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The biggest lie about the 2026 election is that the military won’t be involved.
In August, Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Dan Caine assured Congress of the military’s “steadfast commitment to constitutional principles,” writing that “the Joint Force has no plans to send Federal military personnel or Federalized members of the National Guard to polling places during the 2026 elections.”
Reassuring as that may sound, it is deeply misleading. For as Pete Hegseth made clear last week, the military is undertaking an unprecedented role in the election — one that happens to violate the Constitution.
While there might not be the soldier boots-at-voting-booths nightmare feared by some, the military is mobilizing a secret cyber force as well as “every authorized asset, capability, and partnership” of its intelligence apparatus to counter purported “threats” to the election, to quote Hegseth.
The administration is cultivating the idea that this is just the military protecting against the most extreme cases like foreign governments hacking into voting machines to alter results. However, military sources tell me that the real focus is something far broader: the possibility of Americans’ political beliefs being shaped by foreign governments.
“Foreign malign influence” is the U.S. government’s official euphemism for censoring tweets, Facebook posts, TikTok videos and myriad other online speech thought to imperil Americans’ ability to think correctly. This is part of what the military will be doing with growing intensity as election day nears.
As the national security system sees it, foreign powers like Russia, China and Iran are busy eating through the foundations of American democracy like termites, one social media post at a time. (Consider, for example, their belief that American skepticism of AI data centers is the result of Chinese influence, as I reported last month.) But the trouble with fumigating for termites is that people live in the house. Since most Americans now live online, foreign propaganda doesn’t stay foreign: the moment an American likes or shares a post, it also becomes an American’s speech.
Yet Congress hasn’t said anything about the obvious threat to Americans’ freedom of expression. And the hypocrisy at play here is mind-bending. Think about it. Trump is still promoting his fanciful belief that the 2020 election was stolen by foreign interference — something half of Congress is happy to condemn — but when his administration directs the military to go after foreign influence, none of them say a peep.
Both major parties, whatever their disagreements, share a consensus view that Americans’ beliefs and even voting decisions are not their own, but rather the result of shadowy foreign influence campaigns. So much so, in fact, that Congress has codified in law a definition of “foreign malign influence” that of course focuses on “public opinion within the United States.”
Even if there’s the best of intentions, the government using “public opinion” and “malign” in the same sentence is dangerous.
The almost Greek tragedy level irony here is that involving the military in elections is a greater threat to our democracy than all foreign influence operations combined. Both the Constitution and federal law make plenty clear that the military has no role here, and for good reason.
Not only are elections primarily a state and local responsibility under the Constitution, but the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 prohibits the use of the military to execute civilian law. An additional federal prohibition, literally titled “Troops at polls,” traces its origins to the Civil War. In 1865, during Abraham Lincoln’s presidency and in the final weeks of the war, Congress made it a crime for federal officers to bring troops anywhere near where votes were being cast. This was based on the common sense understanding that the presence of armed soldiers is inherently intimidating to voters, or at the very least is corrosive to democratic culture. But Lincoln couldn’t have imagined cyberspace, so the law forbids bayonets rather than military botnets.
Oblivious to all this, Pete Hegseth announced in a recent memo that “the Department of War (DoW) will effectively wield its capabilities to protect and uphold the reliability of America’s voting mechanisms against external manipulation and disruption from foreign actors,” before hinting at the broader foreign influence focus.
Hegseth memo
To Hegseth, that means employing U.S. Cyber Command (CYBERCOM) and the “Defense Intelligence Enterprise (DIE)” in order to “ensure that every lawful voter can cast their ballot free from foreign intimidation, coercion, or fear.”
And what is the most hallowed civilian law of them all, one that the military plays no role in “enforcing”? It is the inalienable right under the First Amendment to the Constitution: Freedom of speech and the right of the people peaceably to assemble. The military is not allowed to do anything to enforce or otherwise intervene in that. And yet that’s what Hegseth is doing here.
It might not be troops guarding voting booths. But the head of the Pentagon is explicitly directing the military to guard voters in cyberspace — it’s not that far off.
I’m alarmed how little attention is being paid to the military’s unprecedented involvement in our election. I really want to stay on this story and find out what CYBERCOM is doing. Please help me by becoming a paid subscriber (or chip in via myGoFundMe here) — Ken
I agree with a lot of what he says, he speaks to the very basic things people desire and need. But he's not the first one to do that.And, he's right, capitalism makes us sick though he doesn't give the culprit a name. What is his solution? As far as I can see it is in transforming the Democratic Party in to party that can bring about the reform he talks about in this video. I believe that experience teaches us that this is not the case..
Look at AOC. Look at Sanders or Mamdani, so many will fall in to place as they refuse to recognise that there is only one way any of these, mild reforms really, can be realised and that is through a mass movement, a working class mass movement that would welcome small capitalists like Graham Platner as allies in this struggle.
Small capitalists, that middle layer, are also super exploited by big business. Some of them can move to the right but some can move to the left and be allies of workers and the labor movement depending on the balance of class forces and the program, strategy and tactics of the workers' movement. They will, as will most workers, be drawn to a program that speaks to their needs and a movement that has the power to win it.
In addition, an independent political party of the working class opposed to both the big business parties is key, none of what he says is possible without that development. How that will develop is another issue, but as a mass movement on the ground develops it is inevitable in my mind that it will take political expression, candidates will arise out of that movement, maybe individually at first who can say. The ability to trap such movements and usher them in to the Democratic Party is waning.
I will wait and see what he does when the power gives him options. Mamdani has no program for dealing with them. They are ruthless, they are killers. Both Democrats and Republicans have supported, armed and defended a genocide. Only a powerful and committed movement of the working class, committed to ending this system of production and building an economic system of production based on human need not profit can accomplish this social transformation.
It's not about integrity, he seems like a decent guy. That's not the issue; the road to hell is paved with good intentions.
The mid terms are looking to be very interesting indeed and we can return to this issue again.
A quote attributed to Mark Twain reads: “History does not repeat itself, but it often rhymes”. Well, in this case, history is repeating itself when it comes to Zack Polanski, the leader of the Green Party, with him being characterised as ‘antisemitic’ in a smear campaign by the press and right-wing politicians.
It was noticeable – and it astonished a number of Jewish people present – that when the Jewish establishment organised a ‘march against antisemitism’ last weekend, Zack Polanski, who is Jewish, was not invited, while the leader of Reform UK was invited and was represented by his deputy to spoke to cheers from those present. One antisemitism campaigner, Ruvi Ziegler, told the Financial Times, “We cannot fight racism alongside racists. Inviting Reform UK to speak in such a rally is objectionable, inconsistent given the exclusion of the Greens and highly damaging.”
The defenders of the establishment are replicating material almost from the exact same playbook as they used when they went after Jeremy Corbyn during his period as Labour leader from 2015-2019. Ultimately, it is because the right-wing are starting to panic that Polanski and the Greens could gain significant power by the time of the next general election. So they are already preparing the ground for a campaign against Polanski, ranging from the ridiculous to the outright sinister. The latest ‘scandal’ is his failure to pay the proper council tax on a house-boat!
Whilst there have been rumblings from the press for a while that the Green Party are beginning to accept ‘antisemites’, due to Polanski’s criticisms of Israel and its genocide in Gaza, the door was burst wide open when Polanski retweeted someone who criticised the heavy-handed police approach in taking a man who had targetted and attacked Jews in Golders Green, north London. It has been reported that the attacker was mentally unwell, which was also used as criticism in the post that Polanski retweeted.
The press were already on the march, alongside right-wing Labour MPs calling Polanski an antisemite and suggesting that “he was unfit for office”. The attacks on him escalated further when the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, Sir Mark Rowley, wrote a letter to Polanski suggesting that he was attempting to “undermine the police” by retweeting the photo.
Polanski did apologise for that retweet, but has since rightly come out to criticiseRowley for “interfering with the local elections” by attempting to whip up a negative perception of Polanski and the Greens before the elections had even taken place. Not that it had much effect on the Green vote, which surged, largely at Labour’s expense.
The hypocrisy of Trevor Phillps
The press and media have since been on a relentless campaign to label Polanski as antisemitic, claiming that he does not care about the Jewish community and that he should resign as leader. In a woeful interview on Sky News, presenter Trevor Phillips attempted a hit job on Polanski. Phillips presented a series of hypotheticals that no one would reasonably be able to answer, alongside constant aggressive interruption.
Even when Polanski attempted to bring up the conflation between antisemitism and Zionism – an association encouraged by Israeli leader, Benjamin Netanyahu – Phillips was condescending towards him and dismissed his argument, even though Polanski’s argument is central to much of the discussion and mislabelling of antisemitism that we see today.
Phillips will not admit his bias when it comes to this issue, but during the 2019 general election he was one of the public figures who wrote a letter to TheGuardian claiming that he would refuse to vote for Corbyn on the grounds of the latter’s alleged antisemitism. The following year, however, Phillips himself was suspended from the Labour Party for making racist tropes about Muslims, saying that he was worried about the number of Pakistani Muslim men sexually abusing children, and criticising Muslims for not wearing poppies on Remembrance Day.
That suspension was handed down by the then Labour General Secretary Jennie Formby, an ally of Corbyn, but when Keir Starmer and the right-wing regained power in the party they reinstated Phillips’ membership.
Racist Enablers
Immediately after that interview, a panel of guests discussed various actions being taken on antisemitism. The panel involved former General Secretary of the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers, Mick Lynch, TheTimes columnist Melanie Phillips, (more on which below) and former special adviser to the Liberal Democrats, Polly Mackenzie.
The discussion centred around the banning of pro-Palestinian marches. Lynch gave a fairly reasonable response, arguing that banning these marches would not change someone’s opinion on whether they were antisemitic or not.
But Melanie Phillips argued that these protests should be banned, with comments suggesting that people are fabricating stories about atrocities by Israel in Gaza. She claimed that people were making up accusations that “Israel were killing babies in Gaza”.
She didn’t mention that the charity Save the Childrenestimated that 20,000 children have been killed since Israel began its assault on Gaza, one child every hour. In a report from Al Jazeera earlier this year, Israeli forces reportedly killed a Palestinian child in northern Gaza, despite the supposed “ceasefire” that came into force last October. Such reports are emerging constantly, but Melanie Phillips either does not read them, or actively ignores them in order to fuel a narrative in defence of Israel.
Because she is a staunch Islamophobe, she has written for countless right-wing newspapers, including The Spectator, where she falsely accused the president of the British Muslim Initiative, Muhammad Sawalha, of being antisemitic — an allegation for which both she and The Spectator later had to print an apology.
She has also used her platform to promote antisemitic conspiracy theories, including an article in the Daily Mail in 2007 where she used the term “cultural Marxism” to explain why she believed the UK had become so accepting of gay civil partnerships.
The term “cultural Marxism” has historically been used by the far-right. It comes from the idea that progressives and people who considered themselves Marxist, many of whom happened to be Jewish, have infiltrated institutions with causes on social justice and were manipulating children and young people in the process.
There was a campaign akin to this in Germany prior to 1933, where the Nazis used the terms “cultural Bolshevism” and “Jewish Bolshevism”, claiming that Jewish people were spreading causes (and revolutionary politics), particularly on issues related to sex, gender and identity, throughout the Weimar Republic. [There is a very good breakdown of the definition of “cultural Marxism” written by the Antisemitism Policy Trust, which you can read here.]
Melanie Phillips has also written books that spread her Islamophobic propaganda. One example is Londonistan, published in 2006, which has since been co-opted by the far-right to claim that London, and indeed the United Kingdom as a whole, has become dominated by Islamism.
It is disgraceful, given her track record, that she should be allowed on a panel discussing antisemitism. Yet Trevor Phillips makes no attempt to reveal her background, so that an unsuspecting Sky TV audience might assume she has some authority, because she is “aTimes columnist”.
The Times well represented
This was the nature of the supposed “interview”, in reality a hit-job, done on Polanski by Trevor Phillips. What was not disclosed during the programme is that both Trevor and Melanie Phillips write for The Times.
We can expect a lot more of this in the future
All of this is important because, since that interview was aired, both Trevor and his namesake Melanie have used their platforms as commentators to write pieces attacking Polanski, and The Times itself has been incessantly attempting to discredit him.
Yet there was one attack that will leave Times readers questioning whether the paper is itself contributing to the rise of antisemitism. The paper printed a cartoon of Polanski kicking a police officer whilst they were tasering the Golders Green attacker. There is very little wit or satire in the drawing, qualities for which political cartoons were once respected, but when you look more closely at Polanski’s face, he has been drawn with a visibly crooked nose, what appears to be a classic antisemitic image.
Owen Jones reported in his blog Battlelines that the Green Party submitted a complaint to The Times, with a statement criticising the hypocrisy of the paper for attacking Polanski over alleged antisemitism, whilst itself producing antisemitic depictions of Jewish people in its cartoon. As the statement also noted, Polanski, who is Jewish, faces antisemitism on a daily basis and, as he stated both in the interview and elsewhere, two people have already been arrested for antisemitic actions directed against him.
Has The Times retracted the cartoon and apologised to Polanski? Have both of the Phillipses — who have since written columns claiming that “Jewish people must be protected” — criticised the newspaper for its racist stereotyping in the depiction of Jewish people? The answer to both questions is a resounding NO.
Instead, The Times has simply moved on to attacking Polanski in increasingly ridiculous ways, including reports that the British Red Cross denied that Polanski was a spokesperson for them, although Polanski said as much during his leadership campaign. Polanski has since clarified that he misspoke when describing himself as a “spokesperson”, but made it clear that he had campaigned and carried out work for that organisation.
Does any of this actually matter? Of course it does not. But much like during Corbyn’s time in Labour, the press will stop at nothing to discredit the left in the most shallow and incredulous ways possible and nowadays, the Green Party is a part of the left, infused not only with Polanski’s radicalism, but with the support of many former Labour members.
I will always remember the run-up to the 2017 general election, when the DailyMailran a 13-page attack on Jeremy Corbyn and Labour, repeatedly describing him as a “terrorist” throughout much of the coverage. The reality, both then and now, is that the right are becoming increasingly worried about the prospect of the Greens gaining significant power.
Polanski has seen a surge in popularity because of his shift towards more left-wing ideas and policies, and that terrifies the establishment, which is why attacks are now being directed against him.
Polanski’s Test
But these predictable attacks by the pro-capitalist media, most of it owned by billionaires, there are serious issues that Polanski needs to address. He will need to learn from the mistakes of Jeremy Corbyn and not bend to the pressure of the media. The media, weakness will only invite more attacks. Polanski needs to take the fight directly to the press and the establishment and for him it will be a real test, one of many he will face before the next general election.
This is an important issue because it may have had some effect, notably within the ‘old guard’ of the Green Party, those who dominated the party before its new leader was elected and before its surge of mostly radical members. Former leader, Caroline Lucas, for example, who is nowhere near as radical as Polanski, has criticised the supposed antisemitism within the party. We have seen this before, during the Corbyn period. Polanski should push back against such accusations because ultimately they only seek to undermine him.
In my opinion, Polanski missed a trick when criticising the Metropolitan Police over their handling of the Golders Green attack, and it is a scandal that no newspaper appears to have done its due diligence in scrutinising the response of the Met when the attack took place.
According to a report in the Financial Times, the attacker, Essa Suleiman, had apparently assaulted another man earlier that same day. Scotland Yard carried out searches but were unable to find him. Also, he had reportedly been referred to Prevent six years earlier as a potential danger, but, as reported by The Guardian, the case was closed within six weeks because authorities concluded that he was not dangerous.
In the footage of the arrest the police response does appear to be unnecessarily aggressive and violent. But that should not have been where the criticism ended. Instead, some focus should have been on why the police were involved in such a confrontation in the first place, when there had been multiple opportunities to stop this man before the attack ever happened.
We can expect a crescendo of criticism directed at Polanski in the coming months. Even the Guardian has been splashing Polanski “scandals” across its pages. We have been here before with Jeremy Corbyn, and we will continue to see these kinds of smears whenever a left-wing alternative to the Conservatives, Reform UK, or the right of Labour begins to emerge.
So far, the Green Party and Polanski have been better than Corbyn at levelling criticism against establishment figures like Sir Mark Rowley,The Timesand when there have been smear attempts. But Polanski must also ensure that he is not undermined from within the Greens themselves. The Greens and Polanski must hold their nerve and when there are attacks on them – and there will be – they need to bring the discussion back topolicy, the area where the establishment and the right-wing have nothing to offer.
Source: New York Times Zohran Mamdani met influential New Yorkers last week at a breakfast hosted by the Association for a Better New York. One real estate developer called him “personable.”Credit...Vincent Alban/The New York Times
Richard Mellor
Afscme Local 444, retired
HEO/GED
11-10-25
Some folks think that raising doubts about New York City’s mayor elect, Zohran Mamdani’s ability to produce the goods, or to point out what some of us think are warning signs that could lead to that, are premature and being unnecessarily negative. Myself and others have pointed out some red flags, not out of any effort to undermine Mamdani or belittle his tremendous victory in the face of the most vicious inscrutable opponents; but there is a lot at stake here.
While I think Mamdani’s victory is somewhat different given the massive support and a working class base that is drawn to his relatively mild reforms, we have felt this sort of excitement before only to have our hopes dashed. Bernie Sanders had more than one opportunity to open the door to a new pathway for the US working class electorally and a possible break from the Democratic Party. There was tremendous excitement and hope when Alexandria Ocasio Cortez defeated the entrenched Democratic Party machine candidate in the 2018 Congressional elections and look where she is now; she is a rising star in the party and a possible presidential contender. What happened to the “Squad”? Nothing.
So how Mamdani handles the coming war with the real estate moguls, Wall Street bankers and others that actually run New York City will determine whether this extraordinary achievement accomplishes at least some of his policies and/or leads to a wider offensive against capital both electorally and among the wider working class; both organized and unorganized workers. New York City is a big union town.
We have a lot to lose here if he ends up like Sanders and AOC for example and I think Ken Klippenstein’s recent criticism of his keeping New York Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch that I posted to this blog, is valid and also respectfully offered. It is important that those of us who are politically active in any way our personal resources allow, make sure we keep tabs on these developments.
I read in the NY Times That Jamie Dimon, the CEO of JP Morgan Chase has “reached out” to Mamdani, telling CNN that he is “willing to keep the lines of communication open.”
Dimon’s comments in the Times are important and very revealing. In July, he referred to Mamdani’s policies as, “the same ideological mush that means nothing in the real world." This is definitely contrary to how working people in NYC sees them. Having been forced to accept Zohran Mamdani is the next mayor Dimon says at the prospect of further communication, “If I find it productive, I’ll continue to do it,”
Well we all know what “productive” means to folks like the head of JP Morgan, it means profits. Dimon goes on to say that “New York has to compete” and he’s clearly concerned Mamdani’s “inexperience” (as a venture capitalist, real estate billionaire or hedge fund manager) might hinder capital accumulation and profits. He hopes the, “…mayor-elect will grow in to the job. In Dimon’s experience people in “big” jobs can grow in to the position but there are those for whom it becomes “all about them”. I am assuming Trump is his best example of that. Dimon hopes that, “Mr Mamdani was, ‘the good one’”
Dimon goes on to say that the issues and concerns that Mamdani raises are not a production of capitalism, they are simply, “bad policy”. Dimon is an ardent defender of capitalism and the free market as we can see; it’s been very good for him----he’s worth about $3 billion and, mark my words, he does not expect him and his friends to pay for Mamdani’s reforms and will go through hell and high water to see to it that they don’t.
What is being offered here in this reach out scenario is the hand of death. We know what Dimon is. We know what he wants. And as the Mayor of New York City, Mamdani should have meetings with these people. My personal view of these meetings though is he should have public meetings in the communities that support him to which the representatives of the Partnership For New York City, a consortium of the city’s major players and corporate heads could attend and the discussions public. Let the people he represents ask them questions.
In the closed-door meetings, Mamdani made quite an impression with those people who spent untold millions to defeat him and some described him, “……as eager to find common ground. He is, in other words, a talented politician.”NYT 10-13-2025.
Many disappointments in the past have led to the situation where politics and politicians in the US are seen as inherently corrupt. This false view is not really challenged in the mass media as the idea that politicians betray us (as union officials have) because human nature is naturally greedy is better than facing reality and the understanding that it is capitalist society that is the cause of the crises we face. Once we understand that and how the capitalist mode of production is one era in a historical journey then we can change it.
Mamdani’s election is different to these other examples I give above as his program deals with the immediate needs of his base, (Bernie Sanders did that to a degree also but his efforts were negated through his refusal to break from the Democratic Party and build a mass based left alternative; which was undoubtedly possible at the time) but the stakes are high and joining political hands with AOC and Sanders is a dangerous game.
It is hard to say what future holds but we do know there will be a national effort by the US ruling class, real estate, tech, banking etc to ensure their interests are not harmed and Mamdani turns out to be one of the “good ones”.
The pressure from below will hopefully win out in that game and give Mamdani the support he will need to produce the goods. Hopefully, this exciting moment can lead to the beginnings of a mass movement of workers and youth that gains national traction and changes the balance of class forces in the US. Time will tell.
Zohran Mamdani says he’s keeping New York Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch. It is his first major concession not just to the political establishment but more significantly to the national security system.
This week, I credited Mamdani with having run a campaign that literally met voters where they were at — in bodegas, subway stations and busy sidewalks, where he asked ordinary people to share their concerns. It was a rare moment where people rather than the politician were the main character. His decision to keep Tisch, however, is a whiplash-inducing swing back to the usual protagonists of American life.
The Harvard-educated Tisch, 44, is daughter of billionaire James Tisch, the Chairman of the Board of Loews Corporation. (Members of the Tisch family contributed over $1.2 million to the Cuomo-aligned Super PAC Fix the City.) Though she’s only been Police Commissioner for a year, Tisch has taken national security doctrine to heart.
At a press briefing last month, Tisch called a proposed $80 million federal cut to the NYPD’s counterterrorism budget a “betrayal” and demanded that the matter be placed above politics.
“Counterterrorism funding cannot be a political issue,” Tisch said. “If these cuts go through as planned, it will represent a devastating blow to our counter-terrorism and intelligence programs in New York City.”
Tisch went on to describe the tools that would be effected, including:
“intelligence analysts who uncover plots before they become attacks”
“camera systems that enable us to monitor conditions in real time”
“heavy weapons who guard our subways in major events”
“counter-terrorism patrols”
When asked if the loss of these tools would affect actual crimefighting (as opposed to the pre-crime focus of counterterrorism), Tisch conceded that they wouldn’t.
“No, just to be clear, these cuts are devastating or would be devastating if they go through to our counter-terrorism programs, as opposed to our crime-fighting abilities,” Tisch said.
As a candidate, Mamdani repeatedly emphasized how seriously he takes “public safety” — perhaps in order to distance himself from defund-the-police rhetoric. Mamdani may think that keeping Tisch on is merely a concession to public safety, but it’s really a concession to the system of National Security, as Tisch’s counter-terrorism rhetoric illustrates.
No, not national security like the big, bad CIA, FBI or ICE, but national security in a more subtle, corrosive sense: the belief that some decisions are just too important to be left to elected officials, to voters, to democracy. Some things, as Tisch put it, “cannot be a political issue.”
Mamdani might believe that national security can be left to the national security experts, while he focuses on his affordability agenda. This ignores the budgetary tribute exacted by the national security apparatus. Most importantly, it ignores the suffocating effect it has on democracy: namely, its bone-deep conviction that national security is too important be left to civilians.
It is, instead, the only sanctioned way of thinking in America: There’s no alternative in American society other than to comply with its unwritten rules, even for a popular mayor of the largest American city. Everything is subordinate to it.
“I’ve made my decision to retain Commissioner Tisch,” Mamdani told Good Morning America on Wednesday, the day after the election.
When asked by Will Menaker of the popular leftist podcast Chapo Trap House to explain his support for Tisch, Mamdani’s reply was uncharacteristically vague, saying that she was focused on public safety.
“I’ve seen in the work that she has done and also in the, in the commentary that she has shared in public as to her focus being on public safety,” Mamdani said. “I’m looking to build on that under my administration, and deliver the public safety agenda I’ve been running on.”
The purported focus on public safety is certainly the impression left by the innumerable major media profiles of her. When I asked an NYPD counterterrorism officer about all the positive press about her, he joked: “Daddy’s dollars have reach.”
Tisch’s name does command outsized influence in New York. In the weeks leading up to the election, the Mayor-elect had teased the decision — to the praise of party bigwigs like House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and New York Governor Kathy Hochul. Jeffries has repeatedly cited Mamdani’s decision to retain Tisch among his reasons for endorsing him, despite their disagreements on Israel.
“ I did think it was interesting yesterday and a strong step that was taken by Zohran, the Democratic nominee, when he indicated his intention to retain our current police commissioner, Jessica Tisch,” Jeffries told Bloomberg shortly before the election. “I think that probably will provide a lot of comfort to people, uh, throughout the city of New York. She’s done a great job. She’s well respected.”
The national security consensus is at times surreal. During one of their election debates, all three candidates — Mamdani, Cuomo, and the beret-donning Curtis Sliwa — agreed to keep Tisch. Mamdani’s joining in was a total inversion of the image that first catapulted him into the public consciousness, when he was the lone candidate who would not pledge to visit Israel.
And Tisch seems to know how strong a hand she’s holding. As Bloomberg reported shorty before the polls closed: “Tisch is willing to remain in her post under Zohran Mamdani as long as the progressive mayor-elect allows her to keep pursuing her agenda.”
Mamdani might think he’s choosing the path of least resistance, but what he’s really chosen is a straitjacket. But his decision is a straitjacket. As he moves forward as Mayor, he has suggested in his decision that the NYPD will operate autonomously, or at least in accordance with the rules of national security. As a result, the mayor may have trouble questioning the premise, the priorities, the means of policing, or the accepted assumptions behind fighting whatever national security labels terrorism — a term that is becoming increasingly political.
Asked to comment on the growing politicization of counterterrorism (see: NSPM-7) and how she plans to skirt that trend, Tisch’s office did not respond to a request for comment. Mamdani’s campaign also did not respond to a request for comment.
So will Mamdani ask Tisch to do anything differently regarding police intervention at colleges and universities, its obsession with Muslims, or assisting the feds and Trump administration? Will he attack NYPD practices and biases with regard to profiling or discrimination, or sexual harassment, or corruption, or cronyism?
Mamdani has been willing to break a number of the supposedly ironclad rules of politics. Let’s see if he’s willing to do the same with the cult of national security.
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“You can’t talk about solving the economic problem of the Negro without talking about billions of dollars. You can’t talk about ending the slums without first saying profit must be taken out of slums. You’re really tampering and getting on dangerous ground because you are messing with folk then. You are messing with captains of industry. Now this means that we are treading in difficult water, because it really means that we are saying that something is wrong with capitalism.” – Martin Luther King 1966.
The stunning victory of Zohran Mamdani in the Democratic mayoral primary for New York City last week, has without doubt driven the US ruling class and the Democratic Party bigwigs in to a frenzy.
Not only is Mamdani a Muslim, his condemnation of Israel and calling the Zionist regime’s actions against the Palestinian people a genocide, did not upend his campaign despite numerous attempts by the big business media to do so; and this is in the city that is second only to Tel Aviv in its Jewish population.
This comes as no surprise. Israel’s barbaric slaughter of Palestinians, perhaps as many as 400,000 have been murdered over 20 months of relentless bombings, has had a huge effect on the US population, young Jews in particular. According to a Pew Research poll, 71percent of Democrats of ages 18–49 have a negative view of Israel in 2025, and 66 percent of Democrats 50 or older do too.
But it is Mamdani’s reform platform that was key to his victory and eventually led to a campaign of 50,000 volunteers, many of them rank and file union members, knocking door to door and visiting working class communities. He spoke directly to the needs and desires of the vast majority of the people in New York City.
His Proposals He proposes to make all city buses free by 2027 and introduce a rent freeze on all rent-stabilised apartments. Rent freezes are not new and have been introduced by prior mayors. The average rent for a two-room apartment in New York City can vary between $4000 and $7000 a month depending on location. In addition, Mamdani is planning to establish a Social Housing Development Agency that would build publicly-owned, permanently affordable housing according to reports in the media. He also intends to create a new Department of Community Safety staffed by mental health professionals, crisis responders and outreach workers and has pledged to expand free school-meal programs to include city colleges, and to offer universal childcare and early education programs.
On immigrant rights, he will not allow the NYPD to assist ICE in rounding up immigrants for deportation and will defend New York City’s pledge as a sanctuary city.
He is also campaigning for a $30 an hour minimum wage.
Mamdani says his social reforms can be paid for by raising the corporate tax rate from 7.25 percent to 11.5 percent which would put it on par with the corporate rate in neighboring New Jersey, and imposing a 2 percent surcharge on individuals earning more than $1m per year.
He says these measures could bring in over $9 billion annually.
His platform is a relatively mild reformist program and is certainly not enough to bankrupt the city of New York. But we are in the belly of the capitalist beast here in the US so any attempt to return the wealth of the country that workers produce to us in the form of social services, is attacked as communism and anti-American.
As usual, the trade union leadership is relatively quiet but the UAW did endorse Mamdani back in December last year and Afscme Council 37 in NYC endorsed three candidates in the primary which has ranked choice voting so it will likely endorse him in November. Afscme is my former union and DC 37 is the largest council in the country.
There is a strong chance that Mamdani will prevail in the Mayoral election in November but there are already plans being hatched in the big business community to derail the campaign. The defeated Cuomo is staying on the ballot for that election and deciding whether he will run or not as an Independent.
Former mayor, and ex-cop Eric Adams, a Democrat, announced he will be running as an independent claiming Mamdani as lacking experience among other things. Adams was indicted for bribery, fraud, and soliciting illegal foreign campaign donations, (what’s AIPAC for heaven’s sake. By that measure the entire US political establishment is accepting illegal foreign campaign donations)
As for his tax proposals, they have to be approved by the legislature and in the interview above with CNN he gives some examples of the costs and effects on the big business community. While the interviewer was not openly hostile, CNN is compelled to make sure when he is talking about state run grocery stores, “….you're not looking at some, like Soviet Union, grocery stores on every corner that are going to be run by the government.?”. This country's mass media is something else. Mind you, the BBC is no different.
Despite what is really a mild reform platform, the level of panic from the capitalist class and its political representative, is formidable. Beside the name calling, Trump referred to Mamdani as "100% Communist Lunatic" and Adams has called Mamdani a “Snake oil salesman”, Mamdani has faced all the Islamophobic slurs and will no doubt have more to deal with as he picks up steam.
New York City’s money men are going on the offensive in the aftermath of the primaries result and are preparing to bankroll a candidate to stop his campaign in November. It appears likely to be Adams, and a judge dropped Adams’ indictment under pressure from Trump allegedly; what a coincidence.
Eric Adams and hedge fund manager, Democrat Daniel Loeb, (worth $3 billion plus), met with other business leaders and political brokers to discuss how to stop Zohran Mamdani’s forward motion according to reports in the press. From what I understand Loeb is a staunch supporter of the Israeli Apartheid regime like many billionaires. Billions of US taxpayer dollars to slaughter innocent people is no problem for them
“You want to have leadership that speaks to what New York is,” says Scott Rechler CEO of a Real Estate firm, “It’s the capital of capitalism.” The City 6-26-25
GOP megadonor John Catsimatidis (worth $4.1 billion) is organizing other billionaires in a united front for November and Bill Ackman (worth $9.1billion) another, social parasite, hedge fund manager, and Trump supporter has made it clear there are millions of dollars available to derail Mamdani’s Mayoral aspirations. Ackman makes his views very clear: "The problem, however, is that his policies would be disastrous for NYC. Socialism has no place in the economic capital of our country,"
Not only is Ackman wrong about Mamdani’s policies being socialist, they are certainly far from a disaster for NYC, even for billionaires like Ackman. Ackman and the big capitalists concern is that any steps that favor even in the slightest, the worker over the capitalist, or the public over the private, are a dangerous precedent to set. The anger he knows exists among millions of US workers and poor is always in danger of bursting on to the scene with a vengeance.
But this early offensive is just the shot across the bow. If Mamdani wins the Mayoral race in November, there will be as major offensive from the entire US capitalist class, its media, its political parties, the pulpits of the Evangelical Protestant movement and some other religious institutions, along with the right-wing podcasters and talk show hosts.
And this is to unseat or block the policies of a candidate in a capitalist party and who is a supporter of the capitalist system.
Mamdani will have to have a plan to confront this “shock and Awe” approach from the US ruling class if he does not want to end up in the same sinking ship as Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio Cortez. He needs to stand apart from their approach. He is in the Democratic Party which is an obstacle but he must make it loud and clear in his speeches and to his supporters that he will be facing an all out capitalist offensive in November and particularly after, if he emerges victorious.
He has an opportunity, like Sanders did in 2016 and beyond, to open a pathway to a genuine working class movement against the intensifying offensive of capital in the US. He needs to spread the campaign to other cities and turn 50,000 volunteers in to 5 million and begin a process of building links between different areas of the country.
New York City cannot function without the support of the city’s unions, particularly the public sector, but also the dock workers for example. Mamdani must appeal to the rank and file support he has to wage a campaign within their unions to join this movement. One way or another he has to point to the immense potential power of organized labor and how that power combined with the unorganized and the rest of the working class is unstoppable. The first Amazon union was won in New York City. This power must be mobilized, his enemies are mobilizing as I write.
He needs to demand without apology, that society provides, and can provide, what people need to live a decent and secure existence. He must clearly explain and condemn the likes of Ackman and the capitalist class for denying the American people, not only happiness, but the pursuit of it.
Another major enemy is the Democratic Party old guard. In my view this major capitalist party will not be the party through which the working class and all oppressed people can resolve the crisis of capitalism that is the root cause of the problems Mamdani is claiming to resolve. He can point this out ahead of time and make it clear that if the party old guard is in the way then a break from that party and the building of an independent working class alternative to the two big business parties will be on the agenda.
One of the reasons some workers are attracted to right wing ideas and authoritarian leading figures is, the weak, super woke, identity politics alternative of the Democrats. Power attracts, and most workers know that we are in for a serious battle, look at how our own government treats us. Where are the union leaders or workers’ leaders that are calling for mass violation of anti-union anti-worker laws? They see the right wing and Trump quite willing to do what they want regardless of the US constitution which is a revered, almost divine document to many Americans. Act first and see what happens, is their approach.
Mamdani and anyone like him must not only warn workers and his supporters that we are up against a ruthless foe and we have to act accordingly. We have the numbers, we have the power.
It is positive that Mr. Mamdani doesn’t shy away from being a Democratic Socialist. He needs to champion equally as much the socialist aspect of this. Capitalism is a wasteful system. It cannot feed people. It cannot provide health care to people. It cannot address the climate crisis. It cannot put people to work, provide decent education or transportation.
The US post office (USPS) is the most efficient business in the US. It delivers mail to you wherever you live in this country. It doesn’t have to make a profit, it’s a public service. Our public services are poor when compared to other industrialized countries. The likes of Ackman, Gates, Musk, all the billionaires, have no qualms defending policies and laws that lead to hundreds of thousands of deaths every year. While I reject his failed methods, the guy that assassinated the health care CEO had tremendous support from millions of US workers as health care is such a disgrace here.
If the private sector can’t provide jobs, provide mass transit, health care, decent public education and the necessities we need to live a decent life, then the major corporations here that are practically a dictatorship over US economic life must be taken under public ownership.
As the battle heats up the billionaires, and others, will go on a strike of capital or withdraw it completely. They will threaten to move house. They have no loyalty to any country or any community, their world is global and they will take their capital elsewhere. The answer to that must be to stop them, to take under public ownership the financial industry, banks etc. They don’t hesitate to take your house and home so don’t fret it.
They have a right to live a decent life but not if it results in. users for millions of others.
The rich are hated in this country. There is a serious mood for change and people like Mamdani, the politic representatives of capital and the trade union leadership know this and are also afraid of it. The so-called liberal elements, like the labor hierarchy are forced to appeal to this immense social power to wring concessions from the bosses’, and it has amounted to a slower death as they always have to keep this power contained; they just need to let off some steam. Workers have had enough of that. The Democratic party electorally is one way and the massive increase of the security state, as exampled by ICE is another form of this containment.
Another opportunity knocks, this time for Zohran Mamdani. It’s up to him whether he takes it or not.
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