Capital Pushes Back

First, he’ll have to deal with opposition from Wall Street, the real estate industry, and the high-tech industry, among other business sectors. Mamdani’s platform included both very pragmatic ideas and some visionary ideas that will take time to gestate and gain wider public support. He called for a freeze on rents in rent-stabilized units (in which 2.4 million New Yorkers live), free buses, municipally owned grocery stores, and higher taxes on wealthy residents and corporations. Some business leaders have already accused him of being “anti-business” and threatened to leave New York City.

Fiorello La Guardia provides a model for Mamdani. In his three terms as mayor (1933–45), during the Depression and World War II, La Guardia ran an honest, efficient, and progressive administration that helped lift the spirit and improve the conditions of New York’s polyglot working class. As mayor, La Guardia earned a national reputation as nonpartisan reformer dedicated to civic improvement.

Even so, business groups constantly attacked him as an impractical leftist. When La Guardia was president of the city council (then called the board of aldermen) he wanted the city to purchase snow-removal equipment in advance of winter storms.  Comptroller Charles Craig said it was “the wildest kind of radical, socialistic” idea. LaGuardia — a Republican who worked closely with Democrats — went on to become New York’s greatest mayor, but conservatives continued to attack his bold but pragmatic proposals.

He once told the New York Times, “The worst part of the entire matter is that when anyone raises a question about the existing order, he is called either a reformer or a radical. It has been my lot to be called the latter. Why? Only because I have consistently objected to things which I believe unjust and dangerous.” He didn’t back down. “If fighting against existing evils is radical,” he said, “I am content with the name.”

In 2012, when unions and low-wage workers pushed to raise the city’s minimum wage from $9 to $15 over three years, business lobby groups warned that it would destroy New York’s economy. Now we know, in retrospect, that they were crying wolf. New Yorkers spent their higher incomes in the local economy, boosting businesses. The current wage is $16.50, lower than a number of other major cities. Mamdani has called for increasing it incrementally to $30 by 2030.

Whenever reformers promote ideas to limit business’s untrammeled power, their lobby groups warn that companies will lay off workers or exit the city entirely. To carry out his progressive ideas, Mamdani will need to hire people with substantive economic expertise to help him evaluate when business’s threats are real and when they are bluffing.

Mamdani’s slogan, “A City That Everyone Can Afford,” and his laser focus on  inequality and the cost of living resonated with New York voters. The richest 1 percent of New Yorkers increased their share of the city’s total income from 12 percent in 1980 to 36 percent in 2022, according to an analysis by James Parrott, director of economic and fiscal policies at the New School Center for New York City Affairs. The median monthly rent for a two-bedroom apartment in New York is now around $5,500.

Mamdani will come up against many implacable figures within New York’s business elite. Can he persuade some segment of them that the current level of inequity is unsustainable? He may be able to win some over by speaking language they can understand — like “shared prosperity,” which is good for the city because it puts money in the hands of workers and consumers and is preferable to growing inequality and rampant gentrification; and redefining a “healthy business climate” as one where prosperity is widely shared, lifting families out of poverty and precarity. That means having affordable housing, health care, food, childcare, and public transportation for all.

He could start by getting some of the city’s major business leaders to jointly push back against Trump’s use of federal stormtroopers to kidnap immigrants, who are the lifeblood of much of New York City’s social fabric and economy including tourism, health care, construction, and domestic services.

“Good Government”

Second, Mamdani should embrace “good government.” America’s cities were the cradle of progressivism from the late 1800s through the New Deal and beyond. In response to the growing influence of robber barons and corporations in the Gilded Age, activists forged a coalition of immigrants, unionists, upper-class philanthropists, and middle-class reformers (journalists, settlement house workers, clergy and academics among them) to improve living and working conditions in the burgeoning cities.

The leaders elected by this coalition — including Mayors Tom Johnson of Cleveland (1901–9) and Samuel “Golden Rule” Jones of Toledo (1897–1904) — worked to make factories and tenements safer; improve public health and transportation; expand parks and playgrounds; put limits on electricity and water rates and create municipal utilities; enact taxes on wealthy property owners; and give working people a greater voice in their society.

Later progressive mayors — including La Guardia, Milwaukee’s Daniel Hoan (1916–40), Bridgeport’s Jasper McLevy (1933–57), Chicago’s Harold Washington (1983–87), and Boston’s Ray Flynn (1984–93) — sided with workers in labor battles and with communities in struggles against business interests and developers.

Mamdani knows this history. Last year, he spoke to WNYC radio host Brian Lehrer about the many successes of the socialists who governed in Milwaukee and elsewhere. (In 1912, about 1,200 socialists held public office in 340 cities.) As Mamdani noted, they were often called “sewer socialists” because they built parks, housing, schools, municipal waste facilities, and other infrastructure that working-class voters needed and appreciated — and these voters kept reelecting the socialists from 1910 until 1960. They also ran a “clean” government that wasn’t saddled with corruption.

Like the Milwaukee socialists and La Guardia, Mamdani needs to demonstrate that he can run a highly competent administration. His most important task will be to make sure that he takes care of the “civic housekeeping” functions of local government. As La Guardia once said, “There is no Republican, no Democratic, no socialist way to clean a street or build a sewer, but merely a right way and a wrong way.”

He should make sure that potholes and playground equipment get fixed, parks are clean, and police and fire department response times are fast. At the first sign of a major snowstorm, he should get on top of a plow. He should make sure the buses and subways run on time and riders feel safe. If he can accomplish that, New Yorkers will give him the room to address the range of issues that he ran on.

To show his commitment to good government, Mamdani should be transparent about his major goals and quantify them whenever possible. Issue regular reports on the progress that the city is making on such issues as crime trends, housing starts, potholes, and police response times. He should explain to New Yorkers which goals will be the most difficult to achieve and why, whether it’s due to business opposition or lack of resources, and ask voters to help overcome these obstacles. He should also identify a short list of things he wants to accomplish each year for his first four-year term.

Mamdani clearly recognizes the importance of hiring top advisors and department heads with experience in city government, state government (to help with intergovernmental relations with Albany), business, unions, and community organizing and nonprofit work. Many New Yorkers hope he will appoint Lander as first deputy mayor and draw upon his policy expertise, financial acumen, ties to community activists, and knowledge of city government. Given how closely the two of them campaigned together, this seems likely.

One of his most important decisions will be whether to reappoint Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch to address New Yorkers’ concerns about both public safety in their neighborhoods and racial profiling and excessive use of force by police. He has called for a new Department of Community Safety, separate from the police department, to respond to people having mental health crises and would free up “police resources to increase clearance rates for major crimes.” He called for a new agency to focus on hate crimes. Unless he can develop a working relationship with the police and their union, they could try to thwart his plans.

Fiscal Challenges

Third, Mamdani will have to deal with New York’s fiscal challenges and its reliance on the state of New York for much of its funding (including the subway) as well as legislative authority (such as rent control). He’ll need to work closely with the Democrats in the state legislature and with Gov. Kathy Hochul, a liberal but not a progressive. Solving the city’s fiscal needs will be particularly problematic if Donald Trump and congressional Republicans pass some version of the current “Big, Beautiful Bill,” which will slash federal funding for many essential services in order to give tax cuts to the superrich. So it will be important for Mamdani to consistently explain to voters that there are some things cities can’t do on their own because they require state or federal permission or funds.

Mamdani will need to build political bridges with the suburbs and New York State’s other major cities. Many New York City suburbs are really cities with similar problems. He can forge coalitions around a state-level legislative agenda on taxes, funding for essential services, housing, and childcare.

He can also use his national platform as mayor of America’s largest city to build coalitions with other urban mayors around a federal agenda that lays the groundwork for a post-Trump era and a revitalization of an urban or metropolitan policy agenda. Through the US Conference of Mayors and the National League of Cities, America’s mayors can demand that Congress provide more funds for housing and job-creating infrastructure, strengthen regulations against predatory banks, adopt a federal law mandating paid sick days, expand federal funding for childcare and schools, and enlist mayors to adopt a truce to end the “bidding wars” that use scarce subsidies and local tax breaks to pit cities and states against each other to attract business investment, as Amazon did with New York a few years ago.

Think Like an Organizer

Fourth, although Mamdani will be the mayor if he wins in November, he will need to think like an organizer. Each major policy issue requires a campaign — with a core base, allies, and opposition targets (such as rent-gouging landlords and predatory banks). He can’t win these fights without grassroots support and mobilization.

He should embrace the “inside/outside” tension that comes from being a progressive in city hall and encourage grassroots groups to lobby and protest when necessary to push major banks, employers, hospitals, nursing homes, landlords, developers, and others to act responsibly. Occasionally, he’ll be the target of protest. He’ll need to develop a thick skin.

He can encourage progressives and liberals to find common ground around a four- and eight-year issue agenda so that different constituencies aren’t constantly competing to make their particular issue his top priority. Hopefully the progressive members of the New York City Council will do the same thing in order to help Mamdani be a successful mayor.

He will have to figure out how to work with the city’s sometimes fractious progressive movement that includes many organizations and leaders, all with their own agendas. The public and private sector unions, community organizing groups, environmental activists, tenants right advocates, nonprofit housing developers, school reformers, civil rights and civil liberties groups, and others will also have to learn how to play the “inside/outside” game at a time when the stakes couldn’t be higher.

They will of course want to hold Mamdani accountable for the things he promised, but they need to have the patience and strategic understanding that significant policy changes take time, have to be prioritized, and often require compromise. They need to recognize that “compromise” is not the same thing as “selling out.” Compromises are good when they lead to stepping-stone reforms that push things in the right direction and lay the foundation for further change.

This is particularly important for Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), a small but active part of Mamdani’s base. DSA’s national leadership, and some of its chapters, have been justifiably criticized for their occasional ultraleftism and indifference to practical politics. On the other hand, many DSA chapters, including New York City, have learned to operate in coalitions with a variety of community organizing, labor, and environmental groups and to work within the Democratic Party to elect progressive candidates, including those who don’t call themselves socialists.

As they demonstrated in Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s congressional campaigns, New York DSAers working for Mamdani were well-organized, disciplined, and strategic. Now they need discipline and strategic smarts to avoid publicly criticizing him every time he has to make compromises (including with the city council or state legislature) in order to get things accomplished to improve daily life in New York City.

Restoring Faith

In these difficult times, it is nice to have a major progressive victory that can inspire people with hope and help build the movement both against Trump and for a progressive future. Like Bernie Sanders and AOC, Mamdani is a brilliant communicator who is able to translate progressive values into everyday language. But not all Democrats can win elections if they call themselves progressives, much less socialists. Trump and the Republican Party understand this and will try to use Mamdani’s victory to brand all Democrats as dangerous socialists.

The day after Mamdani clinched the primary, Trump went on a temper tantrum on his Truth Social platform, calling Mamdani a “100% Communist Lunatic.” Like AOC, Mamdani will become a lightning rod for Republicans seeking to defeat Democrats in swing House districts next year. Mamdani will have to figure out how to convince Democratic Party leaders like Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries, both New Yorkers, to support him rather than fight him incessantly — something far from guaranteed, given both of their repeated antagonizing of the Left. At the same time, some Democrats running in swing congressional districts and states will want to put some distance between themselves and Mamdani’s views.

One of Mamdani’s most important accomplishments could be to restore the faith of young voters in the potential of electoral politics and the role of government in addressing Americans’ real needs. Hopefully his victory will inspire liberals and progressives around the country to get involved with local organizing groups; key “swing” races in next year’s midterm elections could see an uptick in volunteering.

Much is riding on how Mamdani leads New York City. If he is a successful mayor, he will do more than transform the lives of working-class New Yorkers — he can inspire more young activists to run for office, from school board to state legislature to Congress; replace the Democrats’ gerontocracy; and help move the Democratic Party away from the corporate wing that has dominated it in recent decades toward a progressive party that puts people first.