Billionaires are on notice. The game is up.
When 34-year-old, self-described democratic socialist, former foreclosure prevention counsellor, unknown rapper, Ugandan born Muslim migrant Zohran Mamdani was elected mayor of New York City, a tiny flame of hope sparked a small fire. They’re listening. The message is finally getting through.
Newsflash: the root cause of the housing crisis, and a cost-of-living crisis, aren’t migrants or trans kids. That’s propaganda. The culture war that has farmed hate towards the vulnerable has hit a roadblock. Could everything you’re being told on Facebook be a lie? Could tribalising hate towards each other be stopping us focusing on them? Hey, who are ‘they’?
People have stopped, looked up and said, ‘Hang on. Maybe it’s not the trans kids who are the reason I can’t pay the rent, maybe it’s Zuckerberg? Maybe it’s Musk? Maybe it’s ‘them’. The billionaires. The corporations.’
If you want to work out who’s causing the crisis, you need to go upstream. Follow the money. And ‘they’ are the money.
The big money men that put Trump in the White House are nervous. How did their disinformation not destabilise the support base of such a radical candidate like Mamdani? How did this pro-Palestine, anti-wealth accumulation socialist get New York’s top job? 26 billionaires spent over $22 million to block Mamdani becoming mayor of New York. And they lost. Their ‘big man’ money didn’t buy an election result. Their campaigns of disinformation, polarisation and culture war didn’t sway New Yorkers. The people won. And whose votes mattered most? Who came out ready to back Mamdani’s vision for fairness and equality? Young people. And women. Yep, turns out they’d like a future.
As someone who has campaigned for the Greens in two federal election cycles, with an identical platform of taxing billionaires, building public housing, free childcare, free public transport, it was such a relief to see the message land. It’s not radical. It’s sensible. It’s compassionate. You don’t create billionaires without a massive social cost: housing unaffordability, homelessness, cost-of-living crisis… climate crisis. The system that delivers unimaginable wealth also delivers poverty, inequality and crisis. And the solution? Make the billionaires and corporations pay, instead of the people. Simple. Sensible. And democratically socialist.
I can’t tell you how depressing it is watching people file through election booths ready to vote for parties and people who don’t give a shit a about them. For some crazy reason, the most disadvantaged people have been signing up to vote in the interests of billionaires and corporations. And major parties – they’re funded by them. So it doesn’t matter who’s in government, they’re untouchable. Or are they?
Last week, Elvis Presley’s granddaughter, Riley Keough, accepted an award for her humanitarian work and took aim at audience members Zuckerberg and Musk. She said, ‘If you can spend billions building rockets and metaverses, you can spend millions feeding children. If you call yourself a visionary, prove it. Not with money but with mercy. Greed isn’t strength. Compassion is.’
The message is cutting through. It’s not about the Messiah. It’s not about men like Mamdani coming to the rescue, it’s about us. It’s about seeing through the bullshit, and holding all those who profit from the misery of others to account.
The Echo’s coverage of political issues will remain as comprehensive and fair as it has ever been, outside this opinion column which, as always, contains Mandy’s personal opinions only.
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