Measuring Mamdani's Mistake
The mayor's response to an NYPD shooting upset his base. But Mamdani, and the left, are learning from the mistake.
A few weeks ago, I wrote about Zohran Mamdani’s magnificent start to his term as Mayor of New York City. I was specifically impressed by Mamdani’s understanding of the challenge he faced in proving that the left can govern. As evidenced by their popularity, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Bernie Sanders have shown that DSA can succeed at the national level. But overseeing the day-to-day life of a city, especially one as large and important as New York City, is a different task with its own unique challenges.
After addressing the question of unproven leftist governance in his inaugural address, America’s Mayor turned words into action and launched ambitious programs to protect workers, renters, commuters, and other groups often overlooked by capitalist politicians. Mamdani is only 1/48th of the way through his term, but by all early indicators, he’s proving to America that socialists are responsible stewards of city hall. In fact, he’s showing that the left is far better at governing than the neoliberal center, which went all-in on the now-disgraced former mayor Eric Adams.
However, Mamdani’s first month has not been without its stumbles. As expected, policing has been the source of friction between the mayor’s office and his left-wing base. The left’s critiques of American policing as systemically racist, fascist, and cowardly were once considered fringe, but have gained traction in the post-Uvalde, post-George Floyd, current-Minnesota world. However, translating the left’s complaints about cops into material governance poses a problem for someone like Mamdani. As the media made all aware, he has a long history of calling to defund the police. Bill DeBlasio’s more tempered critiques of the NYPD effectively sunk his mayoralty. To the chagrin of many leftists, Mamdani didn’t run on an explicit platform of police reform. Elements of this agenda are present in his administration, but the central focus of Mamdani's 2024 campaign was affordability. Not going scorched-earth on the NYPD was undeniably the correct decision, as it gave him a large enough coalition to win. But it came with a tradeoff, putting the mayor between a rock and a hard place.
Regardless of what Mamdani ran on, he’d be forced to deal with the New York political machine, which loves cops almost as much as it loves Israel. Anything short of offering to personally felate every officer draws a hissy fit from establishment figures, who, like it or not, Mamdani needs to work with to be effective. On the other side is the socialist left, which demands serious changes to a police-centered public safety system that is at best incompetent, at worst, murderous. Two traumatic events over the last month have shown that Mamdani is struggling to strike a delicate balance between the political establishment and the progressive base, both crucial to his success as a mayor. And while there’s much to critique about Mamdani’s early mistakes, the young mayor’s improvements show how both he and the socialist left are learning how to govern.
The first test of Mamdani’s relationship with the NYPD came on January 8th, when the NYPD shot and killed two people at separate events. The shootings were in the evening, around 5:30 p.m. and 11 p.m. Mamdani didn’t comment on them until the following morning. That seems reasonable to me, as you don’t want to comment on something until all the details are known, and it’s not like anyone is up at 1 a.m. on a weeknight obsessively refreshing the mayor’s Twitter feed. Still, the cop-loving establishment lost its mind. Here’s how Politico covered Mamdani’s alleged communicative failure. Notice the language. “A day later,” “the mayor let more than 12 hours pass,” “nearly 12 hours after the dramatic incidents unfolded.” These are exaggerations to imply that Mamdani is at fault, even though his rationale was perfectly responsible. “I wanted to make sure that everything that we shared with New Yorkers was the language that we wanted them to know about this,” Mamdani said in response to the temper tantrum.
Clearly, the political establishment was upset that Zohran Mamdani might stray from the typical copaganda playbook. In their mind, Mamdani was supposed to immediately praise the big, beautiful blue boys, regardless of facts or basic knowledge of events. If the pressure is visible to us through the media, then it’s likely prevalent within the administration. Unfortunately, it looks like Mamdani made a mistake in letting that pressure influence his next decision.
Last Monday, the NYPD shot 22-year-old Jabez Chakraborty at his family’s home in Queens. The Chakraborty family says they called 911 and requested EMS to bring Jabez to the hospital. But the cops showed up. According to the NYPD, Jabez charged them with a knife, so they were forced to shoot him. Immediately, Mamdni released a statement that disappointed many of his left-wing supporters, myself included. He praised the shooters and resorted to the cliche “officer-involved shooting,” a term pulled straight from police-provided press kits to obscure police violence.
Criticism of this statement was widespread, but the most notable came from the Chakraborty family. The Chakrabortys, who are of South Asian heritage, released a statement through Desis Rising Up & Moving (DRUM), a community group focused on social justice for working-class South Asian and Indo-Caribbean New Yorkers. The family details their version of events, which are gut-wrenching. According to them, after the cops shot Jabez, they detained the family and began asking questions about immigration status while their son lay bleeding on the floor. They even asked if Jabez’s sister was “born here.” Their phones were seized, and the cops demanded their passwords. The Chakrabortys were taken to a local precinct for further interrogation. They asked if Jabez was alive, but never received an answer.
In their statement, the Chakrabortys called out Mayor Mamdani for “applauding the officers who shot our son.” This is particularly important, as DRUM was an early supporter of Mamdani, who shares South Asian ancestry.
Mamdani appears to have taken the criticism to heart. On Monday, he stated that he spoke with the Chakraborty family and visited Jabez in the hospital. According to a Politico report, Mamdani’s team is using the opportunity to increase the priority of his Department of Community Safety, which would prioritize non-police responses to mental health crises.
Though I’m disappointed in his original response to the shooting of Habez Charkraborty, I’m optimistic that this will be remembered as an important lesson in an otherwise successful political career. In my opinion, one of Mamdani’s greatest political strengths is his willingness to be held accountable by his base and improve to their liking. We saw this skill set on full display during the campaign.
Back in May of last year, during a press conference on his plans to support small businesses, Mamdani was asked the most important question facing New Yorkers: Does Israel have the right to exist? Wanting to avoid the circus and focus on his affordability agenda, Mamdani said yes.
This irked many of his supporters (including the campaign volunteer standing next to him), who recognized that, like every other country, Israel does not have a right to exist. A day later, Mamdani was confronted by a Palestinian man at the launch of a NYC-based Muslim magazine, who accused him of hypocrisy.
This was a moment of great frustration for Mamdani’s early supporters, myself included. While the majority of Mamdani voters cast their ballot for the worker-first, affordability agenda, those who flocked to the DSA assemblyman when he was still a long shot were energized by a politician who could clearly state what was obvious to all: Israel was committing genocide, and America shouldn’t enable it. Much like the mayor’s current struggle with the NYPD, the coalition tension was uncomfortable, but ultimately productive. A week after he was publicly rebuked, Mamdani’s answer to the question of Israel’s right to exist greatly improved. At a town hall hosted by the United Jewish Appeals, Mamdani declined to say Israel had a right to exist “as a Jewish state,” instead saying Israel had a right to exist “with equal rights for all.” Two weeks later, this answer was further refined into an even better response.
By saying “Israel has a right to exist as a state with equal rights for all,” Mamdani simultaneously dodged the “gotcha” nature of this bad-faith question, highlighted his disagreement with Israel’s Jewish-supremacist nature, and showed how out of touch the media and Andrew Cuomo were by focusing so much on Israel during a local election. He used this line again in October during the general election debate, specifically calling out Israel’s “hierarchy on the basis of race or religion.”
Not only did this make Mamdani look like the only person at the debate who knew the race was for the Mayor of New York City, but it flipped the script on the Zionists trying to sink him. Instead of pressuring the anti-Zionist socialist into admitting Israel had a right to exist, Mamdani delivered the anti-Zionist message to an audience who likely had no idea Israel had a racial hierarchy. This was not just a campaign victory for the mayoral hopeful but also for the pro-Palestine movement, which delivered its message of democracy and justice to the audience of a nationally-watched debate. But that victory didn’t just fall out of the sky. And it wasn’t the product of overpaid consultants. Zohran Mamdani’s excellent response to the question “Does Israel have a right to exist?” was forged through a relationship of mutual respect between the politician and his most eager supporters. When establishment pressure forced Mamdani to stray from his values, his base held him to account. As a result, Mamdani addressed the weakness and found a strong position that helped him win the NYC mayoralty while advancing the values and goals of the Palestine liberation movement.
When it comes to policing, Mamdani is in a similar situation to the one he was in in the spring of 2025 regarding Israel. His base is unhappy with his language, and he’s taking that to heart. If the past is prologue, America’s Mayor will learn from this mistake and use it to better inform how he strikes the balance between his voters who want change and the establishment that stands against it. Make no mistake. That is going to be an extraordinarily difficult task. This will not be the last time Mamdani errs in his governance, whether in policing or in another matter. The mayor is subjected to more hostile forces on a daily basis than most politicians face in a year. He’s a municipal official, meaning the governor and president are his bosses. While DSA has shown we can win democratic elections, the forces of reaction still hold power in undemocratic institutions of New York City, from the police department to the media to the capitalist class. They’re going to try to ruin Mamdani, and it’s naive to think they won’t have occasional success. But as we’ve already seen, in many ways, the socialist movement is stronger than them. By preserving the open, good-faith relationship between Mayor Mamdani and his most eager supporters, one that is not afraid to criticize but recognizes that criticism must be constructive, the American left will learn and improve.
In this regard, I encourage socialists to give themselves and one another some grace. Our haters aren’t wrong when they say governing major metropolitan cities is new to us. (They’re wrong on why that’s the case, but that’s for another time.) Like Mamdani, the left is learning how to govern. That will take time and come with growing pains. But I have no doubt our struggle will bear fruit in New York City and across the country.
Thanks for reading JoeWrote! If you enjoyed this article, please click the ❤️ and subscribe to receive new articles in your inbox. If you’re a returning reader, consider upgrading to a supporting subscription. It’s only $5 a month, ensures I can keep writing, and unlocks exclusive content for you. Thanks in advance!
In Solidarity — Joe
"big beautiful blue boys" lol. thanks for writing this — i haven't been following NYC news closely so i didn't realize that had happened. a good reminder that we have to allow leaders—who are people—to make (and learn from) mistakes
I’m don’t see how an unsigned New York Times article saying “The NYPD are making fools of themselves by heckling deBlasio” supports the statement that “ Bill DeBlasio’s more tempered critiques of the NYPD effectively sunk his mayoralty”.