In the aftermath of Zohran Mamdani’s decisive victory in Tuesday’s Democratic mayoral primary in New York City, politicians from both capitalist parties have lined up to denounce the Democratic Socialists of America member and his very modest reform proposals.
Republicans in New York and nationally have responded with overtly racist rhetoric and fascistic threats to “denaturalize” and deport Mamdani. In a letter sent Thursday to Trump’s attorney general, Pam Bondi, Tennessee Republican Congressman Andy Ogles urged the Department of Justice to “open an investigation into whether Zohran Kwame Mamdani… should be subject to denaturalization proceedings on the grounds that he may have procured US citizenship through willful misrepresentation or concealment of material support for terrorism.”
Mamdani was born in Uganda in 1991 and moved to New York City with his parents at the age of seven. He became a naturalized US citizen in 2018, after spending nearly two decades navigating the American immigration system.
In a racist post on X accompanying the letter, Ogles—one of more than 140 Republicans who voted against certifying the 2020 election after Trump’s brownshirts stormed the Capitol on January 6, 2021—wrote:
Zohran ‘little muhammad’ Mamdani is an antisemitic, socialist, communist who will destroy the great City of New York. He needs to be DEPORTED. Which is why I am calling for him to be subject to denaturalization proceedings.
Ogles followed his letter with several posts attacking “little muhammad,” including one featuring an AI-generated image of himself alongside a wild-eyed Mamdani holding two red books each marked with a yellow hammer and sickle, alongside the phrase “Deport Zohran.”
President Donald Trump, after calling Mamdani “a 100% Communist Lunatic” on his social media platform, followed up with another post declaring, “Our Country is really SCREWED!” referring to Mamdani as “our future Communist Mayor of New York City.”
In an interview on Fox Business with former Trump administration official Larry Kudlow, “border czar” Tom Homan threatened retaliation against the entire city of New York. He vowed to escalate deportation operations in the city, including workplace raids, in response to Mamdani’s pledge to get “fascist ICE out of New York City.”
Kudlow asked Homan: “How do you intend to deal with that? Because I would guess there are going to be a lot of criminals and Iranian cells and whatnot in New York City—the job’s not done there. What do you say to this guy?”
“Good luck with that,” Homan replied. “Federal law trumps him... every hour of every minute. We are going to be in New York City. As a matter of fact, because it’s a sanctuary city, President Trump made it clear a week and a half ago—we are going to double down and triple down on sanctuary cities.”
Homan added, “Not only are we going to send more agents into the neighborhoods, we’re going to increase worksite enforcement tenfold. If we can’t arrest them in the jails, and you force them into the neighborhoods, then we’re going to find them in the neighborhoods. If we can’t find them in the neighborhoods, we’ll find them at the worksites. So—game on. We’re coming.”
The day after the primary, on June 25, Trump’s fascist Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy and Homeland Security Stephen Miller posted on X: “NYC is the clearest warning yet of what happens to a society when it fails to control migration.”
Within sections of the financial press, a panic is setting in. CNBC commenter Joe Kernen declared on Wednesday that an “eat the rich,” “class warfare” mentality is sweeping New York, likening the situation to a scene in Batman: “They’re taking Wall Streeters and making them walk out onto the ice in the East River and then they fall through.”
Commenting Wednesday on the response within the political establishment, WSWS Editorial Board Chairman David North wrote, “It is not the rather milquetoast program of Mamdani, who works within the framework of the Democratic Party, that frightens them. It is that his victory reveals that socialism is not anathema to Americans, and that it is capable of acquiring mass support—and probably in a far more radical form.”
Instead of defending Mamdani from these fascist attacks, many Democrats have piled on. Less than two hours after Miller’s post, first-term New York Democratic Representative Laura Gillen posted on X:
Socialist Zohran Mamdani is too extreme to lead New York City… Mamdani has called to defund the police and has demonstrated a deeply disturbing pattern of unacceptable antisemitic comments, which stoke hate at a time when antisemitism is skyrocketing. He is the absolute wrong choice for New York.
In an interview on the Brian Lehrer Show Thursday, Democratic New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand falsely claimed that Mamdani supported “global jihad,” because of his refusal to condemn the term “global intifada.” She added that this is a “very serious issue, because people who glorify the slaughter of Jews create fear in our communities.”
Lehrer noted that in an interview with Mamdani on Monday, the candidate had explained that “intifada” is “a much broader term involving all kinds of uprisings and resistance,” and that he did not “want to be the word police.”
Gillibrand called on Mamdani not only to stop using the word “intifada,” but also to denounce terms like “jihad” and “from the river to the sea,” which she claimed “is received as ‘slaughter the Jews and destroy Israel, period.’ It’s how it’s received.”
By “received,” Gillibrand means this is how words are manipulated and distorted by the ruling class to criminalize and stigmatize opposition to the US-backed Israeli genocide in Gaza and the ethnic cleansing campaign in the West Bank.
Despite losing to Mamdani by some 80,000 votes, Andrew Cuomo—the favored candidate of Wall Street and the Democratic Party establishment—has not ruled out running on an independent ballot line. In an interview with CBS on Wednesday, Cuomo said, “People are very concerned about the assemblyman.”
The long-time Democratic politician noted that none of Mamdani’s proposals to impose a statewide tax on the wealthy and large corporations would be passed by the Democratic-controlled state legislature or signed into law by Democratic Governor Kathy Hochul.
Near the end of the softball interview, the CBS reporter tried to get Cuomo to confirm that he would be campaigning in the months ahead. Cuomo responded that he wanted to wait for a full count of the votes before deciding how aggressively he would campaign, while also noting the potential role Trump might play in the election.
“Let’s take a look at the general election landscape—who actually runs, who doesn’t run. What is President Trump going to do? [Nervous laughter.] Who knows how he may choose to get involved in the general election, right? Nothing would surprise me about that. And we have time, so let’s take one step at a time.”
Asked on Thursday if she would support Zohran Mamdani’s candidacy, New York Governor Kathy Hochul refused to give a clear answer, saying, “The election just completed,” and that she looked “forward to having a conversation. Obviously, there are areas of difference in our positions, but I also think we need to have those conversations.”
Speaking to Axios, several unnamed House Democrats expressed concern over the specter of socialism raised by Mamdani’s campaign. “There’s a lot of anxiety,” a senior House Democrat told the publication.
While Mamdani appears to have secured the Democratic nomination, he will face several opponents in the November election. On Thursday, current New York City Mayor Eric Adams formally announced his re-election campaign. The widely hated incumbent, currently polling at just 10 percent, is not running on the Democratic Party ballot line.
In one of four appearances on Fox News leading up to his formal campaign launch, Adams repeatedly attacked Mamdani, describing him as “a snake-oil salesman” and someone “who doesn’t understand the power of government.” Speaking in front of City Hall on Thursday, Adams further denounced Mamdani as a “silver spoon socialist.”
Many of the same oligarchs and ultra-wealthy donors who backed Cuomo’s failed bid are now considering throwing their ill-gotten largesse behind Adams’s campaign in a bid to derail Mamdani.
In an interview with the New York Times on Wednesday, Scott Rechler—“one of the city’s biggest landlords”—said that if the race came down to Mamdani and Adams, he would support the latter. “You want to have leadership that speaks to what New York is,” Rechler told the paper. “It’s the capital of capitalism.”