Warnings from the outgoing mayor reveal how policing rhetoric functions to defend hierarchy rather than public safety.
As outgoing Mayor Eric Adams issued stark warnings about “dark days ahead” under Zohran Mamdani, much of the coverage framed the exchange as a personality clash or ideological dispute over policing. But a closer reading suggests something more structural: a defense of a governing model in which law enforcement substitutes for social policy, and disorder is defined primarily by the visibility of poverty. New York Post
Adams’ tenure leaned heavily on police expansion, overtime spending, and quality-of-life enforcement, even as housing costs soared and homelessness rose. From a Marxist perspective, this approach reflects a familiar pattern: when redistribution is politically foreclosed, the state intensifies coercion to manage the consequences of inequality. Feminist scholars note that such strategies disproportionately harm women, LGBTQ people, and migrants, who are more likely to experience police contact as destabilizing rather than protective.
Mamdani’s rejection of this framework — including his opposition to encampment sweeps and low-level criminalization — marks a substantive break. His critics describe this as naïve or dangerous; supporters argue it recognizes that public safety cannot be separated from housing, healthcare, and income security. City & State’s reporting underscores how deeply entrenched the enforcement-first model remains, particularly within police unions and budgetary structures. City & State NY
Islamic ethical traditions emphasize the protection of human dignity (karamah) and the obligation of rulers to prevent harm caused by unjust systems. From this lens, criminalizing survival behaviors while tolerating speculative housing markets represents moral inversion. Mamdani’s approach challenges that inversion by treating social provision as the foundation of safety, not its afterthought.
The transition rhetoric, then, is not simply about crime statistics or administrative competence. It is about whether New York will continue governing inequality through force, or begin addressing it through redistribution. Adams’ warnings reflect the anxiety of a model facing its limits; Mamdani’s test will be whether he can dismantle that model without being consumed by the backlash it provokes.
