Are You Ready for a Hot Socialist Summer?

The primary victory of Zohran Mamdani in NYC presents an opportunity

New York city’s legacy political donors –the very wealthy & their macroparasitic enablers– are generally freaked out over the primary victory of Zohran Mamdani, a child of Muslim immigrants who’s inspired support across the Big Apple.

He owes his victory to somewhere short of fifty thousand volunteers, focusing on economic empowerment, and mobilizing government to deliver services for all New Yorkers, along with refusing to throw any group under the bus. Challenged to comment on transgender humans, he’d jump right in to point out that they, too, were challenged by the cost of living in New York, rather than take the bait being thrown at him.

The crap coming from cult followers and their Trump lite compatriots is chock full of lies, racism, and slander. There’s the fear mongering story about how he’ll close all the synagogues and force Jews to leave the city. It’s being said that he’ll invite homeless people to take over the subways. And the Christian Nationalist set is peddling the “I told you so” version of the Great Replacement Theory about immigrants taking over New York City.

At his point the billionaire strategy to beat Mamdani in the general election is mostly focused on rehabilitating the career of incumbent Mayor Eric Adams, with New York Times reporting on the behind-the-scenes scramble by the billionaire class.

• The prospect of Mr. Mamdani’s campaigning as the Democratic standard-bearer in a city where Democrats outnumber Republicans by six to one has sent shivers down the spines of many New York business leaders, who recoil at his plans for expansive new government programs funded with tax increases on corporations and the wealthiest New Yorkers. Some have quickly begun to throw their support behind the incumbent mayor, despite the scandals that have tarnished his tenure.

• Andrew Epstein, a spokesman for Mr. Mamdani, said the businessmen at the meeting were simply scared of “our plan to tax them a little bit more to fund an agenda to lower the cost of living and improve the quality of life for all New Yorkers.”

• Mr. Loeb, an outspoken proponent of charter schools, has a long history of supporting Mr. Adams and other centrist Democratic candidates in local New York races. In 2021, he donated $1 million to a super PAC supporting Mr. Adams’s successful bid for mayor. He donated $350,000 to a super PAC supporting Mr. Cuomo in this year’s primary. On Wednesday, after Mr. Mamdani appeared triumphant in the race, Mr. Loeb posted to social media, “It’s officially hot commie summer.”

Hedge Fund Manager Daniel S Loeb got one thing right, the summer in New York City IS going to be hot, hot, hot, thanks to the ongoing efforts of the shepherders of the carbon-wasting economy. The coming months are forecast to be as hot or hotter than last year’s record setting weather.

As to the ‘commie’ part, this is the scare language being used by the Project 2025 set, who would like to disengage governments from providing services so they can gouge the citizenry for privatized offerings.

I know the word communist has a historically negative meaning. However, what Zohran Mamdani is proposing is simply an expansion of the safety net that local governments already provide. There are no committees forming to seize capitalist enterprises; the plan is to make them pay their fair share, to stop the coddling of the wealthy based on the faulty supposition that the economy will suffer.

It’s time, even here in San Diego, to make socialism great again. The processes of cooperation between public and private enterprises do not inherently lead to totalitarianism. Besides, I think we’re already headed down that road.

I’m not one of those people who says we should look at the Scandinavian countries for solutions to our social and economic problems. For one, those nations are largely monocultural and have experienced different historical traumas that left their populations scarred.

For another, our approach to doing things in a better way to serve all the people has to take our histories and cultures into account. People tend to forget that our founding fathers incorporated democratic principles learned from the indigenous Iroquois confederacy.

We have a history chock full of cultural and political oppression based on race, nationality, and class that suggests constitutional/legal safeguards will be needed. And the legacy of women serving as breeding stock for the economic advancement of men must be overcome.

And finally, a consensus needs to emerge about what to do with those people whose wealth has contributed to the self delusion holding themselves as somehow inherently superior beings entitled to rule. I’m not suggesting guillotines or firing squads for those who’ve fallen so far from grace. Rehabilitation or repurposing is a much more productive process than punishment, a lesson we haven’t learned yet from our warped criminal justice system.

So, think about it. What’s best for all of us, regardless of what the few think? Let’s have learning, debates, and consensus that goes beyond worrying about the next political campaign. And let’s get some “hot socialist summer” tee shirts printed. (Maybe DSA has some?)

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Personal note: I’m taking a long weekend. See y’all on Tuesday or Wednesday next week.