Brooklyn DSA member tied to Mamdani admin 'tenant advocate' wants rent abolished

Nicolás Vargas, a Brooklyn DSA member and founding organizer with Brooklyn Eviction Defense, has been revealed to be a prominent voice in the movement advocating for the abolition of rent in a clip that has been making the rounds on social media. Vargas has ties to Cea Weaver through their work with the DSA, one of the far-left groups behind Socialist New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s mayoral win. Weaver was appointed by Mamdani to be the Big Apple's “tenant advocate.”

“We have a large enough constituency in these tenant unions to actually force leverage so that, if they don't pass or push this legislation, we'll kick them out or throw them in the street and guillotine them,” Vargas said in the clip, seemingly referring to political opposition. 

“Then we need those kinds of strong numbers in that constituency, but also that socialist way of life, and the ability and militancy to be ready to withhold your rent and withhold your labor with your neighbors in order to get these hard-fought legislative victories, or even rent strikes, enacted and pushed through, Vargas continued. “That's how we got the eviction moratoriums, and how we got the extensions. That's how we got the right to counsel and the 2019 tenant laws.”

Vargas argued those legislative victories should serve as a foundation for a much broader political movement, rather than the end goal of tenant organizing.

“So not only that, but we can't just wait until there are legislative opportunities and demands to organize around.,” he said. “The world needs transformation now. The conditions for transformation exist now, and it should happen every day. It should happen in our homes, it should happen in our workplaces, and it should happen in the streets. We need to merge all those disparate struggles, and socialist revolution is the glue that will hold that merger together.”

His comments were during a panel discussion with Weaver called “Who is for Tenants?” that took place over Zoom in 2022, where they discussed how to stop rent. During the discussion, Weaver responded to Vargas, saying that she “agrees” with a lot of what he said, and added that their is a need for tenants to organize.

Vargas has previously posted explicitly: "I think we should just abolish rent." 

As a founding member of Brooklyn Eviction Defense, Vargas has been involved with an organization that uses tactics such as eviction blockades, tenant watches, and direct confrontations with landlords and law enforcement. He has said tenants on his own block spent three of the previous six years participating in rent strikes. After a heated dispute with a landlord, Vargas was arrested, and police discovered an outstanding warrant connected to his refusal to leave a property after his lease had ended, City Journal reported.