Hosted by Faisal Al Yafai
Featuring Christin El-Kholy, Surbhi Gupta and Danny Postel
Produced by Finbar Anderson
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Having visited New York City shortly before the win of outsider candidate Zohran Mamdani in the Democratic primary for the mayoral election, New Lines’ Christin El-Kholy says she sensed a palpable change in energy. “You could feel that New Yorkers were proud to be New Yorkers once more,” she tells The Lede host Faisal Al Yafai. “There was this general sense of New York being the best place to be at this moment in time.”
El-Kholy highlights Mamdani’s skillful use of social media as a significant factor in his win. “He literally speaks to those who are directly concerned. I think that it signals this revival of the party for younger voters,” she says.
“It’s a rejection of, in this age of Trump, the authoritarian turn that the country is in the midst of, and at the same time the Mamdani phenomenon is very much a negation of the Democratic Party establishment.”
New Lines’ Politics Editor Danny Postel concurs, noting that much of Mamdani’s success was in his approach that connected with voters on their level. “He interviewed a bunch of people in immigrant communities and neighborhoods that had voted for Trump, and he had real conversations with them. Of course, he has his views that are very specific Democratic Socialist views, but he wasn’t trying to convince anybody or superimpose his views on them, he was genuinely listening,” Postel says.
“Mamdani is a symbol of two kinds of rejection. It’s a rejection of, in this age of Trump, the authoritarian turn that the country is in the midst of, and at the same time the Mamdani phenomenon is very much a negation of the Democratic Party establishment,” Postel says.
Mamdani’s approach to his background is in itself quite radical, says the magazine’s South Asia Editor Surbhi Gupta. “I think this is the first example that we have of someone from the diaspora in American politics who marketed himself with a very pan-South Asian identity,” she says.
Gupta notes that Mamdani’s win wasn’t claimed in India in the same way as other successful politicians with roots in the country such as the former U.K. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak. “The media in India is just an extension of the establishment and is also very Islamophobic. His Muslim identity, his politics, it doesn’t make him worth celebrating — it makes him a good candidate for them to attack,” Gupta says.