“A new era of class warfare has begun in New York, and no one is more excited than Generalissimo Zohran Mamdani. Witness the mayor-elect’s change of character since his Tuesday election victory.”

So begins the editorial of the Washington Post, owed by billionaire and Amazon owner Jeff Bezos.

“Mamdani ran an upbeat campaign,” the editorial goes on, “with a nice-guy demeanor and perpetual smile papering over a long history of divisive and demagogic statements. New Yorkers periodically checking in on politics could understandably believe that he simply wanted to bring the city together and make it more affordable.” But the editors editorialize that such an “interpretation becomes much harder after his victory speech.”

“Across 23 angry minutes laced with identity politics and seething with resentment,” they write, “Mamdani abandoned his cool disposition and made clear that his view of politics isn’t about unity. It isn’t about letting people build better lives for themselves. It is about identifying class enemies — from landlords who take advantage of tenants to “the bosses” who exploit workers — and then crushing them.”

Worse still, say the editors, the mayor elect intends “not to increase wealth but to dole it out to favored groups.” If this were not bad enough, the editors add, in Mamdani’s world, “there is no problem too large for government to solve, and no concern too small for it to care about.”

Moreover, the editorial asserts that Mamdani has the temerity not only to “claim a mandate, but to vigorously pursue it whether it be a rent freeze or free child care and buses.”

But why wouldn’t he?

Isn’t that what one is supposed to do after winning an election, that is, carry through on their promises and meet the needs of their constituents?

What the Post editors and their boss don’t mention, not surprisingly, is that the ruling class of which Bezos is a leading member has no problem with class war, provided it is one sided and billionaires are driving it. When the tables are turned though and working people and their allies are pressing their class and democratic interests — free day care, free buses, affordable housing, etc. — they cry foul ball.

But Mamdani and the record setting million New Yorkers who voted for him aren’t taking such demagoguery seriously these days. They understand through their own experience that the path to a better future hinges on their readiness to embrace and practice class politics.

Of course, it has to be said, and Mamdani said it in his acceptance speech, that a crucial part of such politics at the local level is inseparable from the struggle against Trump and the MAGA movement at the national level.

This obviously is a big hill to climb. But as recent events and class and democratic struggles in other cities and states show, it isn’t a hill that New Yorkers and their young socialist Mayor have to climb alone.