Zohran Mamdani’s meteoric ascent, from an obscure state assemblyman to the leader of the world’s most important city in less than a year, has naturally sent commentators scurrying to read the tea leaves. Some see him as a domestication of hitherto foreign ideological flavors, such as “third-worldism” or (to use a French term) “islamo-gauchisme.” Others see the relentless economic focus of his campaign as pointing the way to a new version of the Democratic Party that places affordability and the cost of living at the beating heart of its program. Still others resist the impulse to find any greater import in the rise of Mamdani, regarding him as merely a charismatic new face who got lucky to run against a uniquely unappealing establishment candidate in a one-party town.
There is more than a grain of truth to all these perspectives. And yet, none of them quite captures the meaning of Mamdani. Beyond the romance of his improbable climb to power, Mamdani is important because he will be arguably the first major American executive to win by combining the two great movements that have roiled the left since the Obama years: wokeness and the anti-capitalism spurred by Occupy Wall Street. And notwithstanding the recent bromance in the Oval Office, we can expect Mamdani to play a larger role in our national politics than is usual even for the most prominent mayors, because he incarnates the very things MAGA is most determined to oppose.