This analysis brilliantly captures how Mamdani’s victory was built, through a mass politics machine that operates inside a broad front. I want to extend this by highlighting the material geography that makes a politics centered on racial and gender justice not just principled, but strategically essential for building that front.
Bennett argues we cannot abandon a commitment to racial and gender justice to chase a narrowly defined, economistic appeal. This is correct because the working class we are building is itself structured through racialized and gendered circuits of production and reproduction.
The affordability crisis Mamdani confronted in New York is materially linked to the exploitation of majority-Black and Latino workers in logistics hubs like Savannah, Georgia. The goods that stock our shelves arrive via a supply chain that is also a chain of social cost-shifting onto communities of color. The same capitalist class power that financializes housing in NYC drives the port expansion that burdens working-class communities in Savannah.
Therefore, a politics that retreats from racial and gender justice would be strategically self-defeating. It would sever the essential, material solidarity between the tenant in Queens and the longshore worker in Savannah. They are not just abstract allies; they are points of leverage within the same capitalist circuit.
Bennett’s call for a politics that unites economic and social justice is, in practice, a call to organize across this real, existing geography. To win the "Right to the City" in one place, we must contest the capitalist system that reproduces inequality across space. This means building a movement and organizational forms that see the fight for a home in New York and the fight for a healthy environment in Savannah as fronts in the same struggle against capitalist class power. Mamdani’s machine shows we can win a key position. The task now is to learn how to challenge the entire circuit.
I would like to add: Bennett’s call to “protect, inspect, and correct” our allies must be extended with a clear-eyed strategic analysis.
The recent budget showdown is a case in point. Senate centrist Democrat capitulation wasn’t a tactical misstep but a calculated move after the sweeping wins on Election Day. This betrayal was not due to a lack of leverage. The shortage air-traffic controllers would paralyze the national air-freight system within forty-eight hours.
Each night, as corporate headquarters sleep, the global economy’s heart beats in Memphis. Over 150 FedEx aircraft converge at its World Hub, sorting 1.5 million packages in hours. This is the material basis of a new capitalist era, defined by velocity. Command over time is now as critical as command over space, and the majority-Black workforce operating this system holds profound, latent power.
New York finance, Silicon Valley tech, and global automakers all depend on this nocturnal symphony. Their just-in-time models, financial instruments, and assembly lines require Memphis’s irreplaceable rhythm. This vulnerability was exposed during government shutdowns: while the public saw stranded passengers, the real crisis was in the cargo bays, where minor delays triggered network-wide collapse.
The fight was winnable. Yet centrist Democrats surrendered, not because they couldn’t win, but because their alignment with capital makes them unwilling to weaponize disruptions that threaten its circulatory system.
“We can walk and chew gum at the same time, using a popular economic agenda to win over even broader sectors of the working class while also being clear and unapologetic about our racial, gender, anti-imperialist, and social justice agenda.”
This is major key in the midst of signs of realignment (Nick Fuertes, MTG, Trump himself - all reading the weather and acting accordingly) - super critical for the left to hold discipline around. Great piece thanks Bennett!
Excellent analysis, Bennett! I am circulating widely within DSA.
Thanks Paul!
This analysis brilliantly captures how Mamdani’s victory was built, through a mass politics machine that operates inside a broad front. I want to extend this by highlighting the material geography that makes a politics centered on racial and gender justice not just principled, but strategically essential for building that front.
Bennett argues we cannot abandon a commitment to racial and gender justice to chase a narrowly defined, economistic appeal. This is correct because the working class we are building is itself structured through racialized and gendered circuits of production and reproduction.
The affordability crisis Mamdani confronted in New York is materially linked to the exploitation of majority-Black and Latino workers in logistics hubs like Savannah, Georgia. The goods that stock our shelves arrive via a supply chain that is also a chain of social cost-shifting onto communities of color. The same capitalist class power that financializes housing in NYC drives the port expansion that burdens working-class communities in Savannah.
Therefore, a politics that retreats from racial and gender justice would be strategically self-defeating. It would sever the essential, material solidarity between the tenant in Queens and the longshore worker in Savannah. They are not just abstract allies; they are points of leverage within the same capitalist circuit.
Bennett’s call for a politics that unites economic and social justice is, in practice, a call to organize across this real, existing geography. To win the "Right to the City" in one place, we must contest the capitalist system that reproduces inequality across space. This means building a movement and organizational forms that see the fight for a home in New York and the fight for a healthy environment in Savannah as fronts in the same struggle against capitalist class power. Mamdani’s machine shows we can win a key position. The task now is to learn how to challenge the entire circuit.
I would like to add: Bennett’s call to “protect, inspect, and correct” our allies must be extended with a clear-eyed strategic analysis.
The recent budget showdown is a case in point. Senate centrist Democrat capitulation wasn’t a tactical misstep but a calculated move after the sweeping wins on Election Day. This betrayal was not due to a lack of leverage. The shortage air-traffic controllers would paralyze the national air-freight system within forty-eight hours.
Each night, as corporate headquarters sleep, the global economy’s heart beats in Memphis. Over 150 FedEx aircraft converge at its World Hub, sorting 1.5 million packages in hours. This is the material basis of a new capitalist era, defined by velocity. Command over time is now as critical as command over space, and the majority-Black workforce operating this system holds profound, latent power.
New York finance, Silicon Valley tech, and global automakers all depend on this nocturnal symphony. Their just-in-time models, financial instruments, and assembly lines require Memphis’s irreplaceable rhythm. This vulnerability was exposed during government shutdowns: while the public saw stranded passengers, the real crisis was in the cargo bays, where minor delays triggered network-wide collapse.
The fight was winnable. Yet centrist Democrats surrendered, not because they couldn’t win, but because their alignment with capital makes them unwilling to weaponize disruptions that threaten its circulatory system.
“We can walk and chew gum at the same time, using a popular economic agenda to win over even broader sectors of the working class while also being clear and unapologetic about our racial, gender, anti-imperialist, and social justice agenda.”
This is major key in the midst of signs of realignment (Nick Fuertes, MTG, Trump himself - all reading the weather and acting accordingly) - super critical for the left to hold discipline around. Great piece thanks Bennett!
Very good, Bennett. A concise and well-thought-out summary to guide us on 'what do we do next?'
🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥