Read our pamphlet Mobilize the Masses for Communism here

Letter: Mamdani’s Election: Not a “Win” for the Working Class

This letter responds to Sunflower’s letter in the last Red Flag about Mamdani’s election as Mayor of New York City. I’m sorry your letter wasn’t responded to in the same issue, as I think it deserved to be. Not to be dismissive, but to take your position seriously by responding.
Mamdani’s election was not a win for the working class, as you hope. It creates illusions that voting can make things better within capitalism. And illusions about socialism, which is a form of state capitalism.
Mamdani’s appointment of Jessica Tisch as New York City Police Commissioner helps make things clearer. Her father is a billionaire Zionist donor and supporter of Israel. She is also a Zionist who has led the NYPD to spy on, harass, and arrest many anti-genocide protesters.
After Mamdani was elected (with the full support of the New York Times) there was a demonstration outside a rightwing Orthodox synagogue in New York City which was selling (Palestinian) land in the West Bank. Jessica Tisch spoke inside that event supporting it. Some anti-genocide demonstrators were arrested outside. Instead of condemning the event and the arrests, Mamdani called for free access to the entrance of synagogues, supporting “freedom of religion.”
We don’t have to wait and see if Mamdani is going to be on the side of the masses in Palestine or the US. He is showing us. He’s not our friend. He’s there to trick people into supporting murderous US capitalism-imperialism. The rulers use his immigrant and Muslim background to try to fool us. He is a Democratic Party pro-imperialist politician.
Mamdani promises small reforms as the US dollar is losing its value, as the US rulers are desperately preparing for wider war, including World War, and as attacks on healthcare increase. He can’t deliver real change. But he can mislead people away from revolution. US imperialism needs to win youth and workers of all backgrounds, against their own interests, to fight for it.
I have confidence that as you and your friends see these events unfold and discuss them, you can see that it’s not only AOC, Mamdani, or Obama individually who trick the masses. It’s the whole capitalist system. A system based on exploitation, competition for profit, and wars for profit and control. No politician or election can fix it.
Masses who are fed up with capitalism’s attacks need to fight for a communist world. Only communism will end racism, sexism, wage slavery, genocide, and imperialist war. Voting doesn’t bring us closer to that. It takes us away from that. Worse. It leads us to be slaughtered.
We need to have confidence that masses of angry workers, soldiers and young people are open to the struggle to join the fight for communist revolution.
—A Comrade
Sunflower responds: I know about Tisch. This letter doesn’t say anything that I really disagree with. It feels like it might have missed the point of my letter altogether.

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