In late November, I argued that “way too much leftist discourse is polarized into denunciations vs. defenses of Zohran [Mamdani]. A more useful & important debate is how to organize enough New Yorkers to win Zohran’s agenda — and to counteract the inevitable pressures on him from capital and the political establishment.”
Others disagreed. A few days later, the pro-Palestine group Within Our Lifetime (WOL) posted a public sign-on statement announcing that Mamdani’s decision to reappoint Jessica Tisch as New York Police Department commissioner “betrays his campaign promises and aligns him with the NYPD’s legacy of policing, surveillance, and repression” and “effectively endorses the NYPD’s ongoing collaboration with the Israeli occupation.”
Tisch deserves our critique. She’s a pro-Israel billionaire heiress who, as Ross Barkan notes, “sounds no different than a Long Island Republican when it comes to the topic of criminal justice.” But before digging into the debate over her reappointment, it’s useful to address an underlying strategic question: When and how should the Left criticize elected officials like Zohran?
On the general question of whether it’s necessary for socialists to criticize left elected officials, history is full of examples of movements demobilizing and subordinating themselves to their friends in power. It would be a tragedy if that happened in New York City. Given the constraints and pressure he is under and the overall weakness of working-class organization after fifty years of neoliberalism, Mayor Mamdani is bound to make many decisions the Left will disagree with; refusing on principle to ever voice criticisms or to take an independent stand would be a road to ruin for organizations like the New York City Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) and the Left as a whole, demoralizing activists and undermining credibility with supporters.
But there’s no shortage of leftists who are generally willing to disagree…
Auteur: Eric Blanc
