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Garrison Davis
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Garrison Davis
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- [00:26]
Garrison Davis
On Sunday, April 12, I went to the basement nightclub in Queens. Like usual, someone scanned my ticket at the big gate off Flushing Avenue. I had to wait in a winding line outside the door, went through security and finally reached the DJ and bar. But instead of the regular collection of twinks, dolls and bisexuals, the room was full of city workers, politicians, journalists and DSA members, a decent number of which probably were bisexual. I suppose technically we were directly above the basement nightclub in the Knockdown center event venue Gathered this Sunday afternoon to attend Mayor Zoran Mamdani's 100 day address. I'm Garrison Davis. This is It Could Happen Here, a show about things falling apart and sometimes putting stuff back together. This one is one of those rare episodes focused on the latter. Earlier this April marked Mayor Mamdani's first 100 days in office. This episode I'll discuss what Zoron has done these first 100 days, some of the challenges he's faced, if he's been able to deliver on the promises of his campaign and how he's adapted to the power and constraints of running the biggest city in the country, and finally, what all this could mean for the future of working class and left wing politics in the United States. Let's first return to the 100 day address above the basement nightclub. Upon entering the venue, you found yourself in a museum of the administration's first 100 days. This little installation displayed the Mayor's snow shovel from the historic blizzard during Zorin's first few weeks in office, a tenant organizing suggestion board from the rental rip off hearings and a child sized mayoral podium used to announce a new free ChildCare program for two year olds. Museum plaques detailed victories for labor and tenants rights as well as infrastructure accomplishments like scaffolding reform and a pothole blitz that filled over 20,000 potholes in just three days. Before the mayor's speech, a Bronx parent, two tenant organizers and a city worker from the Department of Transportation spoke to the crowd about how life is different under the new administration. Mamdani's speech was effectively a State of the Union for New York City. The Mayor outlined the campaign promises the administration has fulfilled so far in their short time in office and connected his style of governing to the Sewer Socialists of Milwaukee from the first half of the 20th century who focused on strengthening public services because for too long City
- [03:05]
Mayor Zoran Mamdani
hall had not just failed to meet
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Mayor Zoran Mamdani (Speech/Quotes)
expectations, it had lowered them. After years of broken promises, no one in this city could be blamed for doubting that government held either the ability or the ambition to upend the status quo. It As I said on that freezing January afternoon to more than eight and a half million New Yorkers, we will make no apology for what we believe. I was elected as a democratic socialist and I will govern as a democratic socialist.
- [03:42]
Garrison Davis
This speech was really the first time since the inauguration that the Mayor has talked at length about what it means to govern as a democratic socialist and the example that New York City can set for the rest of the country. The address was mostly attended by city workers who the mayor invited to enter into a ticket lottery. For most of the speech, I was pinned between a group of uniformed Department of Sanitation employees and and workers from the Department of Consumer and Worker Protection. The event in general was focused on uplifting civil servants and celebrating public service, whether that be bus drivers, school teachers, or the sanitation workers that kept the city running during the worst snowstorm in years. It feels like for the past few decades, the only public sector job that gets regularly celebrated as noble by those in government or in the media and promoted by pop culture is being a police officer. Being a cop is the only public sector job that gets uplifted with propaganda. Zoron's little videos promoting 311 city call center workers is, to quote front of the pod Ben Lorber rolling back decades of neoliberal propaganda reasserting the dignity of public sector work and workers. A common turn of phrase uttered by Mayor Mamdani is if you can't solve the smallest task in someone's life, why would they ever trust you to solve the biggest one? So let's go over some things, big and small, that Mamdani has been able to do in his first 100 days. One of Mamdani's core campaign promises was to freeze the rent on February 18, Mayor Mamdani appointed six new members to the nine member Rent Guidelines Board, which each year is tasked with determining how to the rent increase percentages for the more than 1 million rent stabilized apartments in the city. Under Eric Adams, the board approved a 3% rent increase for one year leases and a 4.5% increase for two year leases. In just a few weeks, the new board will hold a preliminary vote to freeze or raise rents before their final vote in June. Public testimony on rent adjustments is currently underway. Housing in general is one of the top issues affecting affordability in the city and the Mayor's approach has not been limited to filling vacancies on the Rent guidelines board. After Zoran's inauguration speech on January 1, he went to a neglected apartment building just east of Prospect park to sign an executive order revitalizing the mayor's office to protect tenants and appointed a tenant organizer to lead the office. This apartment building was owned by a literally bankrupt landlord called the Pinnacle Group, who was responsible for more than 5,000 housing violations and 14,000 complaints. The revamped office to protect tenants and the mayor intervened in the bankruptcy proceedings and successfully secured $30 million in repairs and upgrades for tenants, as well as protection from future displacement. Through this office, the administration has continued to crack down on bad landlords who violate New York City law and mistreat tenants. Just a few weeks after the inauguration, Mamdani announced a $2.1 million settlement from a and E Real Estate Properties for tenant harassment and hazardous conditions across 14 buildings in Brooklyn, Manhattan and Queens. As a part of the settlement, AE was also required to correct more than 4,000 building condition violations. In February, the Department of Housing Preservation and Development released a public list of the 250 buildings with the most severe housing code violations citywide and put them under heightened oversight via the Alternative Enforcement Program, with the city stepping in to make repairs, then billing the landlords if they fail to address violations.
- [07:38]
Mayor Zoran Mamdani (Speech/Quotes)
Since January 1, we have won more than $34 million in settlements and judgments and repairs for tenants, delivered improvements to 6,070 apartments so far and issued 195,829 violations. New York City will no longer tolerate exploitation as a business model.
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Garrison Davis
In March, Mayor Mamdani announced a quote, unquote landmark victory against famously bad landlord Seth Miller of Aegis Realty. You could say the landlord was egregious at realty. The city brought a case against Miller for dangerously derelict conditions at 919 Prospect Ave. In the South Bronx. And for the first time ever, courts imposed the maximum penalties under the city's nuisance abatement law. A $1,000 fine per day until housing violations are addressed and $2.174 million in retroactive penalties. During the first 100 days, the city held five rental ripoff hearings, one in each borough, providing New Yorkers a platform to discuss various problems with their landlord, from poor conditions to repair delays or junk fees. This was a dedicated public forum for tenants to speak directly to city officials and collectively shape housing policy going forward. A month into office, the Mayor announced a $38 million investment to install modern heating and cooling in 712 of New York City's public housing units at the beach 41st street houses in Queens and technically this is after the first 100 days, but I think it's worth mentioning that just a few days ago Zoron announced a $2.5 billion investment in public housing to deliver new energy efficient lighting and faucets to 45,000 homes, heat pumps and 20,000 and 10,000 new induction stoves, all affecting the NYCHA public housing in New York City. On Zoran's very first day in office, he also signed two executive orders to accelerate housing construction by building on city owned properties to increase the supply of affordable housing and cutting red tape to make it faster and more affordable to build. The development approval process for building affordable housing has been reduced by more than two years by the Administration's implementation of the new voter approved expediated land use review procedure combined with a new program called the Neighborhood Builders Fast Track which will pre select qualified developers to shorten the pre development timeline by eight months for certain projects on city owned land. Another of Zoron's core campaign promises was universal childcare. On his eighth day in office, Mehramdani announced a partnership with with Governor Kathy Hochul to provide free child care for thousands of two year olds in New York City with a $1.2 billion increase in state funding. Since then, the Mayor has expanded the free 3K program for 3 year olds to more than half of all school districts in the city and announced 2K fall enrollment for school districts 18, 23, 10, 6 and 27 which serve lower income neighborhoods. 2K applications open for the first time on June 2 with the program operating on a full day schedule from 8am to 6pm all year round. As a part of the 3K expansion, seven new early childcare education centers are opening in Western Queens, Staten Island, South Brooklyn and the South Bronx. And on March 30, the mayor announced the city's first pilot program for free on site childcare for city workers based at the David Dinkins Municipal Building with applications opening on April 30. The city also created a new accessible child care provider map with interactive features to filter by location, age group and cost. The Mayor says that all these steps will lead to free childcare for every 3 year old and 2 year old in the city by the end of his first term. Another key promise was fast and free buses. The administration is making headway on the fast part by building more bus lanes, redesigning streets as well as adding protected bike lanes on McGinnis Boulevard 31st street in Astoria, Ashland Place across Flatbush, East Flatbush, Midwood and Brooklyn and Kingston avenues in central Brooklyn. Hamdani restarted the stalled Madison Ave bus lane redesign to make buses faster and more reliable for 92,000 daily riders. The city announced a new bus lane for the Bronx Crosstown bus service to Yankee Stadium and restarted the Fordham Road bus lane project to improve the busiest bus corridor in the Bronx, servicing an average of 130,000 daily riders across four routes. Just this week, construction began in Brooklyn for the redesign of Flatbush Avenue with the goal of improving bus speeds by over 40% for 132,000 daily riders. And before the World cup this summer, Zoran has promised to complete new bike lanes and pedestrian upgrades in Lower Manhattan. As for the free part, that will be a bit harder. Mamdani maintains that his administration is working with the state government in Albany and the MTA to eventually make New York City buses free and proposed a five week free bus pilot program during the World cup, though it's unclear if that will happen.
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- [13:52]
Garrison Davis
It's not all sunshine and rainbows in New York City. Upon taking office, Mayor Mamdani discovered the city was facing an unexpected financial crisis in in the form of a hidden $12 billion deficit left by former Mayor Eric Adams, stemming from years of fiscal mismanagement and the under budgeting of essential services like rental and cash assistance, shelters, health insurance and special ed. As Mayor, Eric Adams covered up this massive budget deficit by leaving the gaps grossly understated, gaps that were made worse by divestment in New York City by the state under former governor Andrew Cuomo, the mayor is actually required by law to have a balanced budget. So rather than sweeping this under the rug by continuing to cook the city's books like his predecessor, Zoran chose transparency about the financial crisis he's inherited and signed an executive order to designate chief savings officers in every city agency to streamline processes and eliminate waste. Some of these savings so far include cancelling $20,000 of Slack subscriptions to saving hundreds of thousands of dollars by foregoing vacant office space. Through his relationship with Governor Kathy Hochul, the mayor secured $1.5 billion in state aid in February. That, combined with higher than expected Wall street revenues and savings measures, shrunk the deficit to 5.4 billion. Zorron's preliminary budget, released last February, sparked criticism for failing short of promises to increase funding to parks and libraries. While campaigning, Zoron advocated for city libraries to receive 0.5% of the city budget. But the preliminary budget only allocated 0.39%, which is actually a $29 million cut from the last Adams budget, down to $456 million. Meanwhile, the park budget remained effectively flat at about 0.5% rather than boosting it to 1% of the total budget as Mamdani previously hoped, though in March, Mayor Mamdani announced new capital investment of $50 million to reconstruct 10 parks in underserved neighborhoods. This February budget is preliminary and subject to change as Zoron's negotiations with the City Council and the state continue. In February, Mamdani reversed a previous policy against the forced removal of homeless encampments after 20 people died in the street during a horrific blizzard and sudden cold snap in late January. Despite the efforts of outreach workers visiting known homeless people every two hours to offer warm shelter and check if they needed help, 1,400 people were placed into shelters and warming centers during that first freeze, with 85 people involuntarily moved or hospitalized. The new encampment suite policy will be led by the Department of Homeless Services rather than the nypd, as they were under Eric Adams, which Mamdani said put homeless New Yorkers in danger and was ineffective in moving people into shelter or housing under the new plan. After posting a removal notice, outreach workers will visit encampments every day for a week with the goal of connecting people to shelter and establishing a pipeline to stable housing while opening new shelters across the city, including New York City's first ever pet inclusive transitional housing facility for families. Much of the criticism levied at Zoran revolves around his choice to retain NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch, something he announced before the election. Zoran did cancel an Eric Adams plan to add 5,000 more NYPD officers, but as promised, their budget remained effectively the same despite the financial deficit. But Tisch specifically has been seen as a rare moderating force in the administration, an outlier that may be preventing police reforms that Zoron campaigned on, like disbanding the srg, the strategic response group tasked with responding to both protests and terrorism, as well as getting rid of the NYPD gang database. Critics have noted that Zoran seems to be moving towards, quote, unquote, reforms of the gang database, rather than his previous call to get rid of it, saying in early April, quote, I've made my critiques of the database clear. And the NYPD has also implemented a number of reforms as per the recommendation that came through. And the implementation of those reforms and the results of that are part of the active discussion that we are having. Unquote. The gang database in New York has shrunk by 40% in the last two years. As for the SRG, Mayor Mamdani still maintains that he remains, quote, steadfast in my commitment to disband the srg, to do so in a manner that upholds both First Amendment rights of New Yorkers and keeps New Yorkers safe. And that is the subject of an active conversation that we are having, unquote. Commissioner Tisch has been particularly resistant to the idea of disbanding the srg, though earlier this month, Mayor Mamdani's chief of staff, Elbisgard Church, said on the news that the administration remains committed to fulfilling the campaign promise of disbanding the SRG and that a delegation of City hall and NYPD officials traveled to Columbus, Ohio, to learn about their protest policing model focused on, quote, communication and, quote, de escalation over mass arrests and aggressive force.
- [19:22]
Cool Zone Media Announcer
The commitment is to disband the srg, and I think that the Columbus visit showcases that we are committed to a really disciplined approach here. We want it to work and we want to do it in collaboration with the nypd. So the mayor is in regular conversation with his police commissioner, and our teams also meet regularly so that we can design something that is best suited to that commitment being fulfilled and not compromising any of the safety and the protection that New Yorkers deserve.
- [19:52]
Garrison Davis
In an April interview, the Mayor Mamdani did express to the New York Times that when unable to reach an agreement with Tish, he does have the power to overrule her on police policy if needed. Quote, Ultimately, I hold the final decision, no matter which department or agency we're speaking about, unquote. Mavdani has not exercised this power with the NYPD as of yet. In March, Zoran took the first step in establishing the Department of Community Safety by opening the Office of Community Safety, led by Deputy Mayor Renita Francois, who directed de Blasio's Action Plan for Neighborhood Safety and advised Campaign Zero, which opposes the gang database. The new Office of Community Safety will develop strategies and coordinate efforts to combat gun violence, mental health, crisis response, hate crimes and substance abuse issues. At the announcement, Francois said, quote, the evidence is clear. Addressing what ails our communities, whether that be crumbling physical infrastructure, social disconnection, or a lack of access to economic opportunity, is how we best ensure that our communities are safe. Unquote. It's too early to judge the impact of the office, but such an office or city department has the potential to challenge the police's monopoly on public safety. The other common critique of Mamdani is based on his endorsement of liberal Governor Kathy Hochul and his decision to focus on governing rather than dedicating resources and political capital towards further uphill primary challenges. Zoran has said, quote, the success of our movement will be defined by the success of our government. Through his working partnership with Governor Hochul, the mayor has been able to extract wins from the state, particularly for universal child care and the $1.5 billion in state aid. In the realm of discourse, some leftists, anarchists or ultras have jumped on any fault or policy shift as a sign that Zoran has wholly moved to the right or betrayed the movement. Such opinions are rewarded by the social media economy, which tends to encourage whatever is seen as the most radical, extreme or divisive opinion. This tendency has been present even among some of Zoron's earliest online supporters. Behind this tendency is a willingness and frankly hunger to turn on Zoron not necessarily for anything he has or has not done, but because of the position he now occupies. Zoron used to be an outsider challenging the democratic establishment embodied by Andrew Cuomo, but now he's one of the most popular Democrats in the country. DNC social media accounts are hosting Zoron memes and hype videos. This could be viewed as a massive accomplishment, evidence that the Democratic Party can be forced to bend toward left wing populism because of the working class voters and mass organizing that put Zoron in the position he's currently in. But others view Zoron's acceptance and select promotion within the party as a sign he's been corrupted, co opted, recuperated or made palatable. Both of these things can be partially true. The Democratic elite certainly have their own motives for dipping their toes into the Mamdani hot tub. Just as Zoran and the New York City DSA have their own aspirations for influencing the direction of the party towards social democracy and democratic socialism in general. There's a lot of confusion or disagreement on what it means to be a democratic socialist in a position of power. As an executive, Zoron is in a unique position that not many other DSA members have ever had. Being in Such a position of power informs and shapes the way someone interacts with the systems of party and state in a way that those outside of power cannot fully understand. It filters ideology into material actions. This idea frightens many, but differences in political horizons also affect the way people interact and move with these systems. The question is not what should Zoron do if there were no constraints on his power? Because then obviously he should just implement utopian communism. But his power obviously does have constraints. If the goal for the left is to build a working class movement to that end, as a function of Zoron's constraints, it may actually be more effective for him to operate down certain state pathways that allow him to facilitate the building of a working class movement and avoid other more extreme pathways that, because of the current constraints on executive power, would either be ineffective at best or self destructive at worst. As the mayor, Zoron's job is to run the biggest city in the country. And as a democratic socialist, that means using government to make life better for the working class. His task is to govern in a way that alleviates economic conditions, to make it easier to organize and build a working class movement. But building that movement is not his job. It's yours. It's the job of the people. And such a movement is the only way of holding elected leaders like Zoron accountable. Zoron is not a revolutionary, nor is he an organizer. He's the Mayor of New York City. And as mayor, he has to serve more than 8 million New Yorkers, not just the 14,000 members of New York City DSA. The mayor may join the picket line with striking nurses and fight for working class New Yorkers in City hall or even open an Office of Mass Engagement like like Zorin has done. But it is up to those outside City hall to move in tandem by working to rebuild a labor movement. Assuming that Zoron or some random public official can just do whatever is the most extreme, radical thing, mistakenly sees the state as having more power than it actually does. People often see the state as an ahistorical, abstracted seat of power. But no, the state is just the mediator between capital and labor. The power of the state to support labor is exercised by doing things that are in the interest of labor and society as a whole, rather than just capital. But this ability is directly linked to the extent that labor is organized. So if labor is largely unorganized, then Zoron is more restrained in what he can do. What he can do then is use his position to help build working class power. Will then enable him further, so on and so on. The state has no power against capital outside of the power that labor gives it. Our situation is one where capital is very strong, which means when the state serves capital, it's quite strong, but in its function of serving labor, it's rather weak because the left is failed to reckon with the fact that right now labor is actually quite weak, which means that state actors, even those on the pro labor left, are very constrained. So the main thing they can do to strengthen labor is providing better conditions for which labor power may be built. And importantly, organizers must utilize those conditions to build the labor movement. Zoran's other task is to demonstrate that left wing working class politics can actually govern, not just critique. Whether or not he succeeds at governing and delivering for working class New Yorkers determines the perceived viability of democratic socialist politics nationally going forward. As Mamdani has said, the worth of an ideology can only be judged by its delivery. Mamdani is not the first democratic socialist to be put in such a position. In his 100 day address, Mehrmadani spoke about the so called sewer socialists of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, who 100 years ago built the greatest public park system in the nation and weathered the Great Depression better than almost any other American city. Milwaukee purged corruption, built the first municipally sponsored public housing development in the nation, and transformed the city's sewage disposal system, unquote. Mayor Mamdani is trying to revive this legacy of municipal socialism by acting on his mantra, there is no problem too big, no task too small. On day six of office, Mamdani fixed the infamous Williamsburg Bridge bump that has long plagued cyclists. And in response to the historic winter damage affecting city streets, the administration launched a five borough pothole blitz, filling 100000 potholes in less than 100 days.
- [28:55]
Mayor Zoran Mamdani (Speech/Quotes)
This is Pothole Politics, our 2026 answer to sewer socialism. Where government is not too busy, not too self important, not too mired in paperwork to fix the problems of this city, no matter their size.
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Garrison Davis
This quote unquote pothole politics has extended to scaffolding reforms, reducing the time that sheds clutter our sidewalks. In January, the mayor announced a new program to expand modular public restrooms. And starting this summer, the roof of the historic David Dinkins Municipal Building will be open to the public for free viewing and tours. Fighting for workers from within City hall isn't just an abstract ideal. In the first 100 days, the administration secured $9.3 million in restitution.
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Mayor Zoran Mamdani (Speech/Quotes)
No longer will city government be afraid of its own shadow. If anyone should be Afraid it is those who take advantage of working people.
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Garrison Davis
On January 15, the city filed a lawsuit against a predatory delivery app called Moto Click for violating worker laws like minimal pay rate. At the end of January, Zoron announced more than $5 million in worker restitution and penalties due to minimum pay rate violations from three major restaurant delivery apps, Uber Eats, Fanton and Hungry Panda. This money will be paid to almost 50,000 workers. And as a part of the settlement, Uber also agreed to reinstate 10,000 wrongfully deactivated delivery workers. In March, the administration won almost $2 million for over 800 fast food workers at Taco Bell and retail workers for violations of worker protection laws against unpredictable scheduling. The mayor signed executive orders strengthening consumer protections by targeting hidden junk fees and impossible to cancel subscriptions, and expanded the protected time off law to 4.3 million previously unprotected workers and issued compliance warnings to nearly 60,000 employers. Speaking of sewer socialism, at the end of March, Mehrma announced a $108 million investment to upgrade and replace more than 6,700 water catch basins to combat flooding. This quote unquote pothole politics lays the groundwork of public trust needed for larger systematic transformations.
- [31:16]
Mayor Zoran Mamdani (Speech/Quotes)
If government can't do the small things, how could you ever trust it to do the big ones? How can we promise to transform our city if we can't pave your street?
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Garrison Davis
At the end of the 100 day address, Mayor Mamdani made a series of announcements. The administration is restarting trash containerization and will make buses faster for 1 million New Yorkers by speeding up buses by up to 20% along 45 priority corridors and constructing new rapid bus routes for 100,000 New Yorkers who live more than half a mile away from a subway or rail stop. But the big announcement was an update to another of Zoron's core campaign promises. The first of five city owned grocery stores will open next year, with one store being opened in each borough by the end of Mamdani's first term. The location of the Manhattan municipal grocery store has already been selected. Le Marchetta in East Harlem, a public market opened by the New Deal era. Mayor Fiero LaGuardia. The city will build a 9,000 square foot store at the site to offer cheaper groceries than the capitalist competitors.
- [32:27]
Mayor Zoran Mamdani (Speech/Quotes)
I know there are many who use socialist as a dirty word, social, something to be ashamed of. They can try all they want, but we will not be ashamed of using government to fight for the many, not simply the few. We will not be ashamed of adding more heat pumps to NYCHA buildings in the Rockaways, or building more supportive housing in Harlem, or standing steadfast alongside our trans neighbors. We will not be ashamed of investing in youth mental health clinics, or working to close Rikers, or fighting for immigrants targeted by ice. To any New Yorker, whether you're under attack from the federal government's cruelty or suffocating under the aforementioned affordability crisis, we will stand beside you. Because government is a series of choices and socialism is the choice to fight for every New Yorker to extend democracy from the ballot box to the rest
- [33:42]
Garrison Davis
of our lives Three days after Mamdani's 100 day address on tax day April 15, the mayor announced that he and Governor Hochul had agreed to a new tax the rich proposal. New York State will have its first ever pied a terre tax, a wealth tax on second homes in New York City valued above $5 million owned by out of state elites. This tax on the ultra wealthy is projected to generate $500 million in annual revenue, and if owners want to avoid the tax by moving into the residence, that's fine too, cause then they'll have to pay New York resident taxes so you get taxed either way. Part of pushing back against the libertarian ethos in America by showing that government can actually make your life better is actually showing people what local government is doing. Since taking office, Zoron has employed the same widely successful messaging style that helped get him elected to make PSAs and inform new Yorkers about what the administration has been able to accomplish. This is something Democrats have largely failed to do by either just not doing this sort of outreach while governing, making any outreach inaccessible or hard to understand, or having your outreach come off as cringe or out of touch. Regardless of how much effort is put into outreach, the people have to also see the improvements being talked about in their own lives or in their own neighborhoods. A dense population and having a cohesive city culture like New York helps with that. Millions of cyclists cross the Williamsburg Bridge every year, so when the mayor fixes the bump during his first week in office, that's an easy reference point for people. The success of the administration's comm strategy has has been by using Zoron's popularity to promote the public sector and public sector workers while actually showing people how social services help city residents. As the mayor says, New York belongs to all who live in it. While in office, Zoron has largely declined to explicitly talk about how his administration may impact the future of democratic socialism across the country, instead keeping his vision laser focused on improving the Lives of working New Yorkers and making the city more affordable. To quote the Mayor, we cannot burden ourselves with the question of what this means beyond this city. But before the mayor went on stage at the 100 day address, they played a clip of the progressive New deal Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia saying that the greatness of New York City is in the services to its people, where public problems are really the problems of all the people. Quote, and if we succeed here, surely it can be done elsewhere. When former socialist mayor Bernie Sanders made a surprise appearance during Zoran's speech, the senator spoke about how what's happening in New York is influencing those outside the city.
- [36:50]
Mayor Zoran Mamdani (Speech/Quotes)
And I want to tell all of
- [36:52]
Garrison Davis
you in the mayor that what you
- [36:54]
Mayor Zoran Mamdani (Speech/Quotes)
guys are doing here in New York City is important not only to the people here. What you are doing. What the mayor is doing is providing hope and inspiration not only to people all across our country, but honestly all across the world.
- [37:16]
Garrison Davis
As a part of Mamdani's first 100 days press circuit, he was asked on CBS News about the the future of the Democratic Party and if his socialist politics are really viable.
- [37:29]
Mayor Zoran Mamdani
You know what I find is that New Yorkers ask me less about how I describe my politics and more about whether my politics includes them. And I think what we can see is that a democratic socialist politics is one that should be judged on its delivery like any ideology. And what we're showing in this city is we can. We can pursue the big things like universal childcare and do the pothole politics at the same time that we're showing. And not just filling in the potholes, changing the catch basins, but also repaving over a thousand miles of roadway.
- [37:56]
Garrison Davis
But Mr. Mayor, presidential and statewide elections are often decided in battleground regions that
- [38:01]
Mayor Zoran Mamdani
do not look like New York City. Yeah, I'll be honest with you. Before I was the mayor, I was an assembly member of Astoria in Long Island City. At that time, I was told that you could only be a democratic socialist in Northwest Queens. Then I became the mayor. Now the next question is the state. Then it'll be. The next question will be the country. I think that this is a politics that can flourish anywhere because frankly, there is only one majority in this country that's the working class. And it's time we have a politics that puts them at the heart of what it is that we're pursuing and not as part of the appendix.
- [38:29]
Garrison Davis
Mamdani still has over 1300 days left in his first term. And there will be more challenges along the way. Challenges with the nypd, the mta, state government, federal government, the billionaires and the blood sucking monsters among the Democratic Party elite. Attempts to hold politicians like Zoron truly accountable to their politics will require more than Twitter, Maoists and your small DSA caucus. Navigating all these problems will require not just principled leadership with a commitment to working class politics, but also growing the mass organizing apparatus that helped get Zorn elected and continuing to build power in City hall, state government and in the workplace. That does it today. For It Could Happen Here. See you on the other side.
- [39:23]
Cool Zone Media Announcer
It Could Happen Here is a production of Cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from Cool Zone Media, Visit our website coolzonemedia.com or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can now find sources for It Could Happen Here listed directly in Episode Descriptions. Thanks for listening.
- [39:41]
Garrison Davis
This is an iHeart podcast. Guaranteed Human.