Sailing Into the Storm
As Zohran Mamdani’s affordability agenda winds through the back rooms of government, DSA’s role remains to organize and educate the working class. Sid CW charts the history of this relationship and reasserts the vital importance of political independence from the capitalist state.
Sid C.W.
Cole, Thomas. The Voyage of Life: Manhood, 1840.
Zohran Mamdani set a clear tone for his administration in his first 100 days in office. Centered on an earnest approach to basic fixes from bike lanes to potholes, his commitment to a better quality of life and government for everyday people is all too rare in American politics. He has notched real wins under his belt, from securing partial funding for universal childcare to increasing property taxes on the wealthy. Just this month, NYC’s Rent Guidelines Board cleared the way for a rent freeze for New York’s rent-stabilized tenants, and Mamdani's newest budget proposal appears to avoid what could have been a dangerous funding gap for NYC’s city government.
But Mamdani has also made a series of decisions ranging from confusing to legitimately disorganizing. He reinstituted winter homeless sweeps, endorsed right-wing Governor Kathy Hochul for her re-election bid, thanked “first responders” after the NYPD shot an unarmed man, and forced a DSA-backed candidate out of a congressional race in NY-10. At each turn, Zohran’s critics and cynics have cried “betrayal,” but the reality is far more complicated.
As Mayor of the largest city in the United States, Mamdani has taken on the burden of governance under a system that often treats municipal executives, and radicals in office more generally, rather poorly. Progressive mayors of American cities are dealt unplayable hands and then blamed for their inability to make effective change. From the direction he has taken so far, it is clear that Zohran is desperately trying to avoid “ineffectiveness,” or worse, being forced to implement austerity: the undertaker of Left electoral movements from Jackson, Mississippi to Syriza in 2010s Greece.
By appeasing various elements of the capitalist state, Zohran has proven successful in legitimizing his administration. This is not inherently a problem, since compromise has been a law of politics since the dawn of government. What I will argue, however, is that NYC-DSA leadership’s decision to back Zohran “to the hilt” without a hint of criticism, is leading us down a blind alley. Implementing Zohran’s “Affordability Agenda,” which has become the chapter’s immediate political program, is taking place in the back rooms and catacombs of the halls of power, outside of the view of the working masses and even our own members.
In the coming months and years, DSA will need to learn when to selectively, but forcefully, assert our political independence from the Mayor’s office. If we don’t, we tie our future as a local party to one man’s approval rating and his ability to wheel and deal within an alien state power. When we elect socialists to office, they are operating in enemy territory. Zohran is no exception to that fact despite his seat at the head of the table. The capitalist state remains unconquered, and DSA remains a party in opposition to the status quo.
Legitimate and Illegitimate Compromise
In the history of Marxist politics, the relative permissibility of compromise has long divided Socialist Parties. Wilhelm Liebknecht, a founder, member of parliament, and thought leader in the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD), worked out his theory of compromise in the 1899 pamphlet “No Compromises, No Political Trading,” which argued against the coalitionist impulses of some Bavarian party members. It is not harmful, Liebknecht says, to find oneself voting along the same lines as liberals or radicals in a bourgeois government on any given issue. Failure to do so in at least some circumstances would mean abstaining from political action altogether, which is unacceptable. The fact that Socialist Parties are, by and large, opposition parties and do not hold majorities in government means that failure to compromise would be akin to “rejecting the theory of gravity.”
The real danger of compromise, Liebknecht argues, lies not in taking common action with bourgeois political actors, but “in giving up, keeping in the background, or forgetting the class struggle basis [of the party], for this is the source of the whole modern labor movement.” He continues: “Growing out of the class struggle, our party rests upon [it] as a condition of its existence. Through and with that struggle the party is unconquerable; without it the party is lost, for it will have lost the source of its strength.”
In short, compromises with liberal and bourgeois parties become dangerous only when they obscure the class struggle basis of the party. This, of course, is deeply relevant a century later as we negotiate a series of legislative systems—at the municipal, state, and federal level—that can be just as byzantine and undemocratic as the institutions of the German Empire which Liebknecht grappled with in his own time. Alliances between different factions of the ruling Democratic Party are shifting and unclear, budgeting largely happens in closed-door negotiations, and Assembly and Senate leaders can place incredible pressure on our own legislators’ ability to honestly communicate with the working class by threatening to sink their reform projects unless they stay silent.
The electoral strategy passed at NYC-DSA’s 2024 Convention argues that our representatives’ main responsibility is to serve their constituents “through passing legislation and budgets that meaningfully improve the lives of working class New Yorkers while weakening the influence of the capitalist ruling class.” In this view, compromise for the sake of policy goals is the name of the game. A DSA legislator can choose to vote for a mediocre state budget and get funding for a pet project, or speak out against it and risk losing that funding. These two choices are, Liebknecht would say, morally neutral. The problem arises when the motivations guiding these decisions remain obscured. We rarely learn what kind of pressure is placed on legislators to vote for pro-cop, anti-worker budgets, or the political price tag for our own policy goals. The urgency of “delivering the goods” results in our elected officials making inscrutable decisions.
In their ideal form, socialist-in-office committees can serve as a conduit between electeds and members by democratizing knowledge about the legislative terrain. With that knowledge, members and the leaders elected to represent them can make decisions about what types of compromises we expect DSA’s legislative group to make, and whether or not we find them acceptable. In doing so, these party organs can shed light on the internal functions of government and allow regular working people to push their own vision for socialist legislative practice. Any socialist legislative project worthy of the name requires legislators to “name the system,” using their offices to agitate against the formal legal and political barriers to enacting our vision within the capitalist state.
Despite practice often diverging from this ideal, NYC-DSA has weathered many bad votes, unexpected compromises with the Democratic Party, and a membership base that often demands more from our elected officials. But unlike our Assembly and Council interventions, NYC-DSA does not have a formal structure for engaging with the new reality of a DSA member in the Mayor’s office. In Zohran, we have a socialist in office whose power, reach, and entanglement with bourgeois government has rapidly outstripped the ability of our Party to communicate and negotiate with him. Combined with our chapter leadership’s philosophy that values secrecy above transparency, frustration with the DSA-Zohran relationship will only grow. Passing an affordability agenda with the passive consent of, or over the objections of, our many class enemies in power will often come at the expense of open class struggle.
The Party Problem
In December, mayor-elect Mamdani endorsed Brad Lander, a liberal Zionist and campaign ally, for New York’s 10th Congressional district. Because NYC-DSA had already voted to endorse DSA Councilmember Alexa Avilés for the seat, his decision came as a surprise to many who imagined that a “cadre candidate” would back the decision of our organization. On paper, Avilés was the ideal candidate. She had to be cajoled into running in the first place, she would return to her Council seat even if she lost the race, and most importantly, she had the support of the membership.
Organizing against a DSA endorsement is one of the few genuinely red lines within our Party. When NYC-DSA updated its electoral strategy, we affirmed that candidates in same-year elections would run as a slate, and that candidates in overlapping districts would pool campaign resources. In 2025, when multiple socialists in office dragged their feet in endorsing Mamdani, members organized for a resolution that insisted that not endorsing the DSA candidate as the number-one choice would be a violation of organizational principles.
The Lander endorsement revealed DSA’s relative weakness as a strategic player. But for a brief moment, it didn’t feel that way. In November, we shocked many observers by rejecting an endorsement of Chi Ossé for New York’s 8th Congressional District. There were many reasons to oppose this endorsement, from the slim chance of victory to skepticism about the candidate’s loyalty to DSA. We surveyed the candidate and the terrain, held a robust debate, and made a decision. Though, as in Avilés’s race, Mamdani put his thumb on the scale by encouraging DSA to reject the endorsement, he did so the same way any other member would, by lining up to get on the mic at a meeting.
The primary role of DSA’s endorsement process is to make real decisions about whether or not this or that candidate or race will advance our political goals. But its second role, just as important as the first, is to establish DSA members as real decision-makers within American politics. We don’t operate as a political action committee whose board can make arbitrary decisions about turning the money faucet on or off. We make our decisions in public, in full view of the press and the working masses (although our leadership’s preference for secrecy sometimes gets in the way). We rely on the investment of our members who dedicate their time and labor to knock doors, write emails, and throw fundraising parties to put our candidates into office. None of this works if we don’t all agree to pull in the same direction.
For a brief moment, it seemed as though Zohran was willing to take our democracy seriously. If he was going to run the city, he would have to navigate his rowdy and cantankerous party that has the institutional weight to oppose him when necessary. It turns out, of course, that if Zohran believes DSA is going to make a decision that he disagrees with, he can simply ignore it and circumvent the process entirely. He did not speak at the forum to endorse Avilés, and at no time did he indicate that he would make a decision contrary to DSA. But just like Ossé’s endorsement, Mamdani and his inner circle made a set of political calculations, keeping in mind his relationship with other power brokers, and acted accordingly. In doing so, Zohran himself recognized a reality that our chapter leadership has yet to accept: that DSA and Zohran have different goals.
War of Position
Beyond this episode, Zohran has taken a broad and often inscrutable series of steps to appease those he believes he needs to appease. He continues to resist endorsing DSA’s insurgent legislative slate in districts where it would upset inconvenient allies, he declined to speak at DSA’s Tax the Rich rally in Albany back in February, and he has kept billionaire heiress Jessica Tisch in office while generally toeing the line in Mayoral-NYPD relations.
Critically, NYC-DSA has taken no clear position on any of these issues. Despite calls to denounce Tisch and widespread confusion at Mamdani’s endorsement of Hochul, the chapter has mostly kept quiet. As a consequence of refusing to communicate the challenges of our situation with a broad audience, DSA’s fight for working-class liberation has left the open and democratic arena of class struggle and lodged itself firmly in the back rooms of the Capitol and Hochul’s negotiating table—and there doesn’t seem to be a plan to get it out.
It is also true that a formal position is sometimes inopportune. Although Antonio Delgado, Hochul’s Lieutenant Governor and erstwhile “progressive” opponent, appeared to represent the left flank of the race and even courted DSA support, he was by no means a socialist. Even so, a sudden and unexpected endorsement of Kathy Hochul—who was at the time fighting to break an ongoing nurses’ strike—reeks of a smoke-filled room. The brief article penned by Mamdani in The Nation to justify the endorsement was equally cryptic. Instead of offering a clear roadmap for collaboration or enumerating future projects, the article began with an effusive round of thank-yous for Hochul’s tepid and partial support for Mamdani’s childcare plan. He follows with the substance of the article: Zohran and the Governor disagree with each other, but they trust each other. He ends the piece with a meek sewer socialist battle cry, that “the success of our movement will be defined by the success of our government.”
This doesn’t exactly inspire confidence in Mamdani’s ability to navigate the competing imperatives of class struggle and delivering on his platform. In 2024, I warned that the scope of the pressure applied by the powers that be, especially by the NYPD, would harm Zohran’s ability to coherently express DSA’s political vision as an “organizer-in-chief.” Now, as he faces renewed calls to rein in the NYPD in light of continued collaboration between it and ICE, it is clear that the police are still a problem. Whether or not Mamdani can confront the NYPD’s well-entrenched “Blue Power” from the Mayor’s office remains to be seen, and opposition to his administration will only grow as opponents are emboldened or as the Mayor himself cranks up the heat as a pressure tactic.
Right now, Zohran Mamdani is calling the shots. Some of the decisions he makes will be good for our political project, and others will not. Unlike some of Zohran’s left critics, we are careful not to mislocate the cause for his missteps. He doesn’t do these things because of some ineffable quality of the Democratic Party ballot line. Nor can his actions be blamed on a handful of consultants or strategists whispering in his ear. Finally, he is not secretly a Zionist, a cop, or worse. The issue is much more simple. Mamdani has been given access to the levers of a small portion of the state machinery, and he is taking steps to preserve that control. For this, NYC-DSA’s leadership has given him a blank cheque.
Zohran Mamdani, more than anything else, is fighting to avoid implementing austerity. Because the power of the purse is in the hands of the Governor and State Legislature, he will need to rely on their support, both for cutting checks and for passing a tax plan to fund his agenda. Mamdani is smartly moving in a way that he believes will make this possible. Because his campaign was so defined by “deliverism”—that is, the idea that he will deliver a certain set of reforms—his legacy is now wholly staked on his ability to do so. NYC-DSA’s problem is to figure out how to relate to this reality without subordinating our much wider purpose to the needs of the fledgling mayoral administration. How we engage with the trials of Zohran’s New York City in a way that educates and uplifts the working class as a whole will be the challenge of the next four years.
Breaking the Cone of Silence
All of these pieces—the endorsement against DSA, the threat of a budget deficit, the unclear terms along which Zohran is compromising with the Democrats—point to the “reality of our reality.” We have walked (some would say sleepwalked) into the executive office with an incomplete set of tools for managing and communicating the contradictions of power. We have subordinated our political vision to the inner workings of Albany and City Hall. What everyone seems to agree on, though, is that there’s no unbaking this cake. DSA cannot be oblivious to the fact that we have implicit responsibility for what happens in Gracie Mansion. Through campaigns like “Tax the Rich,” the chapter has developed a plan for struggling within this reality, but none for struggling at its margins.
Certainly, there are grumblings about the missteps of the Zohran administration, but rarely do they make it out into the open. When NYC-DSA’s Co-chairs were questioned about their position on the reintroduction of homeless sweeps in February, they offered a lukewarm defense, stressing differences between the new policy and similar policies under Mayor Adams, which are, in reality, minimal. Concerningly, this did not appear to be a rote repetition of the administration’s talking points, but an attempt to read the tea leaves and guess what Zohran might want them to say. Following the appearance, NYC-DSA was outflanked on the issue by homeless advocacy groups, and members circulated a resolution against the sweeps, which was reported on by the New York Post. The Co-chairs twisted themselves into knots to defend the indefensible for no appreciable political gain.
On the other hand, DSA could not assert any sort of meaningful control over the Mayor’s office even if we wanted to. The “leverage model” of socialist governance, by which parties hold electeds “accountable” through threats to withdraw support, is of little use here. In fact, it has never worked. Zohran Mamdani has thrown himself into the deep end and is swimming with the sharks, both in the Governor’s Office and in the West Wing. We want to believe that our work will make the difference on whether he sinks or swims. But we need to recognize that much of this is out of our hands. We need a programmatic vision that is more durable than the fortunes of individual leaders, as charismatic as they may be.
This is the paradox of NYC-DSA’s orientation to the Zohran administration, which commits us to carry out precisely the goals that we have no power to enact. I would argue that Our Time, a front organization organized around the Tax the Rich demand, struggled for exactly this reason. The campaign offered few opportunities for supporters to self-organize beyond acting as cogs in the mobilization machine, and few appreciable wins. The situation clearly calls for different tactics, and luckily, we can afford to be far more politically flexible than the Mayor.
Some commentators have suggested that popular assemblies, hosted by the administration, can bridge the gap between backroom politics and working-class protagonism. I argue that it is even more critical that DSA continue to serve this role. The working class needs a party—a space where members can develop a collective political vision which transcends the narrow confines of elected office. Steering the ship of state towards an affordability agenda is still important, but we are not the ones at the wheel.
The short-term future of democratic socialism as a 21st-century political movement seems to hinge on the ability of one man to carry out a sweeping and expensive political program in the face of long odds. Our job, everywhere, is to make that not the case; to present an electoral vision, a labor vision, a street action vision, an internationalist and abolitionist vision, a vision in all spaces where politics are done to agitate for a revolutionary program. The next four years will be defined by whether DSA (both in New York and elsewhere) is able to exert political authority and decision-making power independently, outside of the influence of Zohran Mamdani or any other celebrity politician.
If Zohran is successful, skeptics of executive power (myself included) should acknowledge the material gains we win from this venture, outside of the power of an executive campaign to build interest in our party which has already been demonstrated. At the same time, supporters of Zohran’s strategy should openly examine challenges, setbacks, and disappointments, and participate in discussions about how DSA should respond and correct course. We need to communicate with each other honestly, and without prejudice. Those closest to the administration should also understand that they have an important role to play as a bridge between our electeds and DSA’s membership as a whole.
It is true that we cannot stay out of power forever. A strategy of permanent opposition has never succeeded in the United States, and workers grow tired of it just as quickly as they grow tired of mayors. But without tools to adapt to the reality we have created, we risk stagnation and the loss of our voice as the only truly independent force in American politics. We must continue to insist on DSA’s power as a decision maker, not only because we can win elections, but because the power of our member democracy to shape all of politics is the envy of the world. We can’t give that up.
