Mayor Mamdani redefines what it means to hope

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As many of us bask in the glow of Zohran Mamdani’s victory in the New York City Mayoral election and the success of Democrats across the country on Tuesday, I feel anxiety nipping at my heels.

It’s not that I’m not happy. Truly, I am. We’ve had the privilege of watching Mamdani beat disgraced former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo not once but twice this year while being an unapologetic Democratic Socialist Muslim immigrant who has the temerity of being young. In some ways it’s too lovely to be true. 

But unlike past moments of resurgence—the 2018 midterms, for example—it’s hard to feel that same unbridled joy. Part of it, I think, is that we’ve simply seen too much this year; witnessed enough cruelty for a lifetime. The other part is that some of this hard-won joy is being matched with such extreme hate and fear that it casts a vicious pall on the spirit of celebration.

In 2018 I was working in the political tech space, specifically on a platform called Crush the Midterms. The concept was straightforward: Users would answer a few quick questions about where they lived, the issues that mattered to them and the type of volunteering that interested them, and the platform would produce a customized plan for getting involved in local congressional races. Those midterms were the first real opportunity for Americans to rebuke the first Trump administration at the ballot box and I remember knocking on doors myself and feeling like, despite two years of Trump’s bullshit, we could right this ship. The power of our votes felt limitless. We had no idea a global pandemic and a second Trump presidency were in our future.

This year has been an unmitigated disaster. This administration’s cruelty is so far-reaching, and Trump’s special mocktail of mental decline and megalomania make it nearly impossible to anticipate what’s to come. We’ve watched our family and friends and neighbors be violently snatched from their homes and jobs and neighborhoods by armed and masked agents of the state. We’re witnessing 42 million Americans teeter on the brink of hunger as a result of cutting off funding to SNAP. To spend even a day feeling pure joy when he’s causing active suffering feels like too much of a privilege. But celebrate we must, if only to create some space for the optimism that things can get better.

Some, however, aren’t even willing to give Mamdani a chance before putting their hands around his neck. The Anti-Defamation League, an organization that at one point fought against antisemitism but has morphed into a vector of Islamophobia and feigned ignorance to hate when it serves their broader interests, announced Wednesday the “Mamdani Monitor.” 

“In light of Mayor-Elect Mamdani's long, disturbing record on issues of deep concern to the Jewish community, ADL is watching and responding to the policies and appointments of the new Administration,” a page on their website about the initiative reads. (To what disturbing record this refers is unclear.) The page also gives people a link to tell Mamdani “to stand unequivocally against antisemitism in all its varied forms and support all of New York's Jewish residents just as he would all other constituents,” something he has done many, many times over, and even in his victory speech Tuesday night. (“We will build a City Hall that stands steadfast alongside Jewish New Yorkers and does not waver in the fight against the scourge of antisemitism,” he said.)

Perhaps most disturbing of all, ADL has set up a special NYC tip line to report incidents of perceived antisemitism in Mamdani’s New York. This sows distrust in neighbors and breeds hyper-vigilance. It encourages Jews to eye non-Jews with inherent suspicion. 

In contrast with Mamdani’s message of being a mayor to all New Yorkers, the ADL’s efforts serve only to make Jews retreat further within the community. It highlights a troubling contrast between the multi-racial coalition that worked tirelessly to elect Mamdani with the people who’ve been taught to fear him. Where we see a pocket of blue sky for the first time in a year, they see an apocalypse. I don’t know how to reconcile the two.

Far be it from me to tell you what Mamdani’s win “means” in a broader sense since that’s entirely subjective and something we won’t really be able to gauge until we have a bit more perspective. All I know is that I see a man who makes the previously politically invisible feel seen, and who is at the very least willing to try to make the world better than how he found it. I can accept skepticism and criticism and even cynicism, but what I cannot accept is injecting even more unnecessary cruelty into a world that already has more than enough. 

This year and this election have redefined for me the meaning of hope. Hope is not blind optimism or uncritical belief in a political savior. Hope, to me, means the ability to imagine a better world is possible and then work to build it brick by brick. It is, as the activist and organizer Mariame Kaba says, not an emotion but a discipline–one we must practice every single day. I am imbued today with that concept of hope. There is no MISSION ACCOMPLISHED banner to be hung, no real material change in the world of today versus yesterday. Just the quiet relief of good news that helps us live to fight another day. 

A note: Look out for another issue of The Handbasket coming later this week. It’s a story featuring the voices of 15 or so SNAP recipients across the country who spoke to me about the lapse in funding and the material impact it has on their lives. They were so generous to share their experiences. You won’t want to miss it.