On Sunday, in an appearance on CNN’s State of the Union program, Democratic House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries refused to answer the question put to him several times by anchor Dana Bash as to why he has not endorsed the winner of the New York City Democratic mayoral primary election, Zohran Mamdani, a member of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA). He dodged the question, saying he was “engaged in a conversation” with Mamdani on a variety of topics.
To date, none of the leading national or state figures in the Democratic Party, including, besides Jeffries, New York senators Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand and Governor Kathy Hochul, have endorsed Mamdani. Gillibrand was recently forced to retract her statement that Mamdani’s position on Palestine is “glorifying the slaughter of Jews.”
The refusal to date of top national and state elected Democrats to endorse the party’s candidate in the country’s largest city, more than two months after the primary, is extraordinary. It is an expression of a deep crisis pervading the Democratic Party.
Mamdani, who refers to himself as a socialist and opposes the Gaza genocide, ran on a program of minor reforms, such as a freeze on rent increases on rent-regulated apartments, free bus service and universal childcare. He won the votes of hundreds of thousands of workers and young people, in a lopsided victory over former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo and other contenders.
The oligarchy that controls both big business parties demands that the next administration in New York impose sweeping austerity measures as state and federal funding for education and social programs evaporates.
Moreover, the Democratic Party has swung so far to the right since the Reagan era, working with Republicans to redistribute the national income from the bottom to the top, gut social programs, and wage aggressive imperialist wars, that even nominal opposition to these policies sets off alarm bells. The oligarchic character of American society is such that the class of billionaires that dominates US politics is not willing to sanction even the most modest incursion into its members’ fabulous fortunes.
Both Cuomo and the current mayor, Eric Adams, are running as independents against Mamdani, with varying degrees of support from ruling circles in the city and state. Both are trailing far behind Mamdani in the polls...