The Revolutionary Communists of America want New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani to leave the Democratic Party and help them launch an independent workers' party, a move the group says would be "an important step toward forming a workers' government" and ultimately overthrowing capitalism in the United States.
RCA leaders made the pitch directly to the New York Post, telling the paper that Mamdani's election proved "hundreds of thousands of people across New York City are open to the ideas of socialism" but that the mayor cannot deliver real change from inside the two-party system. Mamdani's team had no immediate comment.
The group held more than a dozen events in and around New York City in the past month, in Williamsburg, Bedford-Stuyvesant, Bushwick, Astoria, and Park Slope, as part of a broader organizing push. It claims 43 branches nationwide and says its membership has surged 83 percent since July 2024.
That a self-described communist organization is openly courting the mayor of the largest city in America tells you something about where the political left has drifted. And the fact that Mamdani's office could not even muster a denial tells you something more.
The RCA did not hide its ambitions. In written answers to the Post, the group laid out a vision that reads like a wish list from a college Marxism seminar: free universal healthcare, free public transit, quality housing with rent capped at 10 percent of income, free education, full employment, and a shorter workweek "with no loss in pay." Who pays for all of it? The group's manifesto, published on communistusa.org, calls on the younger generation to "step forward and fight for the overthrow of capitalism."
An RCA spokesman told the Post that Mamdani should "fight for these reforms and universal healthcare, not just for New York City, but for workers across the nation." He added:
"This battle would represent a challenge to both political parties. A powerful movement on this basis could win real reforms and help build towards a fight for a socialist society."
The group was blunt about its posture toward Mamdani's current party affiliation. It said it did not advocate voting for him as a Democrat and would only have "critically supported his campaign" had he run independently. "His volunteer base could have been the beginning of a workers' party," the RCA stated.
Mamdani has already drawn sharp criticism for his record in office. His first hundred days produced a trail of unfulfilled pledges on housing and homelessness, the very issues the RCA now wants him to champion on a national stage.
The communist outreach is not confined to manifestos and press statements. One patron at Emblem bar in Williamsburg told the Post he was shocked to see RCA members arrive with posters and hold a meeting at the venue. The patron, a Democrat, did not hold back:
"How can the Democratic socialists I held dear to my heart stay silent while Communists organize in our backyard? That's not representation, that's complicity."
NYC Communists, described as a local branch of the RCA, also lobbied for members in a recent Instagram post. "If you are tired of the Epstein Class and their wars, if you are sick of working job after job to stay above water, or if you have questions about why the world seems like its on fire and what our class can do about it, the RCA is for you," the post read.
One DSA activist tried to draw a line between Mamdani's Democratic Socialists of America and the communist group, telling the Post flatly, "I never think about them." But the RCA clearly thinks about the DSA, and sees Mamdani's political base as ripe for recruitment.
Meanwhile, a Senate probe into Mamdani over scrapped antisemitism protections has added another layer of official scrutiny to the mayor's tenure, raising questions about the company his politics keeps attracting.
The RCA pointed the Post to a March 2025 Cato Institute/YouGov poll that found 34 percent of young Americans and 14 percent of the overall population hold a favorable view of communism. The group treated those numbers as proof of momentum.
"The decline of American capitalism, and the growing instability and difficulty of life for ordinary workers, has pushed many people toward socialist and communist ideas," the RCA told the Post. It added: "We are confident that the hatred of the US population towards the Epstein class, which includes both the Democrats and the Republicans, will continue to fuel our growth."
The group's manifesto closes with a line that leaves no room for interpretation: "Let us unite all communists and class-conscious workers in the party of the American socialist revolution and bury capitalism once and for all."
Mamdani's political difficulties are not limited to communist courtship. He recently vetoed an NYPD protest-transparency bill, escalating a clash with the City Council that has left him increasingly isolated at City Hall.
None of this is happening in a vacuum. Before Mamdani's election, Donald Trump publicly warned that it was "highly unlikely" he would provide New York City with federal funds "other than the very minimum as required" if Mamdani won. Trump repeatedly labeled Mamdani a "Communist" and urged voters to back Andrew Cuomo to stop him, Newsmax reported.
"As a Communist, this once great City has ZERO chance of success, or even survival!" Trump said at the time. Mamdani won anyway, running on a platform of free city buses, rent freezes, universal childcare, and expanded protections for immigrants, LGBTQ New Yorkers, and small businesses.
Now the actual communists are telling Mamdani that even that platform does not go far enough, and that the Democratic label is holding him back from the revolution they want.
The RCA declined to name who leads its New York City branches, saying only that "the work of the RCA is directed by an elected Central Committee." That kind of opacity is standard for organizations that talk openly about overthrowing the economic system but prefer to keep their leadership in the shadows.
Mamdani's own base has shown signs of fracture. Some of his voters have sued to block a homeless shelter in their neighborhood, suggesting the progressive coalition that elected him is not as unified as election night suggested.
The RCA's pitch to Mamdani raises a question that the mayor's office, the DSA, and the broader Democratic establishment in New York have so far refused to engage: Where does democratic socialism end and revolutionary communism begin? The RCA sees the distinction as meaningless. It views Mamdani's election as a stepping stone and his voter base as raw material for a workers' party that would seek the end of capitalism itself.
Mamdani has also drawn backlash for promoting a new tax outside a billionaire's Manhattan penthouse, the kind of populist theater the RCA clearly wants to channel into something far more radical.
One DSA activist may claim not to think about the communists. But the communists are thinking about them, and about every voter who pulled the lever for Mamdani. The group's own statement put it plainly: Mamdani's volunteer base "could have been the beginning of a workers' party."
When communists organize openly in Brooklyn bars, recruit on Instagram, and publicly court a sitting mayor to abandon his party and join their revolution, the polite fiction that the American far left is just a harmless campus phenomenon becomes harder to maintain. The question is whether anyone in New York's political class has the nerve to say so out loud.
