What if Zohran Mamdani, the Social Democratic candidate, wins the November 4^th general election and becomes New York’s next mayor?

Pres. Donald Trump has threatened to intervene in the mayoral race in opposition to Mamdani and will likely continue to call him a “Communist Lunatic.”  He’s warned, “… we have tremendous power at the White House to run places where we have to. We’re going to straighten out New York. It’s going to — maybe we’re going to have to straighten it out from Washington.”  So, the Big Apple may well suffer from possible federal cutbacks and, worst case, deployment of National Guard troops like Trump did in Los Angeles and Washington, DC.

Others, however, are taking a more measured approach to this likely possibility.  

Mamdani recently held two get-acquainted meetings with city corporate executives. Much of the media focused on his alleged use of the phrase “globalize the intifada” and his commitment to discourage the use of the phrase.   

More revealing, he met with about 150 executives associate the Partnership for New York City, a group that represents the city’s largest companies. Kathy Wylde, head of the Partnership, reported: “None of them have ever met him.” “This was really an introductory meeting for them to see something beyond the caricature of him that they’ve seen from social media reports and negative advertising,” she added.  The next day, he held a follow-up get together with more than 200 tech executives, startup founders and venture capitalists under the auspices of both the Partnership and the trade group Tech:NYC.

Adding to Mamdani’s momentum, a growing number of unions are coming out in support of his candidacy, including:

+ Bangladeshi American Police Association.

+ DC37, the city’s largest municipal labor union.

+ Local 1199 of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU).

+ United Federation of Teacher (UFT).

+ Association of Legal Advocates and Attorneys (ALAA), UAW Local 2325.

The strongest support for Mamdani appears to be anchored in parts of Brooklyn and Queens dubbed “the Commie Corridor.” 

Two-months-plus of campaigning remain to be played out before the election is held.  Three of the leading candidates also in the race are the city’s current Eric Adams; former NYS Gov. Andrew Cuomo; and Republican Curtis Sliwa. 

Much has been made of the fact that Mamdani identifies as a “Democratic Socialist,” but many forget – or are ignorant of the fact – that one Senator, Bernie Sanders (I-VT), and five Congress-persons — Alexandria Occasion-Cortez (NY), Ilhan Omar (MN); Ayanna Pressley (MA); Greg Casas (TX); and Rashid Tlaib (MI) — identify as Democratic Socialists.  In addition, 14 state representatives identify as 

Democratic Socialist.  More revealing, five European countries — Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland and Iceland – are governed by social democratic or democratic socialist policies.

+++

Often forgotten, a century ago, the U.S. had a vibrant and popular socialist movement.  

The Socialist Party of America (SPA) was founded in 1901 and by 1912 had 113,000 members. Between 1909 and 1913, strikes over union recognition, working conditions and higher wages swept the clothing industry in New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Chicago and other cities.  This era also saw the rise of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) and the 1912 Lawrence, MA, “bread and roses” conflict and the 1913 Paterson, NJ, silk strike.

In the 1912 presidential election, Eugene Debs won nearly a million votes — 6 percent — of the popular vote.  In 1914, two SPA candidates — Victor Berger from Milwaukee and Meyer London from Manhattan – won Congressional elections. In 1917, Morris Hillquit, a prominent lawyer and a founded of the SPA, got more than 100,000 votes — nearly 22 percent — of the vote for mayor of New York.  Also in New York, the SPA secured ten state assemblymen, five aldermen and a municipal judge.  Milwaukee, WI, socialists also experienced success, winning control of local government and returning Berger to Congress.

In Adam Hochschild’s revealing study, American Midnight: The Great War, a Violent Peace, and Democracy’s Forgotten Crisis, he reminds us, Eugene Debs “won 6 percent of the popular vote for president in 1912, running ahead of the Republican candidate in several states.”  He adds:

Over the years, more than a thousand Socialists were voted into state legislatures, city councils, and other elective offices—more than 175 merely in Oklahoma, a stronghold. Socialists became mayors in cities as disparate as Milwaukee, Schenectady, Toledo, and Pasadena, many of them gaining a reputation for more honest governance than was typical of the era’s big-city Democratic machines. The longtime Socialist administration in Milwaukee not only expanded the park system but actually raised the city’s credit rating.

He reminds us that “Twenty-three Socialist mayors were in office in 1917.”  In New York, Morris Hillquit, a prominent lawyer and a founder of the Socialist Party of America, got more than 100,000 votes — nearly 22 percent — of the 1917 vote for mayor.  As Hochschild dramatically argues, the neo-fascist reactionary domestic programs associated with President Woodrow Wilson’s WW-I policies effectively put an end the socialist insurgency along with the Wobblies, Emma Goldman and others.

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Cities in Europe and even in the U.S. are becoming both “socialist” or more socially conscious.  Casey Williams discussed what he identifies as Barcelona’s “solidarity economy.”  It includes “Cooperatively owned businesses from restaurants to tech companies employ 8 percent of Barcelona’s residents, and dozens of collectively owned enterprises, credit unions, and cooperative schools allow people to share resources and labor.” He goes further, noting:

Partly due to the political strength of these cooperatives, residents have pushed the city to “decarbonize and decommodify” a range of municipal services, including by establishing a public energy company that provides renewable energy to residents as a “basic right.” Expanded public services have come with restrictions on private property: to ease its tourism-fueled housing crisis, Barcelona will prohibit Airbnb starting in 2028, and at the national level Spain’s socialist government recently levied an unprecedented wealth tax on the superrich.

Equally significant, as Time magazine reports, “By and large, people in rich countries are living above the environmental ceiling. Those in poorer countries often fall below the social foundation. The space in between: that’s the doughnut.” “Doughnut” cities include Amsterdam, another “socialist” city.  Its effort is “to bring all 872,000 residents inside the doughnut, ensuring everyone has access to a good quality of life, but without putting more pressure on the planet than is sustainable.”

Other cities moving to “doughnut” status include Copenhagen, the Brussels region, Dunedin (New Zealand) and Nanaimo (British Columbia). It also notes that “In the U.S., Portland, Ore., is preparing to roll out its own version of the doughnut ….”

It’s unlikely that even after Mamdani is elected mayor that the Big Apple will be a socialist city, let alone a doughnut city.  Nevertheless, his election might be an all-important step in the right direction.

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