“Power concedes nothing without a demand,” Brooklyn state senator Jabari Brisport thundered on Sunday, quoting Frederick Douglass. “And our demand is — ?”
The crowd yelled back, “Tax! the! Rich!”
Twelve days after democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani’s historic election as New York City mayor, several hundred supporters gathered for a rally in Union Square kicking off New York City Democratic Socialists of America’s (NYC-DSA) “Tax the Rich” campaign, cosponsored by a coalition of unions and grassroots left organizations.
The rally addressed the need for revenue to fund public programs — especially those Mamdani ran on, like universal childcare, fast and free buses, and new public housing — but also the need for taxation to redress the outrageous inequality in New York City, in which children go hungry while, as another speaker put it, “some rich guy buys a third or fourth house.”
NYC-DSA, whose organizing played a key role in Mamdani’s victory, wasted no time in launching this campaign. “Tax the Rich” isn’t about the Left “holding Mamdani accountable,” a strategic position that would befit an organization that saw itself as outsiders to the Mamdani project. Rather, the immediate launch of the “Tax the Rich” campaign is indicative of a mature left claiming responsibility and ownership for Mamdani’s political victory — which, in turn, means working to create the conditions that can allow his mayoralty to succeed.
The campaign will try to mobilize the hundred thousand volunteers who knocked on doors to elect Mamdani to do similar work — canvassing, phone-banking, tabling — on behalf of his agenda. It will target Kathy Hochul, who is up for reelection next year, but also state senators and assemblymembers.
In 2021, NYC-DSA waged a similar campaign, winning an increased tax on millionaires, and billions of dollars for public schools, rent relief, relief for undocumented workers not covered by the federal COVID bill…
Auteur: Liza Featherstone
