The other America by Nicholas B. Miller, 7/10/2025

The Other America

by Nicholas B. Miller

[This article posted on 7/10/2025 is translated from the German on the Internet, https://monde-diplomatique.de/artikel/!6097715.]

Attorney General Letitia James and Zohran Mamdani at the Pride Parade

June 25, 2025, marked the peak of a heat wave that hit New York City, the capital of international capitalism, early this year. The day before, Zohran Mamdani won the Democratic Party nomination for mayor of New York City. Mamdani, 33, who was born in Uganda and describes himself as a Muslim of South Asian descent and a democratic socialist, scored a surprise victory over Andrew Cuomo. The controversial former governor of New York State had been the favorite of the party establishment and the powerful business lobby, despite allegations of sexual assault against him.

The victory of Mamdani, who has only been a US citizen since 2018, has galvanized the progressive camp, unsettled the center, and sent conservatives into a frenzy. Bernie Sanders, the 83-year-old New York-born senator from Vermont, praised Mamdani’s courage in communicating a coherent left-wing vision rather than his program. The Democratic establishment reacted more distantly. A leading figure in New York State called him “the absolutely wrong choice.” And Trump immediately denounced him as a “100 percent crazy communist.” Populist circles within the Republican Party circulated xenophobic memes, such as one showing the Statue of Liberty dressed in a burqa. There were also calls to revoke Mamdani’s US citizenship.

Mamdani’s victory came at the end of three extraordinary weeks that were quite turbulent even by current standards in the US. His nomination is linked to the three political issues that are of primary concern to the country and have led to a resurgence of protest movements: immigration policy, events in the Middle East, and the growing power of the executive branch.

In response to the brutal practices Trump intends to use to fulfill his campaign promise of mass deportations, violent protests broke out in Los Angeles, where at least 8 percent of residents do not have legal residency status. The Trump administration wildly exaggerated the demonstrations as “riots” and placed the California National Guard under the control of the central government; and, for the first time in history, it deployed units of the U.S. Marines within its own country.

On June 14, millions of citizens took to the streets to celebrate “No Kings Day”—the slogan refers to a meme in which Trump is worshipped as a king. The more than 2,100 demonstrations across the country were a coordinated counterprogram to the state ceremony marking the 250th anniversary of the US armed forces, which, thanks to divine providence, coincided with Trump’s 79th birthday.

The ostentatious military parade was intended to inspire national pride and a willingness to serve in the armed forces; but detractors said it celebrated the authoritarian turn of the US in a way reminiscent of North Korea: a gigantic portrait of Trump had been erected between the entrance columns of the Department of Agriculture, and dozens of tanks, thousands of soldiers, and a cavalry guard had been mobilized. But then the rain came. The audience, already smaller than expected, thinned out further. Trump read his speech from a sheet of paper, which was unusual for him. The murder of a Democratic member of the Minnesota State House of Representatives, which had been reported shortly before, was not mentioned. And at some point, the birthday boy seemed to doze off.

A week later, America’s firepower was back in full force. In the early hours of June 21, on Trump’s orders, the U.S. Air Force bombed central Iranian nuclear facilities with its legendary bunker-busting weapons. Members of Congress threatened impeachment proceedings against the president for failing to inform Congress, let alone seek its approval for an act of war.

The political atmosphere in the US has reached boiling point – but is this also a turning point? With regard to the key issues mentioned – migration, the Middle East, executive dominance – we will only know in hindsight. However, two features that distinguish Trump’s second presidency from his first are clearly no longer valid.

First, the first cracks – possibly only temporary ones – are appearing among the Republicans. Trump’s friendship with the richest man in the world dramatically fell apart on the social media stage. Elon Musk failed to cut enough government spending with his slashing of federal agencies to create the leeway for Trump’s ludicrous budget bill. The “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” passed Congress on July 3, but libertarian circles within the Republican Party are expressing concern about the rapidly growing national debt, which they estimate could rise by up to $3 trillion by 2034.

From the populist corner, on the other hand, there are concerns about expected concessions to the high-tech industry, such as a ten-year waiver on government regulation of AI development. Other Republican voices openly opposed military intervention in Iran and the prospect of regime change. Nevertheless, the president has a firm grip on the Republican party base. A Trump post is still enough to silence dissenting voices within the party—on any issue.

Second, the anti-Trump forces have overcome their post-election paralysis: the political left has regained its activist energy, and many US citizens are taking to the streets again. The “No Kings” demonstrations were perhaps the largest mass protest in US history; in any case, they were the largest the country has seen since the Black Lives Matter rallies following the death of George Floyd in May 2020. However, fundamental differences among Trump’s opponents prevent them from agreeing on a common agenda.

In Los Angeles, the protests against deportations arose from everyday life, from the community’s anger over the breach of a long-standing status quo for irregular immigrants on the one hand, and over the abuses that had come to light in deportation prisons on the other. In contrast, the “No Kings” protests were more of a well-planned campaign with the central demand of preventing Trump’s grasp for total executive power. Here, the demonstrators carried US flags en masse; the Palestinian and rainbow flags were also always present.

On the streets of Los Angeles, however, the Stars and Stripes was conspicuously rare, especially during the first days of the demonstrations. In discussions among the left, the dominance of Mexican and Central American flags was a controversial topic: some defended them as a legitimate expression of national pride; others condemned them as a gift to the right, which would only be emboldened in its zeal to label the demonstrators as foreign elements.

The proportion of irregular migrants in the US has reached remarkable proportions by international standards. Currently, almost half of the non-naturalized migrant population does not have a valid residence permit for the US. This situation is the result of decades of reform gridlock. The last comprehensive amendment to the relevant federal laws dates back to 1990. Some local administrative areas, mostly under Democratic leadership, have introduced a wide range of services and protective measures for irregular migrants despite their irregular residence status under federal law.

The issue of illegal migration has been a constant source of anger for Donald Trump since he descended the gilded escalator of New York’s Trump Tower on June 16, 2015, to announce his entry into politics. Exactly ten years later, he ordered a significant escalation of his campaign against migrants, with raids on their workplaces, their homes, and their children’s schools.

On July 1, 2025, the symbolic final act was set when he visited the newly built tent prison in the state of Florida with obvious pleasure—a “beautiful” camp for irregular migrants with 3,000 beds, located on an abandoned airfield in the Everglades. It was christened “Alligator Alcatraz” because, as Trump noted, it is guarded by “many bodyguards and many police officers in the form of alligators.”

Over the course of this summer, Trump could make an even more fundamental change that has to do with both the issue of migration and the expansion of executive power: Currently, all children born on US territory are granted full citizenship. The Trump administration wants to make this right dependent on the immigration status of the parents through a presidential decree. This would overturn an interpretation of the Constitution that prevailed at the end of the 19th century.

On June 27, the Supreme Court ruled on a case involving the Trump administration’s attempt to overturn the birthright citizenship principle. Without explicitly addressing the constitutionality of the relevant orders, the Supreme Court weakened the ability of lower courts to suspend presidential orders because they consider them unconstitutional. In doing so, the Supreme Court gave the government – and the executive branch in general – a huge gift. This is because the Democrats’ political tactics have so far relied precisely on this power of the lower courts.

Following the ruling on June 27, the government should now be able to issue one presidential decree after another. Trump will probably continue to pursue a dizzying zigzag course, attacking and retreating depending on his changing mood. As in Los Angeles, where, immediately after sending in the military, he halted deportation raids on farms, restaurants, and hotels because these industries feared for their “illegal” workers. As in trade policy, where he imposes tariffs only to suspend or abolish them again in the blink of an eye.

The most loyal of Trump’s supporters admire their hero and his brave fight against a corrupt, moribund political class that serves itself, without pragmatism or principles. Unlike their king Trump.

However, Mamdani’s victory among Democrats in New York suggests that the longing for charismatic authenticity – rather than administrative competence – is not an exclusive trait of the right wing in the US. Even the defeated Andrew Cuomo admitted that his opponent had run a masterful campaign. But this compliment referred to Mamdani’s ability as a communicator and not to the content he communicated.

If Mamdani is elected mayor of New York in November this year, he will not be able to implement much of his program.

His visions of state-run grocery stores, free public transportation, and free daycare centers could only be realized through higher taxes on the wealthy, which would have to be decided at the state level in New York. Mamdani’s promise to freeze rents and introduce a minimum hourly wage of $30 would bring the entire business community up in arms.

And his announcement that he would have Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu arrested, thereby implementing the ruling of the International Criminal Court (ICC), shows a blatant ignorance of jurisdiction, as the US withdrew its signature from the ICC statute in 2002.

Of course, none of this rules out the possibility that Mamdani could win the election in November. After all, Donald Trump—from the exact opposite ideological corner—set out with a similarly unrealistic agenda. This agenda included not only constitutionally questionable measures, but also the promise to strengthen the economic power of the US with a strategy that was bound to deeply disturb mainstream economists.

There are now indications that Mamdani owes his victory over Cuomo primarily to votes from the three voter groups that defected en masse to the Trump camp in the last presidential election: Generation Z, the Muslim population, and—toward the end of his campaign—Latino men.

Should Mamdani win, Wall Street could console itself with the fact that the mayor of New York is not the president of the United States – and never will be. The US Constitution explicitly excludes naturalized citizens from the presidency. This comforting knowledge is more well-founded than the wishful thinking of many Trump opponents, who convinced themselves before his re-election that his promises were nothing more than populist rhetoric.

Nicholas B. Miller is a historian and editor of Plantation Knowledge: Agricultural Colonization, Exploitation, and Exchange Since 1500, Albany (Suny Press) 2025.