{"id":13876,"date":"2025-04-21T23:03:41","date_gmt":"2025-04-22T03:03:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tempestmag.org\/?p=13876"},"modified":"2025-04-27T02:38:31","modified_gmt":"2025-04-27T06:38:31","slug":"within-and-without","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tempestmag.org\/test02\/2025\/04\/within-and-without\/","title":{"rendered":"Within and without?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span class=\"dropcap\">T<\/span>he race to elect New York City\u2019s next mayor has devolved, continually, on an almost daily basis. And it started out bad. A year ago, incumbent Democratic mayor Eric Adams appeared to have a lock on reelection, despite a track record of scandal and regressive policies that targeted the most vulnerable\u2014immigrants, the mentally ill, unhoused New Yorkers, library users, people in the justice system, and so on.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Then it got worse. Adams, who has flirted with the <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.com\/news\/2021\/05\/12\/eric-adams-gambling-deal-487684\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">disreputable and legally questionable<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> since being elected as a state legislator in 2006, was <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.justice.gov\/usao-sdny\/pr\/new-york-city-mayor-eric-adams-charged-bribery-and-campaign-finance-offenses\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">indicted<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> on federal corruption and bribery charges last September. The weak field of alternatives\u2014the current citywide comptroller, a former comptroller, a handful of past and present state legislators, and a few rich no-names\u2014suddenly gained newfound interest, mostly from the press corps. And a new specter cast an ever-growing shadow: the prospect of <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2021\/03\/13\/us\/politics\/andrew-cuomo-scandals.html?unlocked_article_code=1.Ak8.2QL4.k9QgcrfoZCWr&amp;smid=url-share\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">former governor<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Andrew Cuomo\u2014\u201c<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/newrepublic.com\/article\/161866\/andrew-cuomo-creepy-tyrant-albany\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">the creepy tyrant of Albany<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201d\u2014jumping into the race, given the mortally wounded Adams campaign.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Things have only spiraled further since. Trump\u2019s election led to a blossoming bromance between the former Republican Adams and the president-elect. The wooing appeared to pay off, as Trump\u2019s Department of Justice took the unprecedented step of ending its prosecution of Adams. In response, seven government lawyers resigned. As it became clear Adams was now little more than a Trump stooge, his public support collapsed, and at the 11th hour, the looming shade stepped into the light: Andrew Cuomo officially <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/cuomo-mayor-new-york-city-mayor-1ed3ebb2c60acd53bb49bb5ee9921890\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">announced<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> he was running for mayor, just before the deadline to do so. He immediately became the frontrunner.<\/span><\/p>\n<aside class=\"pullquote\">For those looking for an alternative to the system that produced Eric Adams and numerous other feckless elected Democrats, the prospect of a Cuomo mayoralty feels like a terminal diagnosis.<\/aside>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This morass of the villainous, the uninspiring, and the unmemorable has shown how completely broken and unresponsive to the public the Democratic Party has become in New York City (as it has across the country, as last year\u2019s elections painfully showed). It stands as an indictment of the political oppression that has choked off any real challenge to the city&#8217;s dominant one-party rule. For those looking for an alternative to the system that produced Eric Adams and numerous other feckless elected Democrats, the prospect of a Cuomo mayoralty feels like a terminal diagnosis.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">But this isn\u2019t the whole story. Certain left circles, far from diagnosing doomsday, see within the local political situation a unique and exciting opportunity for a real voice to be heard that articulates a deeply progressive vision for New York City. In many ways, it\u2019s grown not in spite of but <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">because<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> of the crisis within the Democratic Party.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The candidacy of Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani has buoyed hopes that this year could be different. A leader in the Democratic Socialists of America and an avowed democratic socialist, Mamdani has tried to catch lightning in a bottle by running for mayor within the Democratic Party primary.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Despite <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/nymag.com\/intelligencer\/article\/donald-trump-new-york-election-results-turning-red.html\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">misdiagnoses<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, New York City was and has remained overwhelmingly Democratic. It\u2019s true that Trump\u2019s percentage of the vote in the city was significantly better in 2024 than it was in 2016. This was, indeed, a harbinger of the political collapse Democrats faced in November, but not because Trumpism (whatever that is these days) was making major gains among New Yorkers. Rather, it was a reflection of a <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/tempestmag.org\/test02\/2024\/11\/not-showing-up-for-harris\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">massive enthusiasm gap<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> that saw nearly 600,000 voters who had supported Biden in 2020 fail to show up for Harris. This pattern appeared to repeat itself across the country.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The lesson learned from what happened in New York and elsewhere has become a dividing line within the Democratic Party. While the party\u2019s leadership has bought into the idea that reorienting itself towards Trump\u2019s brand of nationalistic, xenophobic authoritarianism is the way to win back some imaginary centrist voter, those on the party\u2019s left flank\u2014specifically those with ties to DSA\u2014have been arguing that the failure to adopt <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/jacobin.com\/2025\/03\/bernie-sanders-independent-candidates-pro-worker\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">working-class politics and policies<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> will continue to lead to underwhelming support and turnout for Democrats.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Sen. Bernie Sanders have been barnstorming through swing districts and holding rallies, making this case. While mainstream media have labeled them \u201c<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.com\/news\/2025\/03\/26\/what-the-bernie-sanders-and-alexandria-ocasio-cortez-mega-rallies-are-really-about-00249753\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">socialist firebrands<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201d it\u2019s far closer to the truth that Ocasio-Cortez, who is being presented as <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nbcnews.com\/politics\/congress\/democrats-desperately-searching-new-leaders-aoc-stepping-void-rcna196816\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">the future<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> of the Democratic Party, is increasingly being seen as <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/nymag.com\/intelligencer\/2023\/07\/alexandria-ocasio-cortez-is-just-a-regular-old-democrat-now.html\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">simply a Democrat<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. And while Sanders remains a kind of <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2025\/03\/20\/us\/politics\/bernie-sanders-democrats-independents.html\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">left standard bearer,<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> his decision to <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/bernie-sanders-biden-endorsement-2024-d8f0772b117e2bf83e1062708ea651c0\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">back Biden\u2019s disastrous reelection<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> effort shows he is more than willing to put party over people.<\/span><\/p>\n<aside class=\"pullquote\">Mamdani\u2019s bid for mayor predates the Democrats\u2019 shellacking in November, but his campaign represents the ongoing battle and committed political tactics of the DSA\u2019s inside-out approach.<\/aside>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Mamdani\u2019s bid for mayor predates the Democrats\u2019 shellacking in November, but his campaign represents the ongoing battle and committed political tactics of the DSA\u2019s inside-out approach. This is the playbook that Sanders, Ocasio-Cortez, and Mamdani have stuck with: democratic socialists who run as Democrats and, when they win, continue to operate within the Democratic Party, forming a left wing inside of whatever body they happen to join, be it in the United States Congress or New York\u2019s 150-person Assembly.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This tactic aims to support a multi-generational effort to move the Democrats further to the left, despite being repelled again and again by a political party owned outright by the capitalist class. DSA represents an evolution in this quest. Prior to their explosion around Sanders&#8217; 2016 bid to secure the Democratic Party\u2019s nomination for president, the plan followed by groups in New York like the Working Families Party was to back the most progressive candidate in a given race, placing them on their own ballot line, allowed under New York\u2019s somewhat unique \u201cfusion\u201d process. Vote for said candidate on our line in the general election to send a message, the theory went.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Time and again, WFP\u2019s vote totals were dwarfed by votes on the Democratic Party line. Their <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/workingfamilies.org\/state\/new-york\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">list of candidates<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> is simply who would have won as Democrats regardless of WFP support, leaving each of those figures without a self-interested reason to cater to whatever policies WFP may have. The ineffectiveness of WFP\u2019s tactic provided, at the very least, an opportunity for left activists committed to working within the Democratic Party to deploy a marginally more aggressive plan: rather than waiting for a candidate to emerge from the Democratic Primary, recruited DSA candidates would run in the primary to become the party\u2019s nominee. This formulation led to Ocasio-Cortez, Mamdani, and a good number of other DSA-backed candidates getting elected in New York at every legislative level.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">However, this tactic has proven to be only partially successful. First, getting DSA candidates elected as Democrats generally requires a heavily Democratic district as a starting point, which rules out Republican-contested areas outside (or even inside) New York City or other, typically urban, strongholds. Even when elected, DSA members are working within the Democratic Party, and generally have not proven to be impediments to party priorities. For example, Ocasio-Cortez sided with the Biden administration\u2019s decision to force a bad contract down the throats of striking rail workers.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Working in a legislature with dozens of other members is a much different dynamic than becoming the chief executive of the largest city in the United States. Mamdani\u2019s campaign, then, represents an escalation of the inside-out tactic. On the media front, he and his team have managed to secure plenty of positive press from mainstream media like the New York Times. They\u2019ve also done a remarkable job accruing resources, maxing out the city\u2019s generous 8-to-1 primary public funding threshold, providing them with $8 million ahead of the June election.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">These positive points have yet to result in a change in the basic data on the race. Even if Mamdani has been gaining support and is viewed as the second most-favored candidate, the latest polls continue to show Cuomo with a significant advantage over everyone. According to a poll by Data for Progress, which takes into account the city\u2019s rank-choice voting system, Cuomo still ends up winning the primary with 70 percent on the final ballot, more than doubling Mamdani\u2019s projected 30 percent.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Continuing to deploy this inside-out tactic within the corrupt corpse of the Democratic Party means limited victory, and when the likely defeat occurs, what energy and excitement\u2013not to mention an articulation of some set of socialist solutions to the world around us\u2013is snuffed out. Thousands of other voters, who are only eligible to vote in the general election, are left with the f<\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">ait accompli<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> of whomever the Democratic nominee is being the next mayor.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">More than a few political observers, including many of Mamdani\u2019s supporters, will likely argue that there\u2019s no way to win outside the Democratic Party. Rarely is it considered that there\u2019s also no way to win within it, whether in New York City or elsewhere. Mamdani\u2019s distant second position notwithstanding, the coalition that elected Eric Adams, and that is poised to back Cuomo, is the core of the party\u2019s base: largely non-white outer-borough communities that tend to be more religious, older, and home-owning. A winning coalition for any socialist candidate will need a broad base of support from working-class voters in every community. That simply is not an option in the Democratic primary.<\/span><\/p>\n<aside class=\"pullquote\">A winning coalition for any socialist candidate will need a broad base of support from working-class voters in every community. That simply is not an option in the Democratic primary.<\/aside>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">More critically, the inside-out tactic cannot survive outside of the Democratic Party, as the party itself is the base from which each candidate must run. That may seem evident, but it means that allegedly socialist candidates are not being grown from the kind of worker-led mass movement conditions that many on the Left see as critical to the future success of any socialist political project. Absent a solidified base of support, the DSA-backed candidates ultimately rely on the same sources of support as any other Democrat\u2014Democratic donors and party leadership. Their jobs, their livelihoods, now depend on capitalists who are willing to keep money flowing into the party and their campaign accounts as long as policies that benefit wealth over workers remain in place. It\u2019s been a constant in Democratic politics, at the very least, since the party fully abandoned labor and embraced Wall Street during the Clinton Era \u201cThird Way\u201d neoliberal push. These environmental conditions cannot help but have a corrosive impact on any candidate who claims to support socialist principles and goals.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">By clinging to the partisan primary process, candidates like Mamdani ultimately serve the interests of the Democratic Party\u2014which makes sense, because they\u2019re Democrats. At the end of the day, should he not win, the Assemblymember has to go back to work within his overwhelmingly Democratic conference. To present oneself as an actual challenge to the system, by running against another Democrat in the general election, would initiate a crisis, which would harm those whose paycheck and standing are entirely tied to the Democratic Party. However much an independent socialist candidate in the general election might be needed\u2014and wanted\u2014expecting an elected Democrat to take that risk is unlikely, regardless of how avowed their commitment to socialism.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">And what if Mamdani stuns the world and wins the Democratic primary? It will mean he is likely the next Democratic mayor\u2014which is to say, <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.leftvoice.org\/socialist-alderman-in-chicago-votes-to-give-1-7-billion-to-the-police\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">like others<\/span><\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/tempestmag.org\/test02\/2022\/12\/the-dsa-caboose\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">in relatively<\/span><\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/vtdigger.org\/2024\/05\/31\/burlington-mayor-emma-mulvaney-stanak-reappoints-jon-murad-as-police-chief\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">similar situations<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, that the eroding effects of being hopelessly dependent on the party will mean the hopes of a true socialist in city hall are fleeting, at best. This is the reason why the DSA\u2019s model for change is ultimately built to fail. You don\u2019t change the Democratic Party; the Democratic Party changes you. Like a leopard who can\u2019t change its spots, a political party wholly owned by the capitalist class will work on behalf of that class, no matter how many times well-meaning people try to change it.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The effects of this system are on display all around us, and the view is bleak. Even so, the solution has remained the same through the decades: build independent socialist institutions that can engage with and grow a working-class movement for real change. Political solutions will emerge, and a new vision for how things can be will present itself. But these won\u2019t ever include the Democratic Party.<\/span><\/p>\n<hr class=\"half\">\n<p>Opinions expressed in signed articles do not necessarily represent the views of the editors or the Tempest Collective. For more information, see <a href=\"https:\/\/tempestmag.org\/test02\/about\/\">About Tempest Collective<\/a>. <\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><small>Featured Image credit: <a href=\"https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/wiki\/File:Andrew_Cuomo_2019.jpg#\/media\/File:Andrew_Cuomo_2019.jpg\">Delta News Hub<\/a>; modified by Tempest.<\/small><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p><strong>BC Hamilton <\/strong>explains that Zohran Mamdani\u2019s bid for mayor represents the ongoing battle and committed political tactics of the DSA\u2019s inside-out approach. This is the playbook that Sanders, Ocasio-Cortez, and Mamdani have stuck with: democratic socialists who run as Democrats and, when they win, continue to operate within the Democratic Party, forming a left wing inside of whatever body they happen to join, be it in the United States Congress or New York\u2019s 150-person Assembly.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":350,"featured_media":13878,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[28,240,61],"class_list":["post-13876","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-article","tag-dsa","tag-electoral-politics","tag-new-york-city"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/tempestmag.org\/test02\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/postal_workers_interview_feature_card-6-1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tempestmag.org\/test02\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13876","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tempestmag.org\/test02\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tempestmag.org\/test02\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tempestmag.org\/test02\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/350"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tempestmag.org\/test02\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13876"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tempestmag.org\/test02\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13876\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tempestmag.org\/test02\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13878"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tempestmag.org\/test02\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13876"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tempestmag.org\/test02\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13876"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tempestmag.org\/test02\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13876"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}