From the Editors of Rally!/Agrupemonos! Voice of the League of Revolutionaries for a New America

Zohran Mamdani, a 33-year-old African-born immigrant and democratic socialist who is also a member of the Working Families Party, was elected mayor of New York last November 4 on a platform that corporate Democrats refused to endorse. His election night victory speech captured the historic moment:

“For as long as we can remember, the working people of New York have been told by the wealthy and the well-connected that power does not belong in their hands.” But now, he declared, “The future is in our hands.”

This wasn’t just another election. Over 100,000 volunteers built a movement that spoke directly to the affordability crisis crushing working people. Mamdani’s campaign centered workers like Wesley, an 1199SEIU union organizer forced to commute two hours each way from Pennsylvania because the rent in New York is unaffordable. It elevated the taxi driver Mamdani went on a 15-day hunger strike with outside City Hall, who still drives seven days a week. “My brother, we are in City Hall now,” Mamdani told him.

The Mamdani campaign raised awareness about how power is held, what the working class deserves and what is possible. By illuminating the class relations responsible for the suffering of the masses of New Yorkers and offering a programmatic solution of taxing billionaire wealth to fund affordability for the people of New York, the campaign introduced ideas of class and power.

Trump called him a communist. Mamdani didn’t flinch. “I am young, despite my best efforts to grow older,” he said. “I am Muslim. I am a democratic socialist. And most damning of all, I refuse to apologize for any of this.”

His defiance speaks to a generation of young workers – millennials and Gen Z – who are part of a new class of workers created by a new digital economy that makes their lives unaffordable. A growing part of the working class are underpaid and underemployed workers, gig workers in temporary and part-time jobs without benefits, and those being displaced by artificial intelligence (A.I.) and robots. They voted for someone who named their reality and offered real solutions.

The corporate Democrats’ refusal to endorse Mamdani exposed the battle over which class government serves. But working people didn’t wait for permission. Instead, they knocked on doors, had conversations, raised consciousness, and built power from below.

As Mamdani said, “No longer would politics be something that is done to us. Now, it is something that we do.” This is what political consciousness looks like – people who understand that they need to fight together for power in order to get and create the things their communities need.

Mamdani also connected his agenda to defeating fascism. He promised to “Trump-proof NYC” and made it personal: “Donald Trump, since I know you’re watching, I have four words for you: Turn the volume up.”

He explained that stopping Trump means dismantling the conditions that allowed Trump to accumulate power – holding bad landlords accountable, ending corruption that lets billionaires evade taxes, expanding labor protections and defending immigrants. He made the powerful united statement, “To get to any of us, you will have to get through all of us.”

Mamdani’s platform directly challenges corporate property relations. Freezing rents attacks landlord profits. Free buses challenge the financialization of public transit. City-owned grocery stores mean public ownership competing with corporate food monopolies. Universal childcare removes another profit center from private hands. These policies point toward a future where society’s wealth is controlled by and for working people.

The victory also signals hope for building independent political power. Mamdani’s campaign defeating the establishment shows that workers can unite around their actual needs and win. This is the kind of political struggle that can lead to a new government that serves the people and the planet, not corporations.

As Mamdani told the crowd, quoting Eugene Debs: “The sun may have set over our city this evening, but I can see the dawn of a better day for humanity.” What happened in New York reflects what’s stirring across the country. The same class of displaced workers – struggling with unaffordable rent, stagnant wages and a system that no longer needs them – exists in every city and town in America. They’re ready for a politics that speaks to their real needs without condescension.

But victory won’t come automatically. Mamdani’s campaign showed what it takes: 100,000 volunteers, relentless organizing, door after door, conversation after conversation. It takes unity across all sections of the working class. It takes developing a clear vision of the cooperative society we’re fighting for and getting it out to people. It takes strategy to build real political power. And it takes hard work – the kind that refuses to give up even when the odds seem impossible. New York proved what becomes possible when working people organize around their needs and fight for power together. Now the question is: who’s next?

Published on November 26, 2025
This article originated in Rally!
P.O. Box 408002 Chicago, IL 60640 rally@lrna.org
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