Mamdani is a gifted politician. He has spoken courageously on Palestine, organized tenants and workers into his voting base, and has roots in the popular sectors. However, he is still a part of the machinery of the Democratic Party: a party of landlords, war profiteers, billionaires, the ruling capitalist class.
We have seen this before. In 2022, Bernie Sanders voted in favor of a $40 billion arms package to Ukraine, fueling a proxy war that has killed hundreds of thousands on behalf of US-EU capital interests. AOC joined him. In 2023, both stood largely silent as the U.S. ran diplomatic cover for Israel’s brutal ethnic cleansing campaign. They issued tepid statements, tweeted outrage, but ultimately did little in the face of genocide, never mind a total absence of identifying capitalism as the root cause of the atrocity.
Directly against US workers, in 2022, AOC refused to vote against a bill that crushed a rail workers’ strike. When the workers were poised to stand up, AOC sided with the ruling class against them. This is not a bug. It is the role of the “progressive” wing: to speak the language of revolution, then do the bidding of capital. The degree to which they act cynically or are genuinely convinced they are “playing the long game” is between them and their conscience. What concerns the working class is the confusion sowed by “democratic socialism.”
The DSA, which nurtures these figures, has become a pipeline of free labor for the Democratic Party. Thousands of organizers burn themselves out knocking doors for “socialists” who end up funding ICE, backing police budgets, or rubber-stamping military spending. What is this if not sabotage dressed up as “socialism”?
Enter Mamdani, ready to manage the city on behalf of capital, draped in a moving language of justice. One of his early campaign videos in January pointed out how chicken over rice is now more than $10, stating “It’s time to make halal eight bucks again.” His campaign called for:
- Freeze rent on stabilized units
- Build affordable housing (200K+ units)
- City-owned grocery stores
- Fast, fare‑free buses
- Universal free childcare for every New Yorker aged 6 weeks to 5 years
- $30/hr minimum wage by 2030
- “Trump-proof” NYC protections from ICE
As much as these points speak to the experience of millions of New York City workers and the daily struggles of rising prices and stagnant wages, these are reforms ultimately subject to the alien will of capitalism. These reforms, were they to be implemented, would secure for the workers a marginally better deal on the sale of their labor. The fundamental labor-capital conflict would not be resolved. In fact, over time the positive effects of these reforms would be reduced by the laws of capitalist accumulation. There would be no mechanism to advance these demands, the workers would still be at the mercy of capital. Capital, that insatiable force that can do nothing else but expand itself, accumulate.
Mamdani may very well have good intentions and a noble spirit, but these matter nothing to the totalizing power of capital. Without overthrowing the ruling class, depriving the capitalist class of any and all political power and building a state of, by, and for the working class, the class struggle will continue in favor of the capitalists.
Mamdani is part of a broader moment as the USA enters a period of protracted crisis in the capitalist system, sharpened by the imperialist competition. Prices rise, work days grow longer, wages stagnate. People respond to their conditions in one form or another. Absent the ideological leadership of a communist party, two social forces have been conjured forth in recent years: that of reaction consolidated in the MAGA conquest of the Republican Party, and the “progressive” movement which has struggled under repeated blows from the Democratic Party establishment to find an organized center.
Across the country, this new layer of “progressive” figures have emerged, fluent in activist jargon and in self-deception. Figures such as AOC, Bernie Sanders, and now Mamdani. They speak of socialism but do not prepare the fighting strength of the working class, instead making good use of workers’ and peoples’ energy for personal gain and influence. They speak of revolution but move not one inch toward the abolition of private property and the overthrow of the bourgeois state. They are married to the Democratic Party, their careers would not get off the ground otherwise. In effect, this progressive movement is building nothing but illusions.
However well-intentioned, however morally principled, to not be working toward the destruction of capitalist exploitation and the establishment of a workers’ state, is to stifle the revolution. To cause confusion on the definition of socialism and muffle the class struggle is to slow down the revolution. At best, these progressives are applying lipstick on the pig of capitalism.
There is no going around the barricades. The working class must confront the bourgeois state and prepare to defeat it.
The communist movement must draw a hard line. We must tell the hard truths. Mamdani is not the future. AOC is not the future. Bernie is not the future. The Democratic Party and the US state itself are now and will always serve the interests of the ruling capitalist class, the enemies of the working class.
Note: this article is the second piece of the 3-part article: Revolution is a Choice You Make. Read Part 1: Capitalism and the Coming War and Part 3: A Decision.