Mamdani’s Victory Represents How We Do Politics Today
By Aunt America
I’ve been sitting here since Election Day, wondering how on Earth New York City elected, of its own volition, Zohran Mamdani, a man who calmly introduced himself to the nation as a democratic socialist. Then I looked at my calendar and realized that 9/11 was almost a quarter-century ago, and tragedy seems to have aged out in favor of free bus service. His election isn’t the death knell of capitalism; it’s the confirmation of what happens when our historical context is that of a goldfish.
We members of Gen X and up must understand that three generations now walk the planet who have perhaps an idea or a vague recollection of that day, but that by no means serves as an indicator that they understand it. Just as Gen X was born into a world in which man had walked on the moon, we can intellectually grasp the import of the event. Still, there is no possible way to reconstruct the emotional and cultural resonance of the moment. It happened, we know it happened, and– can we talk about the Berlin Wall now? That we remember.
So it is for Millennials, children when 9/11 took place. Mamdani himself was ten years old when it happened. They may have registered a sense of fear, much of which probably bounced off a lot of deeply upset adults, but there was no way to absorb what it all actually meant.
By the time they were old enough to realize the enormity of the moment, the societal shift had already happened: We live in a nation where the battle has come to us. It was baked in for them and everyone to come after. We may not have centuries-old basilicas for the Axis to bomb to smithereens, but our modern cathedrals of massive office buildings can shudder and fall, and don’t forget to dump out your water bottle on your way to the TSA line.
If you were there, it’s easy to stare at the election returns of November 4 and lament that memories could be so short. But that’s because elections aren’t built on memories. They ride on emotion, execution, and the economy. And this November, the wildly swinging pendulum that is currently American politics swung in the direction of Zohran Mamdani.
And if you think it’s bad for those of us who can still feel the staggering fear and grief of 9/11, consider what century-old World War II vet Alec Penstone had to say about the turning of the tides: “I can see in my mind’s eye rows and rows of white stones. All of our friends and everybody else who gave their lives for what? The sacrifice wasn’t worth the result that it is now.” He’s talking about England, but he’s talking to the world.
What’s most telling about that clip is what happened after he informed all of humanity what he thought of its behavior in the wake of 70 million dead: The presenter jumped in, blasted him with fake empathy, and called in another woman to hand him a CD before shuffling him off the air.
And that is how we wound up with Zohran Mamdiani.
We’re either not remembering or we’re allowing our sense of history to become clouded by the hyperconcerns of the present. In that respect, Mamdani wasn’t so much elected by people who have no concept of 9/11 so much as people who have no concept of 9/12– a sense of shared national purpose, a sense of cultural union against a common enemy.
Mandami and those who voted for him have a common enemy, all right, but it’s not terrorists. It’s Trump.
Capitalism, like freedom, doesn’t die because of its shortcomings. It dies because those in charge of protecting it, promoting it, and passing it on start to actively work against it. And if you don’t have burned into you the memory of a news anchor saying, “We would show you additional footage from the World Trade Center, but what we have right now is too graphic to air,” you are going to think that one of the top priorites to secure the safety of New York City is to “increase funding to hate violence prevention programs by 800%.” You are going to threaten to arrest the prime minister of Israel because the International Criminal Court said to.
The election of Mamdani says more about a shift in the Overton Window in what is considered beyond the political pale in American culture. Politicians on the left used to at least pay lip service to “a strong economy” and “helping local businesses succeed.” Now they’re just out there pushing for a minimum wage of thirty dollars an hour and “making NYC an LGBTQIA+ sanctuary city.” And that’s positive for transparency– might as well come right out with it– but the never-ending Christmas list of government goodies steamrolls any advances the private sector may make economically.
As little as fifteen years ago, Jay Jones wouldn’t just lose his bid for Virginia’s AG for saying that he’d prefer to shoot his Republican opponent in the head twice and wish death upon his “little fascist” children, he’d be finished in polite society. His political career would have been over by nightfall. This man would have ended his days as a cautionary tale about the dangers of saying what you really think and texting. As the years wore on, you might’ve seen historical footage of him on “I Love the 2020s.” That’s it.
Instead, he won.
Dan Quayle was Vice-President of the United States in 1992 and became utterly unelectable at the age of 45 because he was confused about the spelling of “potato.” But Jay Jones lives to prosecute another day, and Zohran Mamdani now holds the purse strings of almost 8% of the entire American economy. And they’re doing it because we, the people, put them there.
America sees the collapse of New York City. We may yet even go full-on socialist. But it won’t be because of Zohran Mamdani
It’ll be because of all the ideologues who now have tacit permission to follow him.
