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Had you told me about this world of ours when I was younger, I wouldn't have believed you. Of course, as a boy, I did live through Joe McCarthy, the Trump of his moment. However, while he had the power to destroy individual careers and lives, being only a senator, he couldn't destroy whole worlds like You Know Who. Today, were living through a stranger, potentially far more devastating moment (though given the fact that, once upon a time, I would never have imagined the planet Im now on, someday that statement might seem all too mild when applied to our future).
At least in the America of the present moment, no matter how the Republicans may be messing with our voting future, we can still vote. And on November 4th, as someone who lives in New York City, I'm planning to go to my polling place and opt for progressive candidate Zohran Mamdani for mayor. Of course, consider it a sign of the world and times were in that his opponent, former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, who resigned from office in November 2021 after being accused of harassing numerous women, only recently (as the New York Times reported) laughed convivially when a conservative radio host claimed that Mamdani, a childhood immigrant to New York and a Muslim, was a terrorist and would be cheering if there were another 9/11-style attack on the city.
Yes, that truly did happen (though it looks like something I might have made up). And that offers you at least a small sense of the ever-stranger world we find ourselves in during the second term of President Donald J. Trump. With that in mind, let TomDispatch regular Douglas White, who was Human Rights Commissioner for the State of New York and Deputy Fire Commissioner for New York City, among other posts, consider what Mamdani does indeed have to offer us as a potential future mayor in this all too unnerving moment. Tom
Zohran Mamdani as Mayor
Affordability and the Dignity of Working People
On Tuesday, New York, the largest city in America, has an opportunity to elect Zohran Mamdani, a young man, a democratic socialist, an immigrant (at age seven), a Muslim, a progressive, and someone hated by Donald Trump. And no wonder, since hes the antithesis of Trump. No wonder he brings fear to the reactionary forces largely represented by the president and his supporters.
Zohran Mamdani is one of nearly 3.1 million immigrants now living in New York City, close to one-third of its total population. Its inhabitants are 30.9% White, 28.7% Hispanic or Latino, 20.2% Black or African American, and 15% Asian. There are also 800 languages spoken in New York City, and nearly four million residents speak a language other than English. That fact does anything but warm the hearts of reactionary folks, since many of them worry about whats known as replacement theory, an idea created by White nationalist Republican strategists to scare the hell out of their base.
Mamdani is running a very New York-focused election campaign, but one that also speaks to low-income and moderate-income voters across this nation. So many in Donald Trumps America are now facing the possibility of either losing their healthcare or having healthcare that's simply far too expensive and doesn't cover what they need. All too many confront rising housing costs or their inability to purchase a home. All too many are seeing the cost of college reach a level that makes it unaffordable for their children and are now experiencing significant healthcare expenses, whether for young children or elderly sick parents, that have become suffocating.
Here in New York City, poverty is already double the national average. One quarter of New Yorkers don't have enough money for housing, food, or medical care. Twenty-six percent of children (that's 420,000 of them!) live in poverty. Of the 900,000 children in the city's public school system, 154,000 are homeless. (And sadly, each of these sentences should probably have an exclamation point after it!) In the face of such grim realities, Mamdani, among other policies, is calling for a freeze on rents in rent-stabilized apartment buildings in the city; making buses free; offering free childcare for those under the age of five; building significant amounts of new affordable housing; improving protections for tenants; providing price-controlled, city-owned grocery stores as an option; and raising the minimum wage.
Make no mistake: Zohran Mamdani distinctly represents the other in Donald Trumps universe. In that world, hes viewed as not White, which is in itself a crime for so many of the presidents supporters. Trump has always been a divider. As the Guardian reported in 2020 in a piece headlined, The politics of racial division: Trump borrows Nixon's southern strategy, the president warned that, if Joe Biden were to replace him as president, the suburbs would be flooded with low-income housing.
Hes backed supporters who have sometimes violently clashed with Black Lives Matter (BLM) protesters across the country. He even refrained from directly condemning the actions of a teenager charged with killing two protesters in Kenosha, Wisconsin, suggesting that he might have been killed if he hadn't done what he did. Hes also called the BLM movement a symbol of Hate.
With such rhetoric, the president is indeed taking a page or two out of the 1960s southern strategy, the playbook Republican politicians like President Richard Nixon and Senator Barry Goldwater once used to rally political support among White voters across the South by leveraging racism and White fear of people of color. Much of what drives Republican strategists today is figuring out what can be done to slow and mute the browning of America. Its always important to remember that race is almost invariably a critical issue in the American election process.
The election of Mamdani in New York City would indeed send a message across the country and the world that this my own city is a place where immigrants can achieve political office and thrive. It would send a message that an agenda focused on low-income people promising to provide them with opportunity, access to needed resources, and assistance is a winning approach. In truth, Mamdani's platform and agenda could undoubtedly be used to attract large groups of Americans who might indeed upend the political situation in many conservative districts across America. In other words, it and Mamdani are a threat.
As an observer of the Mamdani campaign, I cant help reflecting on the civil rights struggle I was engaged in during the 1960s in the South. The challenges were enormous and the dangers great, but we made lasting change possible.
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