Baltimore        There’s no question New York City’s Mayor Mamdani is a bright comet streaking through the political sky, inspiring passion and hope unlike any politician in decades.  Far away from the big city, we root for his success, read about his daily progress, and wince at every sign of opposition and turmoil.  As easy as it has become to be a fan, we still have to keep our eyes open and our minds sharp.

Mamdani and his team have been organizing something called “Rental Rip-off Hearings.” Two of the scheduled six around the city have now been held according to reports.  Part of Mamdani’s attractive political platform that powered him to victory involved slogans like “freeze the rent.”  Without a doubt, he and his campaign understood that 69% of the city were renters so this was a majority constituency that could be mobilized to vote, and they did a masterful job of it.  Like many successful politicians before him, he and his advisors admirably want to find ways to continue to activate their base in order to demonstrate popular pressure behind their programs.

Why when I read about all of this am I seeing nothing but red flags, while all the messages being sent by the mayor and these efforts is that we should stand up and cheer?  I guess that I can’t help myself.  To me this is exactly what coopting the issues of tenants looks like.  Their intentions may be good, and they are certainly understandable looking at it from their standpoint, but this is not how organizing happens; it is how organizing and its targets are redirected.

Landlords, like bosses, are never a popular class, so they make an evergreen and engaging target.  Siding with tenants against landlords is good, but it also can deflect anger and responsibility away from the city administration and its responsibility to take action and make change.

These are listening sessions.  The pictures have the new tenant czar huddling with gaggles of tenants, appropriately seeking attention to their issues.  Listening personalizes problems, rather than politicizing them as issues requiring collective action and response.  Seeing the city administration as sympathetic is good, but that’s not the same as organizing a tenants’ union, even if the city might be promoting them such unions, while nonetheless trying to make sure that despite promises made and expectations created, it is not the target.

Mamdani and his team are now in power.  For all this soft and fuzzy stuff, the city has to be a central target for tenants who are organizing to leverage change.  These kinds of hearings also distract tenants from his pro-housing development positions that promote faster housing construction without failing to guarantee tenant protections at either the beginning or end of the process.  Mamdani joined with New York’s governor on these programs.  While pillorying landlords at the rip-off hearings, he seems to be promoting solutions with developers rather than programs with rules and regulations that would rein in landlords on rent increases and repairs.

All of this looks like magic tricks for the audience, while other actors are playing on the main stage.  Anything that makes the mayor seem like the solution, even without delivering the goods, rather than increasing the organization and power of tenant unions that might win sustainable and permanent victories, makes me suspicious.  Tenants have a window of opportunity now, if they organize.  They can’t afford to wait for a miracle fix from the mayor.  With real organization, it would always be good to have a mayor as a friend, but to see any politician as a savior is a guarantee of disappointment.