On November 4th, a young assemblyman toppled a political dynasty. In New York, a city long controlled by billionaires and arguably the epicenter of capitalism, a young Democratic socialist rose to its highest office. At the beginning of this year, many in New York City couldn’t even utter his name, but now they know him well as Zohran Mamdani.
Zohran’s watch party erupted as they looked upon the television and saw their candidate had won. The room was full of organizers, media, and politicians alike, who laughed and hugged each other at the news. The energy of the crowd was the embodiment of joy and hope. A room full of people who worked tirelessly to bring about this outcome didn’t have to worry anymore. Their efforts had paid off.
This is what many last November wanted from Kamala Harris’s campaign, which was branded by this very feeling of “joy”. But now, as we reflect a year later, it becomes obvious something was missing from the equation. In contrast, Zohran is a humble young politician and an Indian immigrant from Uganda. If it weren’t for this race being so high profile, he would blend in with the rest of the New Yorkers he now represents. So, how did a previously unknown candidate fulfill the promise of “joy” that a vice president couldn’t even achieve?
The answer was partly addressed in Zohran’s acceptance speech. The first sentence he uttered was centered on class first, politics. He quoted a fellow socialist and trade unionist, Eugene Debs, saying, “The sun may have set over our city this evening, but as Eugene Debs once said, ‘I can see the dawn of a better day for humanity’”. He continued with, “Fingers bruised from lifting boxes on the warehouse floor, palms calloused from delivery bike handlebars, knuckles scarred with kitchen burns. These are not hands that have been allowed to hold power. Tonight, against all odds, we have grasped it.”
By speaking in this tone, Mamdani creates a throughline for his constituents of what unites them, even in one of the most diverse cities in the world. They may not share the same skin color, background, or story, but they are united as the working class. That is who Zohran has continually fought for. It’s the same message from when he was polling at 1% as it is now. He didn’t shift his social media strategy to copy his opponent, all while having stale policies and a lack of charisma to match, like Andrew Cuomo. He didn’t buckle to corporate interests or associate himself with the establishment like Kamala Harris. He rose to the occasion and consistently communicated his vision to the people, derived from the people’s concerns. That is how he managed to create the greatest underdog story of the modern era.
The ZoMentum
During the primaries, Zohran was an unknown progressive assemblyman. As a 33-year-old democratic socialist from Queens, he ran on a platform built on the growing tensions surrounding affordability in the city. He was steadfast on his agenda from the beginning: fast and free buses, universal childcare, and a rent freeze. These were policies he developed by asking New Yorkers directly what their main frustrations were. Under Eric Adams, issues like rent had only increasingly gotten worse as the current administration refused to regulate the issue. It all boiled down to affordability.
Despite his policies being catered towards the people, his main issue was getting his name out there. He was going up against two major powerhouses: the incumbent mayor, Eric Adams, and former governor Andrew Cuomo. Although both were disgraced in their own respective scandals, they were still billionaire-backed institutions with the support of establishment Democrats.
To counteract this, the charismatic young candidate weaponized social media and a mass canvassing operation to disseminate his policies. Social media was merely the bait, though, that hooked people into getting involved with the campaign. He used it to describe rank choice voting, conducted man-on-the-street interviews with New Yorkers, explained his policies and accomplishments, and encouraged people to volunteer. From this, Zohran began to build an army of people at his disposal.
This momentum secured his spot as the Democratic nominee in the primary. He received 43.5 percent of the vote while Andrew Cuomo only received 36.4 percent. It was a landslide. “Tonight we made history,” he said. “In the words of Nelson Mandela, it always seems impossible until it is done. My friends, we have done it”. The primary had the highest voter turnout for the city in 35 years. These results showed that Mamdani might have the mandate, that people might be ready for something new, but Zohran made sure to emphasize that the fight was far from over.
After the embarrassing defeat of the primary, Cuomo and Zohran’s other opponents started to get scared. They originally thought there was no way Cuomo would not secure the victory. Even Zohran’s team didn’t believe they would win. Their original estimates calculated a 3% chance of a victory, and they didn’t even write an acceptance speech. But it became clear that New Yorkers might be looking to break the mold.
Cuomo’s team started to viciously attack the young democratic nominee. He urged unions and Democratic officials to withhold support. His Super PAC “Fix the City” raised a record 25 billion dollars, a lot of which came from billionaire donors. Bill Ackman dumped millions into attack ads against Mamdani to “save our city,” with Michael Bloomberg following his lead. Trump also butt in on the race, stating he would offer cabinet positions to anyone who dropped out. Eric Adams unsurprisingly followed suit.
Cuomo’s team also leaned heavily into Islamophobia. On Sid Rosenberg’s show, he agreed that Mamdani would egg on another 9/11. He also weaponized Zohran’s collaboration with the Turkish-American content creator, Hasan Piker, who is also a fellow Muslim. In 2019, Piker said, “America deserved 9/11”, when referencing the idea of blowback or that America’s destabilization of the Middle East led to the 2001 terrorist attack. Despite this being the consensus of many political analysts, Cuomo hammed up the narrative surrounding this clip to imply Zohran was collaborating with a “lover of terrorism”.
In a racist AI-generated attack ad that was soon deleted, he framed Mamdani as a lover of criminals, showed a black person robbing a CVS, and framed pro-Palestinian protestors as violent. These Islamophobic attacks were a cheap attempt to disgrace Zohran’s name and leaned into the notions that Muslims are naturally barbaric and violent.
Zohran constantly had to answer questions regarding Israel, questions that framed his mere existence as an anti-genocide muslim as a danger to Jewish New Yorkers. The media and moderators at debates didn’t question Andrew Cuomo nearly as much about his sexual harassment scandal. Instead, they chose to hammer up a pro-Israel narrative, despite the majority of Democrats believing that the nation is committing a genocide. Zohran’s opponents called him a jihadist and claimed he would implement Sharia law. There was no evidence for this whatsoever, but the permission structure for islamophobia is so high that reality is irrelevant.
This caused Zohran to moderate some of his positions despite the momentum he gained in the primary. People nationwide appreciated his integrity in the primaries and his steadfastness on his positions. But he buckled under the pressure and moderated his stance on the NYPD’s history of racism and the phrase “globalize the intifada”.
Nevertheless, he continued to hammer his policies and meet voters where they were. His team hosted social events to get people invested in the campaign, like a city-wide scavenger hunt. He walked all of Manhattan in a day, marched across the Brooklyn Bridge with supporters at 5 am, went on centrist podcasts like Andrew Schulz’s Flagrant, and even the conservative outlet, Fox News. Because of his determination and a novel care for the people’s frustrations, he managed to secure this historic victory.
A Moment of Hope
Zohran’s victory comes on the heels of a growing fascist regime in America and worldwide. Marine Le Pen in France, Meloni in Italy, the Reform Party in the UK, and Sanseito in Japan – all of these parties have a similar ultra-conservative agenda to Trump, based on ousting immigrants and creating an ingroup. I would argue fascism has globally become a trend due to one constant: liberalism.
We often associate liberalism in America with progress. In our youth, it has been framed as the farthest one can go to the left, but as a political theory, liberalism is the exact opposite. It’s the maintenance of the status quo. Martin Luther King Jr once said, “The white moderate is more devoted to order than to justice”. Although he singled out white people in this equation, this was a critique of liberalism. Liberals during the Civil Rights Movement claimed they cared about the black struggle, but said “now isn’t the time”. That’s something we’re all too familiar with in the modern era.
When Bernie Sanders ran on a campaign for universal healthcare, Democrats and liberals said it can’t be done, despite European countries and our northern neighbor, Canada, having this policy for decades. Why wouldn’t the richest country in the world be able to afford the same? People protested and voted for the Democrats after the first Trump regime and the death of George Floyd, and yet, once again, nothing changed. 1,000 people still die every year to police brutality, and many didn’t feel their material conditions improved under Joe Biden.
This lack of social and economic progress only made it easier for Republicans to present themselves as that change and move the needle further and further to the right. That’s why even as Joe Biden sat in the Oval Office, his party moved to the right on issues like immigration and trans rights. Now they are the two most vulnerable communities in the nation.
People are tired of nothing changing, and in the absence of change, their lives incrementally get worse. This is why people across the world have their eyes on Zohran and see him as a beacon of hope. He’s the first candidate in ages to actually go up to his future constituents and ask, “What do you need?” He’s the first candidate to push the needle on economic issues that have long gone unaddressed. He’s not a part of the establishment; he’s not old – everything about him is a complete change.
What Zohran proposes is moderate in reform, especially in comparison to our European counterparts, but it scares the establishment because the system isn’t meant to benefit working-class people. Especially in NYC, billionaires and the elite class feel as though their wealth grants them the right to dictate the future of the city. On the other end are establishment Democrats who want to maintain power and cash in a check from these very same billionaires that are in line with oligarchy rather than democracy.
People never ask how the government can afford to spend millions overseas for military operations, but they will ask how you will pay for free buses. Anytime you do something for the people, it’s an issue. A quote from the New York Times reveals, “But it took just hours to become clear that the power brokers and civic gatekeepers accustomed to running New York saw Mr. Mamdani’s ascent as something closer to hostile takeover — one that many would do anything to block.”
Zohran’s campaign, most importantly, sets a precedent for American politics. He may not be able to accomplish everything, but his campaign is a promising sign that there are candidates who will work hard for people and dare to make radical change. Global fascism might be a trend, but so is global leftism. France’s leftist coalition swept in last year’s election, and the Greens in England are trying to become an alternative to Kier Starmer’s center-right Labour Party. This is much larger than one brown kid from New York.
We are at the same time of year we were last year, when Donald Trump won his second presidency. So much hopelessness and loss were felt, but now, because of candidates like Zohran and the persistence of the people of New York City, we feel more hope in this moment than ever. Even as we face down the barrel of authoritarianism, let this be a lesson for Democrats on how to operate – that left populism works and socialism is no longer a dirty word. If they don’t heed this warning, the people have proven they are willing and ready to kick them to the curb just as they did to Andrew Cuomo.
