The ruling class has a piece of advice for New York’s new mayor: face it, your program will be impossible to implement.

“There is nothing any elected official can do to ‘solve’ the affordability crisis reliably,” concluded the Wall Street Journal. The editorial board of the New York Times likewise chimed in: “Mr. Mamdani cannot solve economic inequality, the problem that fueled his campaign.”

Instead, they propose that he water down his agenda, be “practical,” and keep an open mind to “opposing points of view.” Above all, they advise, if you want to get things done, listen to the reasonable people at the top, rather than those who propelled you into power. Be realistic, they tell him.

The reality is that Zohran’s program is more than realistic—if the billionaires are made to pay for it.

Rely on the working class

The ruling class cannot tolerate an emboldened working class with an appetite for reforms at a time when declining American capitalism demands cuts and austerity. Zohran’s program therefore poses a real danger to their interests. That’s why they tried to prevent him from being elected, and why they’re now doing everything they can to force him to backtrack.

Zohran’s program is entirely achievable, but not without a serious fight against the bosses. This will require Zohran to be just as class conscious as the capitalists, entirely ignoring their advice and instead relying solely on his only real base of support: the million-plus working-class New Yorkers who voted for him to enact his full program.

This mandate puts a historic opportunity in Zohran’s hands. He has enormous support among the working class of the wealthiest city in the world. He could lead a struggle that would not only win real reforms for working-class New Yorkers, but make a forward leap for the working-class movement nationally.

But he can’t seize this opportunity by trying to please both sides of the class divide. His program must ultimately be paid for either by the ruling class or the working class. And though the overall cost of his program wouldn’t hurt them too much, the ruling class is determined not to allow a dangerous precedent of reforms coming out of their pockets.

Make the billionaires pay

Andrew Cuomo’s campaign was financed by the city’s elite, who had plenty of money to throw against a socialist candidate. The top 12 billionaire donors to Cuomo’s campaign are worth a combined $270 billion. Just 2.6% of this wealth would cover the estimated cost for Zohran’s modest program!

But how could he actually make the billionaires pay?

The strength of the working class—our collective power to withhold our labor to halt the flow of profits to the bosses—is the only force capable of wresting concessions from the billionaires. But this sort of struggle would need a leadership willing to fight.

The Democratic party certainly can’t be relied on in this respect. New York’s Democratic Governor Kathy Hochul has already expressed her opposition to raising taxes to fund his program. At its core, the Democratic Party exists to carry out the interests of the billionaires, and would not be at the forefront of a struggle against themselves and their donors—quite the contrary.

What class independence looks like

A working-class party is needed to lead and form the backbone of this struggle. The potential for such a party exists in the base of over 100,000 volunteers who canvassed, leafleted, and phonebanked to make the case for Zohran’s campaign. He could cut ties with the capitalist Democrats and call on these volunteers to form a new, class-independent party, practically overnight.

This party could organize a fight by a much broader section of the working class.

Zohran won the vote of six out of ten renters in New York. If he gathered these renters into a city-wide tenants’ union, it would create a colossal counterweight to the power of the landlords. If just a fraction of these renters took part in a rent strike backed by City Hall, it would hit the pockets of the landlords and give Zohran infinitely more leverage than he’d have through cutting deals with the city’s real estate developers.

MTA workers could be organized to strike with demands relating to Zohran’s plan for free buses, as well as for increasing their own wages and benefits and expanding free transportation service to include the city’s subways, bridges, and tunnels as well.

Grocery store workers could be organized along the same lines—for lowering prices and raising wages. If the bosses claim they can’t afford this, their books should be opened and they should be taken into public ownership.

In his victory speech, Zohran said:

For as long as we can remember, the working people of New York have been told by the wealthy and the well-connected that power does not belong in their hands. Fingers bruised from lifting boxes on the warehouse floor, palms calloused from delivery bike handlebars, knuckles scarred with kitchen burns: these are not hands that have been allowed to hold power … Tonight, against all odds, we have grasped it.

Turning this class-struggle rhetoric into reality would mean calling on the city’s workers to assemble in every workplace, elect delegates from among their ranks, and gather at mass meetings as the genuine representation of New York’s working-class majority.

A struggle on this scale would be the only way to force the capitalists into submission and win real gains for the working class.

Confidence in the working class

Despite the incredible potential for a successful fight against the bosses, Zohran himself appears less confident than he was just a few months ago.

In a recent interview with Mehdi Hasan, he joked about not being realistically able to implement his main three programmatic points (freezing the rent, free buses, and free childcare) in his first term. In the same interview, he emphasized the importance of having a “new set of eyes” and increased “imagination” in using lesser-known legislative techniques and laws.

It’s understandable why Zohran would lack confidence in carrying out his program if he’s only considering the tools given to him by the capitalist class.

The Wall Street Journal’s assertion that “there is nothing any elected official can do to ‘solve’ the affordability crisis” is true within the limits of bourgeois politics and economics, which make it impossible for the working class to exert real influence. As former investment manager Neil Barsky wrote in the New York Times: “Mayors come and go, and New York City’s economic engine has historically proved more powerful than its leaders.”

Relying on the tools of the enemy class will spell disaster for Zohran’s government.

But if he breaks with their party and methods and instead relies on, organizes, and mobilizes the power of the working class, his program and much more is entirely within reach.