I have a new column this week on OnlySky. It’s about the election of Zohran Mamdani as New York mayor and what it means for the future of American politics.
This month, a democratic socialist Muslim was elected to run one of the world’s greatest cities. In his rise to power, Mamdani defied conventional wisdom, flummoxed the media establishment, infuriated the billionaire class, and shrugged off suspicion and outright hostility from the ossified Democratic party elites. But his brand of unapologetically progressive politics connected with voters. It inspired the young and motivated an army of thousands of volunteers to get out the vote for him. It’s drawn positive attention and renewed hope all around the world.
Is his victory a fluke that can’t be repeated elsewhere – something unique to the political conditions in NYC? Or does it signal the approach of a sea change in our politics?
Read the excerpt below, then click through to see the full piece. This column is free to read, but members of OnlySky also get special benefits, like member-only posts and a subscriber newsletter:
At the start of the campaign, Andrew Cuomo was the heir-in-waiting. The son of a popular former mayor and a member of President Bill Clinton’s cabinet, he was governor of New York during the COVID era. He resigned in 2021 after accusations that he sexually harassed women in his staff, but he decided to make a comeback.
By contrast, Mamdani, a city councilman from Astoria, started out as an unknown. The earliest polls showed him at 1%, tied with “someone else”. He’s a Muslim—long thought a liability in the city that went through 9/11—and a naturalized citizen who emigrated from Uganda—at a time when the U.S. is experiencing a violent resurgence of xenophobia. As mentioned, he’s also a democratic socialist, an ideology that one party distrusts and the other despises.
But he ran a smart, media-savvy campaign. He combined an unapologetic progressive platform with undeniable personal charisma and a string of viral videos: like jumping into frigid January water in a suit to promote his proposed rent freeze, or a ferocious confrontation with Trumpist border czar Tom Homan, or walking the entire length of Manhattan while talking to voters along the way.
Fact check:
Your article says he was “[t]he son of a popular former mayor”. His father, Mario Cuomo, was never mayor of NYC or anywhere else. He was governor of the State of NY for 12 years.