{"id":132939,"date":"2025-08-09T23:34:44","date_gmt":"2025-08-09T23:34:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/132939\/"},"modified":"2025-08-09T23:34:44","modified_gmt":"2025-08-09T23:34:44","slug":"can-zohran-mamdani-fix-new-yorks-public-education","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/132939\/","title":{"rendered":"Can Zohran Mamdani Fix New York\u2019s Public Education?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Nivedita Majumdar<\/p>\n

That\u2019s a really important question, because it can never be just about the rise of one strong figure \u2014 no matter how exciting that may be. To make real progress on left-wing priorities, we need to build a political culture rooted in organized working-class power, grounded in unions and community organizations. When candidates are embedded in that kind of culture, they understand that their political future is tied to the power of those unions and organizations.<\/p>\n

To some extent, we\u2019re already seeing this play out with Mamdani\u2019s candidacy. Contrary to what the New York Times and other mainstream media might suggest, he didn\u2019t come out of nowhere. His emergence can be traced back to an energized Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) in the wake of Bernie Sanders\u2019s first presidential run. While Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez remains the most well-known example of DSA\u2019s electoral success, the organization also helped elect Mamdani and seven others to the New York State legislature.<\/p>\n

In a detailed piece<\/a> on NYC-DSA\u2019s political and electoral work, Michael Thomas Carter rightly observes, \u201cOver the past nine years, NYC-DSA has built a field organizing machine that is arguably the strongest electoral operation in municipal politics nationwide. Through wins and losses in local, state, and federal elections, NYC-DSA has learned strategic lessons, developed significant logistical capacity, created a volunteer base for canvassing and outreach, and nurtured a cadre of experienced electoral campaign workers who work on endorsed campaigns.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s telling that in his application for DSA\u2019s endorsement, Mamdani stated he would not run without the organization\u2019s backing. While his powerful campaign focused on affordability and his personal charisma are undeniably important, the campaign could not have mobilized some sixty thousand volunteers to push him over the finish line without an active, organized base behind it.<\/p>\n

Winning elections is necessary, but it clearly cannot be the end goal of left-wing politics; the objective is to implement our priorities. Which brings us back to your question of accountability: How do we hold politicians accountable once they\u2019re in office? For that, we need a Left strong enough not just to help elect candidates, but more importantly, to help them carry out the platform on which they ran.<\/p>\n

If Mamdani wins and tries to implement a rent freeze, for example, he\u2019ll be up against very powerful interests. To succeed in the legislature, he\u2019ll need an organizing campaign to push his agenda \u2014 in communities, in the press, and in the streets. For tasks like that, it\u2019s not enough to be a strong electoral machine; you need real presence and grounding in your constituencies.<\/p>\n

To implement a socialist program, we need class power \u2014 built primarily through labor unions, but also through campaigns and coalitions focused on working-class priorities like transportation, housing, and more. Ultimately, we need unions and organizations that not only run winning campaigns but are powerful enough to help their endorsed officeholders actually deliver on their agenda. That\u2019s the real key to accountability.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Nivedita Majumdar That\u2019s a really important question, because it can never be just about the rise of one…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":132940,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5122],"tags":[5229,405,403,5226,5225,5228,5227,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-132939","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-new-york","10":"tag-new-york-city","11":"tag-newyork","12":"tag-newyorkcity","13":"tag-ny","14":"tag-nyc","15":"tag-united-states","16":"tag-united-states-of-america","17":"tag-unitedstates","18":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","19":"tag-us","20":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115001430090422172","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132939","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=132939"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132939\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/132940"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=132939"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=132939"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=132939"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}