By TONY STABILE

Thousands of people braved below-freezing temperatures on Jan. 1 to attend the public inauguration of New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani. Despite the extreme cold, the mood near City Hall was jubilant, and the crowd “warmed against the January chill by the resurgent flame of hope,” as Mamdani himself put it.

For many years, hope has been dim that the millions of workers, oppressed people, and youth in New York City might be able to fight for a less oppressively expensive city. Rents and prices for basic goods have skyrocketed, while the owners of New York City-based corporations and financial entities rake in massive profits.

Mamdani’s promises of a rent freeze, free child care and transportation, and a $30 minimum wage resonated with a city whose capitalist politicians have refused to contemplate even basic measures to reduce the cost of living.  Moreover, the fact that he is an Uganda-born Muslim and an advocate of New York City’s remarkable diversity has made him a powerful symbol of opposition to President Trump’s racist and Islamophobic nativism.

Mamdani’s significance is not merely local, however. His campaign has piqued the interest of working people around the country and gathered headlines internationally. Though his campaign was narrowly focused on issues of affordability—without really addressing the need for a major restructuring of the system—Mamdani’s open advocacy of “democratic socialism” has raised interest in building an alternative to the slow, painful decay of global capitalism.

While Zohran’s election is an important event in U.S. politics, it raises basic questions: How can the workers of New York City—and elsewhere—secure basic reforms, and press beyond them to further victories? In our opinion, it will be the mass movement of workers, youth, and oppressed peoples that can win significant social change.

Mamdani’s strategy

Mamdani’s campaign, despite its dynamism, struggled to hold together two contradictory forces: The thousands of radicalizing young people and others who mobilized to get out the vote for him, and the affiliation of the campaign with the capitalist Democratic Party.

During the campaign, Hakeem Jeffries, the current unpopular leader of the House Democratic Caucus and Representative from New York’s 8th District, mounted a full-scale offensive against Mamdani. Even after Mamdani had won the Democratic primary, Jeffries even refused to endorse him for a full three months. New York’s financial elite, for their part, were early opponents of Mamdani, spending over $40 million to torpedo his campaign.

Despite the outright hostility, redbaiting, and Islamophobic attacks directed toward Mamdani and his campaign platform from major forces in the Democratic Party leadership, there is substantial pressure on Mamdani and his supporters to reconcile with the mainstream of the party and its wealthy backers, and to generally offer support to the party’s policies. That is the course that fellow democratic socialists Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who were present at Mamdani’s inaugural, have been following.

So far, Mamdani appears to have been able to form a truce with the Democratic Party leadership and the moneyed interests that the party represents. For instance, former President Obama told Mamdani that his campaign was “impressive to watch,” while the hedge fund manager and billionaire Bill Ackman publicly congratulated Zohran on his win.

Perhaps the most shocking of Mamdani’s new supporters is President Trump himself. On Nov. 23, Mamdani met with President Trump at the White House. After threatening to arrest Mamdani, Trump fawned over the then mayor-elect, stating, “I’ll be cheering for him.” Zohran, for his part, mirrored the president’s friendly tone. In fact, reflecting on their conversation, Mamdani stated that “[i]t was a productive meeting focused on a place of shared admiration and love, which is New York City and the need to deliver affordability to New Yorkers.”

This truce has not occurred without compromises on Mamdani’s part. He maintained Jessica Tisch as the Commissioner of the NYPD. Tisch, a billionaire heiress and law-and-order technocrat, has been a controversial pick among Mamdani’s activist base. She is a staunch Zionist who has overseen the deepening of the city’s surveillance apparatus. Tisch was not Mamdani’s only contentious appointment. He has opened the ranks of his transition team to top-level Democratic Party insiders.

However, rather than soothing this opposition, conciliatory tactics will only increase the urging by ruling-class figures to “compromise” and “work with the system.” As long as Mamdani remains enmeshed in the Democratic Party and its attendant social and financial networks, the pressure to conform with party policy will only increase. Any bolder reforms that his administration might wish to undertake, under pressure by its working-class constituency, will be countered bitterly by the ruling class.

A different way forward

History has shown that the only practical method to gain major reforms is through a mass movement of the working class and oppressed. Without a movement like this, reforms are either illusory or quickly undone by capitalist forces. This movement would have to mobilize its members not as followers of Mamdani, but as part of a working class that can articulate and fight for its own demands.

Mamdani’s statements and actions do not indicate that this will be a focus of his time in office. However, the possibilities for a socialist in City Hall are tremendous. The new mayor occupies one of the largest bully pulpits in the nation. A principled, revolutionary socialist in such a position could push public ownership of Con Edison and other utilities, lowering rates and moving to decarbonize energy production. They could place the city government squarely and unambiguously on the side of working people in their struggles. They might offer city facilities to strikers and to host a national Congress of Labor to organize and support workers’ struggles.

Of course, affiliation with the Democratic Party would severely hobble any effort to carry out these measures or any other major reforms. The task would instead require an independent party of the organized working class.

Workers, youth, and our allies are waking up to the power that we possess when we free ourselves of the pressure to placate the ruling class. Mamdani and his supporters must choose whether to support the growing desire for working-class independence or stand in its way.

Photo: Mamdani speaks at his public inauguration ceremony on Jan. 1. (Spencer Platt / Getty Images)