Follow the lead

Lawrence Summers, treasury secretary under former Democratic President Barack Obama, says the New York City results make him “profoundly alarmed about the future of the (Democratic Party) and the country.”

Well, I’m profoundly alarmed, too — by just this kind of vacuous statement. If polls are to be believed, the current Democratic Party doesn’t have much of a future. Mamdani and other young politicians with the charisma to connect with the people and a willingness to take on corporate America and Wall Street may be the only way forward for the Democrats.

Nor has the mainstream media greeted Mamdani’s upset victory with much enthusiasm. The Associated Press writes that “the party’s more pragmatic wing cast the outcome as a serious setback in their quest to broaden Democrats’ appeal.”

Pragmatic wing? Since when has the corporate establishment of the Democratic Party distinguished itself by its pragmatism or its quest to broaden Democrats’ appeal? If it were pragmatic — in the sense of wanting to win elections and fire up the base — Democrats would not have lost the House, Senate, and presidency in 2024.

Meanwhile, Jeff Bezos’s Washington Post editorializes that “Democrats should fear that [Mamdani] will discredit their next generation of party leaders, almost all of whom are better than this democratic socialist.”

Bezos — who controls the content of the Post’s editorial page as he sucks up to Trump and is now occupying vast swaths of Venice for his wedding with Lauren Sanchez — is not the most credible source of wisdom when it comes to the identity of the Democrats’ next generation of party leaders.

Not surprisingly, the Post criticizes Mamdani’s proposals for a 2% annual wealth tax on the richest 1% of New Yorkers and for increasing the state’s corporate tax rate from 7.25% to 11.5%: “Mamdani’s tax plans would spur a corporate exodus and drive more rich people out of town, undermining the tax base and making existing services harder to maintain.” It’s the same argument we’ve heard for 40 years: If you raise taxes on corporations and the wealthy, you’ll drive them away — from your city, your state, your nation.

Rubbish. The reality is that if you invest in your people — in their skills, education, affordable child care, affordable elder care, and the infrastructure needed to link them together — they’ll be more productive, and their higher productivity will attract corporations (and the wealthy). A major way to afford all these things is to raise taxes on corporations and the wealthy.

Mamdani is the corporate Democrat’s biggest nightmare — a young, charismatic politician winning over Democratic voters with an optimistic message centering on the cost of living. Putting together a multiethnic and multiracial coalition backed by a sprawling grassroots campaign that brings out enormous numbers of volunteers. Aiming to fund what average people need by taxing corporations and the rich.

Instead of wringing their hands over him, Democrats should follow his lead. The largest force in American politics today is antiestablishment fury at a system rigged by big corporations and the wealthy to make them even richer and more powerful.

The corporate Democratic establishment — fat cats on Wall Street, corporate moguls in C-suites, billionaire backers of Democrats who will do their bidding, and the big-named Democrats who endorsed Andrew Cuomo — are the biggest problem for the party.

Excerpted: ‘Instead of Fearing Mamdani, Mainstream Dems Should Follow His Lead’. Courtesy: Commondreams.org