Lib and Let Die
by Kate Weissenberger, Contributor
Illustration by Emery Aikin
About a month has passed since New York City elected Zohran Mamdani to be their next mayor. His victory, though expected, was explosive, with people around the world celebrating the win. To call it expected, really, is to almost deny the unbelievable amount of consistent effort that went into building such a successful movement. The polls can only give us so much, though; it is only the people behind the cause who tell us the whole story, and just why Mamdani’s victory is so important.
Over the course of about a year, Mamdani’s campaign grew from virtual obscurity to becoming one of the dominant political movements on the internet. After the mayoral primary in June, when Mamdani,then considered an underdog, won the Democratic nomination, it was impossible to keep from seeing his cheerful smile plastered across social media. The number of Instagram comments proclaiming something similar to “THAT’S MY MAYOR! (I’m from [Distant Or Even Non-American City])” is uncountable. There is something intensely charming about Mamdani, and it doesn’t seem nefarious; in fact, it feels wholeheartedly genuine, a rarity in the political landscape. He captured people’s hearts as well as their attention. He wasn’t alone in his success, either; both New Jersey and Virginia elected Democrat governors this year. After seeing Democrats lose both the Senate and the White House in 2024, and experiencing the summer of thick disappointment from the left which preceded it, I find it necessary to ask what made this year different.
An immediate and obvious answer comes in the form of the American government’s startlingly quick embrace of fascism under Donald Trump. Trump’s actions, from the deployment of the National Guard to Los Angeles, to the dismantling of the Department of Education, to the abhorrent crimes made clear by his prominence in the Epstein files, are extremely unpopular with the American public. Despite his claims to the contrary, his approval rating has dropped from 52% to 41% since January of this year. Detestation alone, though, does not a landslide victory for the opposing party make.
For a number of years, Democrats have run on a campaign of preservation rather than innovation, preferring to maintain a status quo that masquerades as sane. In reality, it’s the same oppressive system from which the Republican party is encouraging a technofeudalist state to grow. We are careening wildly down the road to full-blown fascism, and the Democrats, rather than growing a backbone, have bizarrely made the decision to follow along with slackened jaws. As a result, prominent Democratic politicians have elected to rescind some of their more controversial points, like the fact that transgender people are worthy of respect.
Last year, Americans spent months watching Kamala Harris back down from stances made anywhere from six years to six weeks before her retreat. A desire to ban fracking, made clear in 2018, was denied, along with her initial support of Medicare for All, the reallocation of policing funds, and the decriminalization of the border—all issues considered particularly important to voters across the board. How can you expect to successfully rally people to your cause if there is no foundation upon which to stand?
Mamdani refused to engage in the same weak-chinned waffling as establishment Democrats, and therein lies the secret to his success. The principles with which he began his political career in 2015—Palestinian liberation, housing reform, workers’s rights—are the same he championed at the podium at which he gave his victory speech. Mamdani, in simply being principled, gave himself an identity beyond being the anti-Cuomo. His youth was not contingent on Cuomo’s senescence; his warmth did not exist to counteract Cuomo’s frigidity; his wit did not act only in opposition to Cuomo’s testudinal tendencies. At the end of the day, Mamdani is a man intent on serving his people; it didn’t matter who the opposition was.
It would be foolish to see Mamdani’s dazzling success as a precursor to a revitalization of the Democratic party; proudly proclaiming your identity as a democratic socialist (EGADS!) is not going to win you any points with the elite, blue or red. I do think, however, that there is hope, and it is tangible. As the country becomes increasingly fragmented, a strong sense of community will become inextricable from survival. When Mamdani talks about freezing the rent, establishing city-owned grocery stores, and instating no-cost childcare, he is simply addressing basic human needs. It doesn’t take tens of millions of dollars to begin to instate these same kinds of changes in your own community; it takes a few pairs of hands and some gentle hearts.
This is not to devalue the role government plays in our lives. It took a descent into fascism for Democrats to secure some notable wins. People’s lives have been upended, ruined, or even ended in the process. I don’t know about you, but it’d be nice for some proud democratic socialists to be elected without a year’s worth of internment camps, cuts to USAID, and anti-trans propaganda. I don’t expect the entire Democratic party to model next year’s campaigns after Mamdani’s; in fact, I expect them to lean harder into this weird brand of centrism before the next presidential election rolls around. However, I still feel something positive is on the horizon, and I am endlessly indebted to those who keep the promise of hope alive.
