The Marx United States
The election of Zohran Mamdani as mayor of New York City is one of the most significant events in American history. Given that Mamdani identifies as a “socialist,” his victory in the “capital of capitalism ,” home to Wall Street and the corporations that dominate the global economy, is, on the one hand, what The New York Times described as a “wave of discontent against the system .” On the other hand, Mamdani’s victory underscores what we at the Marx International have been asserting: that there is a leftward shift among mass sectors of the world, and that this leftward shift has its epicenter in the United States.
This leftward shift of the world’s masses is denied by 99% of the global left. Even the political movement to which Mamdani belongs, the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), denies this phenomenon, speaking instead of a “global rise of the far right.” But Mamdani’s own electoral victory is a slap in the face to those who promote the “global rise of the right” narrative ; it’s a slap in the face to what the leadership of the movement to which Mamdani belongs proclaims. The reality is that if there were no radicalization and leftward shift of mass sectors worldwide and in the United States, it would be impossible for a candidate who identifies as “socialist” to win mayoral elections in the world’s capital in a bourgeois democracy .
Mamdani rises in defense of capitalism
We know that Mamdani’s victory has raised hopes among working-class New Yorkers. Many have been drawn to his promises of free, universal childcare and a rent freeze for Brooklyn tenants. They hope he will fight ICE raids and defend New York as a sanctuary city. But we at The Marx US want to be clear: Mamdani is not our government. He may take some measures that could be considered “progressive,” but he will not govern for the working class and the people.
Mamdani is a member of the imperialist Democratic Party of the United States, and it is within this imperialist party, defender of the 1% millionaires, Wall Street and Corporations, that Mamdani positions himself as part of a current called DSA (Democratic Socialists of America) headed by Senator Bernie Sanders and Representative Ocasio-Cortez, who at the global level lead the Progressive International along with Yanis Varoufakis of Syriza in Greece, Gustavo Petro of the capitalist government of Colombia, MORENA of Mexico, Jeremy Corbyn of England, etc., Progressive International seek to contain and divert revolutions towards reformism and the trap of bourgeois democratic elections.
Although Donald Trump and the members of the CPAC, the mainstream media, and bourgeois pundits label Mamdani a “communist ,” the reality is that Mamdani rose to power in defense of capitalism. He didn’t become mayor of New York to oppose capitalism; he rose to power to defend it. Global capitalism is under threat from a revolutionary process that has been underway in the United States since the imperialist army was defeated in Iraq around 2007/08. From then on, due to the global mobilization that made NATO’s defeat in the Middle East possible, and due to the dominance of US global corporations over the global economy, the revolution in the United States became global and has been unfolding worldwide through three revolutionary waves that have given rise to diverse movements.
Those movements has already accustomed us to the emergence of huge currents that later become global struggles. Now, with the emergence of the “No Kings” movement , with mass mobilizations across the United States, it has provoked a crisis for Donald Trump’s administration, expressed in Trump’s break with Elon Musk. In 2008, with the “Occupy Wall Street” movement against bankers and capitalism; in 2013, with the Black Lives Matter (BLM ) movement in defense of African-American rights; and then with the “Mee Too” movement in 2017 in defense of women’s rights.
In 2017, the “New Unionism” movement emerged with the strikes against the management of the multinational food company Kellogg’s in October 2021, and the triumph of Amazon workers in Staten Island, the New York logistics center, which gave rise to new union activism. Then the massive movement of mobilizations and occupation of universities in support of Palestine in 2024, which also gave rise to groups such as “Within Our Lifetime ” led by Nerdeen Kiswani, a Palestinian-American activist from Brooklyn, New York. In 2025, the immigrant advocacy movement emerged against immigration policy, culminating in Los Angeles, California, in the face of ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) raids on immigrants. And now, the “No Kings” movement emerged in June 2025, part of a series of protests held on Saturday, June 14, 2025, the day the 250th anniversary of the Armed Forces was celebrated, with a military parade in Washington, DC, coinciding with President Trump’s 79th birthday.
No support for Mamdani, his government, or his policies
These very mobilizations have driven Donald Trump to his lowest approval ratings. Discontent is growing among the people as a result of the increasing inequality in our country and the terrible living conditions of workers and the general population, shaken by inflation, the rising cost of living and housing, and severe unemployment. These factors are causing enormous shifts in collective consciousness, pointing to capitalism as responsible for the disaster faced by millions of families. The Mamdani government will attempt to contain this discontent within the capitalist system and corporations to prevent a social explosion that would challenge the power of the ruling classes in the United States.
Meanwhile, the Mamdani government is trying to pull the Democratic Party out of its crisis, after it lost over 13 million votes in the last election. The old imperialist party is sinking, repudiated by the people for its support of Israel and NATO’s genocidal policies toward Palestine, and for starving the people to the point of benefiting the wealthy and the 1% on Wall Street. The revolutions and the leftward shift from Nepal to Ecuador, from France to Bangladesh, are causing the collapse of all the old reformist, Stalinist, social-democratic, bourgeois nationalist, Islamic fundamentalist, Maoist, Castroist, ex-guerrilla, and other leaderships that have governed the world’s peoples for decades. We call the collapse of these old reformist leaderships a “political revolution” because the collapse of these organizations impacts bourgeois democratic political regimes and dictatorships globally, leading to historical changes in every country in the world.
Zohran Mamdani capitalized on the phenomenon of the “political revolution” taking place in the country, but insofar as his government will act in defense of capitalism, that same political revolution will turn against him and the DSA. Mamdani’s campaign secured a solid base of 104,000 volunteer members, enabling him to defeat the formidable and wealthy electoral machine of the New York Democratic Party, which fielded the veteran Democratic strongman Andrew Cuomo, a member of Mamdani’s own party. After losing the primaries to Mamdani, Cuomo ran as an independent candidate, supported by none other than Donald Trump. The Cuomo-Trump coalition was defeated by the leftward shift and the people’s political revolution that swept them away.
The 99% of left forces capitulates to Mamdani
Mamdani is a project just like Syriza in Greece, Podemos in Spain, the NPA in France, Die Linke in Germany, Jeremy Corbyn’s Your Party in England, MORENA in Mexico, the Historic Pact in Colombia, PSOL in Brazil, etc., to name a few. These reformist coalition experiences experienced a great boom and were initially met with high expectations by activists, but then inevitably ended in failure. 99% of the global left now praises Mamdani’s victory and proposes no struggle against his government. Moreover, all left-wing currents advocate for the formation of a “united front” to pressure the government to fulfill its promises: a treacherous and collaborationist policy that seeks to give activists expectations in Mamdani.
To say that a “great united front” is necessary to “press for our demands” in the streets is to call for trust in capitalism, the bourgeois state, and the Democratic Party. Calling for a united front to fight for our demands is to deceive activists by telling them that Mamdani can grant concessions if there is a lot of fighting in the streets. That’s like suggesting that cows can fly; it’s not going to happen. Capitalism can no longer grant any concessions, any gains to the working class; it won’t because it’s a senile system that has nothing left to give. To call for a “united front” to fight for our demands without denouncing Mamdani is to capitulate and betray the people, something that doesn’t surprise us at all because the global left has been capitulating to Syriza, MORENA, Podemos, Corbyn, and any other “progressive” movement that comes along, abandoning the struggle for class independence.
The point is to seize the immense opportunities that the revolutionary mobilization of our people offers to build a revolutionary party. It’s about taking advantage of the leftward shift and the political revolution that have propelled Mamdani to power, to oppose his government, the sinister Democratic Party, the Republicans, and the Trump administration, to finally end the 1% oligarchy that millions of Americans despise, and to liberate the entire world from capitalism. From The Marx US, we call upon activists to advance the regrouping of revolutionaries in order to move forward in the struggle for global socialism.
