Mamdani, that meeting and why the left needs to wake up
Zohran Mamdani has revealed at astonishing speed that he is no leader of the left, no barrier to Trumpism, and certainly no champion of the working class.
Before even being sworn in as mayor of New York City, he has already signalled to the capitalist class that he is safe and eager to play by their rules. Wall Street, the real estate industry, and business elites have all been courted. He kept Jessica Tisch—the hard-right police chief appointed by former mayor Eric Adams—and pledged to maintain NYPD numbers. He and fellow Democratic Socialists of America (DSA)-aligned congressional representative Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez refused to support a DSA challenger to Democratic establishment kingpin Hakeem Jeffries. And now, the crowning humiliation: Mamdani sat down with US President Donald Trump to find areas where they could “work together”.
This at a moment when Trump’s agenda grows more vicious by the day: the mass sackings, the Gestapo-like rounding up of immigrants, the love-in with the butcher of Gaza, the attacks on trans and women’s rights, the undermining of science and public health, the scrapping of environmental protections—the list goes on. And this at a moment when working-class people across the country are protesting Trump in record numbers—marching in the streets and putting their bodies on the line to stop Trump’s ICE brown-shirts kidnapping their neighbours and workmates.
Mamdani was supposed to be the political expression of this resistance. He was supposed to be a voice for those in Trump’s crosshairs: “Hope over tyranny. Hope over big money and small ideas”. as he promised in his victory speech. He pledged to “respond to oligarchy and authoritarianism with the strength it fears, not the appeasement it craves”. But what Mamdani’s given us is a smiling photo-op with the world’s most tyrannical and dangerous ruling-class figure. God help us if anyone thinks this is socialism.
“I am looking forward to delivering for New Yorkers in partnership with the president”, Mamdani said about the city’s most notorious parasite billionaire. The meeting was “productive” in addressing the cost-of-living crisis, Mamdani said, referring to the figure responsible for slashing funding for public education, food assistance and healthcare. Mamdani nodded and smiled, and nodded and smiled some more, as Trump dropped in references to all of his actual policies: deporting immigrants, increased policing, more hand-outs to property developers.
The line being spun by Mamdani’s team and supporters is that this abject display of bootlicking constitutes a strategic masterstroke that has put Trump on the backfoot. This statement from Occupy Democrats after the meeting was typical: “This was a masterclass on Mamdani’s part. He walked into the MAGA White House, conducted negotiations for the betterment of New Yorkers, and came out looking strong and respected. Meanwhile, Trump looked spineless and weak”. Yet Mamdani achieved not a single concession, not a single win.
What Mamdani did achieve was a setback in the fight against Trump and his agenda. He succeeded in signalling to his supporters that Trump is not our enemy to oppose and challenge at every opportunity. At a time when Trump’s “populism” is being undermined by his Gatsby parties at Mar-a-Lago at the same time as food aid programs for the poorest Americans are being suspended, Mamdani helped him revive some of his “forgotten people” credibility.
If Mamdani’s approach was masterful, then officials like Michelle Wu—the mayor of Boston who has refused to meet with Trump in protest at his anti-immigrant policies, among other things—must be woefully inept. What seems like principle, it turns out, is just bad political advice.
In fact, we should be congratulating every head of state and every politician currently crawling after Trump—including the contemptible Anthony Albanese and Penny Wong—for their strategic genius. Every Democrat who has voted with Trump and capitulated to him should be lauded for their political acumen. Speaking truth to power is out; the age of fawning has arrived.
The left should have no time for any of this. The only principled response to Trump is resistance. Yes, Trump controls the purse strings, but the powerful always do—that’s what makes them powerful. Our response can’t be appeasement so that we can fund free buses. Our response should be: let Trump cut off funding and make himself the enemy of free buses—then we’ll fight him some more.
There is plenty of evidence that there is a basis for such a fight. The recent No Kings rallies saw record turnouts, and all across the country, people have been mobilised to defend themselves against the terror inflicted by ICE raids. Millions are choosing resistance, not appeasement and sucking up. At the very least, a self-proclaimed socialist should follow this lead.
Genuine socialist politics is, at a bare minimum, about answering the power of the capitalist class, and its ability to sabotage and blackmail, with workers’ collective power. We use the weapons of our side—strikes, protests, walkouts—not theirs—schmoozing, sucking up, favour trading. We are not always strong enough to win the battles but by mobilising collectively on the streets and in our workplaces, and by refusing to capitulate, we demonstrate the way forward, gain experience and learn more about the sort of struggles that will be needed to win.
The response to the Trump-Mamdani meeting has been just as instructive as the meeting itself. Right-wing, pro-Trump media celebrated Trump’s dominance and Mamdani’s acquiescence. The Washington Post opened its editorial with the quip: “What are a few deportation threats among friends?” Many Democrat-aligned outlets responded with respect and approval for the mayor-elect’s display of civility, which they believe won him the upper hand over Trump. Mara Gay in the New York Times described Mamdani’s performance as: “a vivid display of political shrewdness and pragmatism”.
The most unconvincing political interpretation came from the DSA—the organisation to which Mamdani belongs. Riffing off a Fox News statement that the meeting had been a “Showdown with Socialism”, the DSA posted on social media in response: “Socialism won!” It then put out a video snippet of the meeting with the caption: “Mamdani called Trump a fascist to his face”. Mamdani did no such thing. Trump saved him from having to answer the fascist question, thereby turning it to Trump’s advantage and making Mamdani look weak. This ludicrous claim was nothing but a desperate attempt to salvage left credibility from a disastrous political submission. Talk about fake news.
DSA-aligned Jacobin has published numerous defences of Mamdani in a similar vein. One piece goes as far as to argue that because Trump once pledged to lower prices, Mamdani has enticed him to deliver. Another piece by Ben Burgis credits Mamdani’s obsequious behaviour for rescuing the reputation of socialists after Congress’s anti-socialist resolution. As if it is a win for the left that Mamdani has so emphatically proven he is no hardline socialist or oppositionist.
In the same piece, Burgis also argues that democratic socialists of Mamdani’s ilk “want to empower workers and communities through social ownership and democratic control of society’s productive resources”. That this has nothing to do with Mamdani’s outlook does not appear to bother Burgis. And founding editor Bhaskar Sunkara has chimed in with a long think piece about everything that socialism is in the near and the long term, without even a fleeting consideration that maybe it doesn’t involve standing around smiling alongside a fascist in the White House.
The approach from Jacobin and the DSA is to justify the inexcusable on the one hand while giving left cover on the other. Once again, their aim is not to further working-class struggles but to defend their elected elites. For Sunkara “having patience and being supportive” of Mamdani is the highest priority. Power and relevance matters more than working-class power.
This whole unsavoury episode raises broader questions about what the left should be fighting for. We know there is an audience for left-wing politics and solutions; polling shows it, the vote for Mamdani shows it. At the same time, people’s horizons are low, after years of neoliberalism, after defeats of the left and the general acceptance of liberalism. The fact that there has been no obvious backlash against Mamdani’s capitulation from his supporters tragically confirms this.
But even before this capitulation, the fact that Mamdani was seen as a socialist in any sense reflects how drained of meaning the term has become, especially in the US. He is committed to working within the Democratic Party and there is nothing radical about his program of rent freezes, free public transport, and universal childcare. These are supportable measures, but they also fit within the parameters of capitalism.
The crisis of capitalism requires much more radical solutions than this. We can’t pretend otherwise to avoid embarrassing progressive politicians. And we shouldn’t play down their limitations or be afraid to point them out when necessary.
We need uncompromising resistance to the far right, and to capitalism. We need to understand that capitalism won’t be changed from on high by politicians committed to working within its structures, especially not those who capitulate at the first hurdle. As has always been the case, workers need to use their own power to win concessions, and to build up a democratic alternative to capitalism worthy of the name socialism.
For years, the dominant sections of the US left have insisted that Bernie Sanders, AOC, and now Mamdani represent stepping stones toward socialism. Criticism was dismissed as sectarian. We were told the left needed patience, tact, and strategic flexibility. A decade on from Sanders, the “democratic socialist” current within the Democrats has produced no independent organisation, no class-rooted movement, no major struggles and no radical ideological current. Sanders reaffirmed his loyalty to the party of capital and empire. AOC voted to fund ICE and backed funding the Israeli war machine—and has been rewarded with a stable career in the liberal establishment. And now Mamdani, hailed as the next great hope, immediately dissolves into liberal conciliation before even taking office.
We have also been told repeatedly by reformists and liberals that the electoral successes of figures like this can help build movements by raising expectations. But so far, that hasn’t happened. More often, people get dragged to the right justifying the manoeuvres of progressive politicians, or they become demoralised by the sell-outs, or just drift into passivity.
On the far left, a version of this same argument is that when expectations are raised and then dashed (by betrayals and capitulations of reformist leaders), it is an opportunity for masses of people to learn important political lessons and break to the radical left. Sometimes this happens, but only when the far left and the workers’ movement are organised, have real weight in society and are politically confident. Without that, these disappointments often breed cynicism or push people back towards hopeless liberalism. .
Moments like the Mamdani election might be opportunities for the revolutionary left to engage with newly politicised people. But the biggest danger is not “sectarian isolation”, it’s the opposite. The danger is that the genuine socialist left buys into the hype, lowers its standards and becomes a cheer squad for politicians whose main project is managing capitalism, not transforming it.
If the left wants to defeat Trumpism and the capitalist system that produces it, we must confidently reject the strategies that led Mamdani into Trump’s office in the first place. We must not buy into illusions in reformist or liberal saviours, but remain committed to building grass-roots workers’ power as the first priority. And we must be committed to rebuilding a socialist movement rooted not in personalities or parliamentary manoeuvres, but in the independent power of the working class.
