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To the editor:
In less than two weeks, Zohran Mamdani will likely have been elected the city’s next mayor. His platform includes a four-year rent freeze for two million New Yorkers who live in rent-stabilized apartments, no-cost universal childcare, free buses and an increase in taxes on the wealthy and corporations to help pay for his ambitious social agenda.
Mamdani has focused on the lack of affordability that’s rooted in the city’s gross income and wealth inequality. His agenda has generated excitement among many New Yorkers, broadened the base of the Democratic Party and can serve as a model for the floundering national party.
It's no surprise that the city’s economic elites strongly oppose Mamdani. They have spent well over $20 million dollars in support of Andrew Cuomo, his leading opponent. Real estate, corporations, Wall Street and high-tech companies control enormous amounts of capital, and play a major role in shaping the political decisions made by elected officials. They fear that a Mamdani administration would be a threat to their interests.
Nor is it a surprise that Trump and his MAGA Republican Party also strongly oppose Mamdani. The president has called him a “communist lunatic” and has threatened to cut federal funds to New York if he is elected, something he has already been doing.
Upstate U.S. Representative Elise Stefanik, who will likely run for governor, calls Mamdani “Hochul’s commie.” Then there is Mayor Adams, who claims Mamdani is an antisemite who will radicalize the city’s youth. Andrew Cuomo has called Mamdani an “antisemite who hates Israel.”
Mamdani condemned Hamas for the “horrific war crime” of Oct. 7, 2023, while also criticizing Israel for waging a “genocidal war” in Gaza with U.S. complicity (a position widely held). U.S. Senators Schumer and Gillibrand as well as U.S. Representative Hakeem Jeffries, the House minority leader from Brooklyn, have neither endorsed the Democratic nominee for mayor nor defended him when he has been unfairly attacked.
Howard Elterman
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