by DANIEL de VRIES
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani spent this past weekend celebrating his first 100 days (or thereabouts) in office, holding two rallies on Sunday together with his mentor, Bernie Sanders. “102 days ago, we stood together at the dawn of a new era. The world watched, wondering if change could really come,” Mamdani told the crowd of supporters in Queens at the second of the two rallies. “With what we’ve accomplished in 14 weeks, imagine what we can do in four years.”
The weekend’s campaign-style events were supplemented with a new city-run website touting Mamdani’s accomplishments in his first 100 days: $1.2 billion secured for universal childcare, $9.3 million secured in worker and small business restitution and 100,000 potholes fixed.
While Mamdani was busy patting himself on the back for initiatives like “fixing a bump on the Williamsburg Bridge,” a critical analysis of the last three-and-a-half months of the standard bearer for the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) sheds a different light on the content of the supposed “new era” ushered in on January 1.
Speaking on his accomplishments before an audience of supporters on Sunday, Mamdani did not dare to highlight the most important political initiative of his term thus far: his alliance with President Donald Trump. Mamdani has continued what he calls a productive relationship with the man he correctly characterizes as a fascist, meeting with Trump at the White House for a second time on the eve of the criminal war in Iran.
In two addresses Sunday, speaking well over 5,000 words, Mamdani not once uttered the name “Trump.” He made zero references to the war in Iran, and managed just one fleeting mention of ICE. The omissions are not an accident. Mamdani, playing up his “democratic socialism” before an audience overwhelmingly hostile to Trump, would rather avoid dwelling on the blossoming partnership with the leading advocate of world war and dictatorship.
Despite his reticence on the subject, Mamdani’s collaboration with Trump is extremely significant. Mamdani and the Democratic Socialists of America are put forward as the “left” alternative to the pro-business and pro-war politics of the Democratic Party establishment and the fascist politics of the Republicans. Mamdani himself was elected on the basis of left-wing appeals to address the affordability crisis and take on a system dominated by an oligarchy.
In the first months of the Mamdani administration, the strain on the working class is not abating; on the contrary, it’s reaching a breaking point. Trump’s criminal war in Iran is the latest catalyst. The administration is determined to make the working class pay for the unfolding disaster. Trump has requested $200 billion in supplemental war funds specifically for Iran, and roughly $1.5 trillion in military spending next year—a World War III budget. Beyond the inevitable cuts to social services to pay for war, the shutdown of the Strait of Hormuz has already led to major increases in energy prices and will reverberate into all aspects of the economy. And an expansion of the war would have catastrophic consequences for the working class everywhere.
Alongside the war crimes in Iran, Trump is continuing to eviscerate democratic rights within the United States. Trump’s immigration Gestapo operates without constraints. ICE agents in New York City have arrested three times as many people in the first month and a half of 2026 as they did in the same period a year ago. Meanwhile, Trump is preparing the narrative that midterm elections—if they happen at all—are illegitimate and can be overturned.
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