Zohran Mamdani holding a trans flag at the 2025 New York City Pride March on June 29, 2025. (Noam Galai/Getty Images)
It is not hard to see the appeal of Zohran Mamdani. He is, after all, not Andrew Cuomo — another corrupt, old, Democratic sexual harasser who’s already spent years in power and thinks he’s entitled to be mayor because of his last name. He doesn’t appear steeped in petty corruption like Mayor Adams. He’s not as obviously nutty as Sliwa seems to be. And he has done politics, pace Ezra, the right way: listening to the other side, earning people’s votes one by one, talking to people on the street, and, of course, mastering our new collective replacement for civil discourse: 30-second videos on TikTok.
Those videos are fantastic. Check out this one in favor of freezing rents in NYC, with the man, in full suit and tie, jumping into a freezing bay and out again. Or this one about “Halalflation” — on how licensing food carts has become a grift for middlemen. Or this one, when he sits down with two old white men — one for Adams and one for Cuomo — and tries to talk them into an alternative. If I were a Democrat, I’d be thrilled to see someone this fresh, this approachable, and this likable as a new face of the party. He’s young and charming and upbeat in a party lacking in all three.
He’s also right to focus his campaign on the question of affordability. New York City is ridiculously expensive in every way; the toll that high taxes and inflation have taken on working-class residents has been huge. Capitalism isn’t working the way it should, and we need to reboot our economic policies to address that as a priority. Trump has promised this but is delivering the opposite. Just this morning, we see an accelerating inflation rate. An opening beckons.
So I get why Mamdani is popular. And I have little doubt he will be the next mayor, as well as a major national figurehead for the Democrats — a nice dose of youth to a party debilitated by seniorityitis. He will define the Democrats nationally — certainly if the GOP has any say in it. And in many ways, he is the perfect candidate for today’s Dem elites: wealthy, woke, with a degree in “Africana studies.” His only problem is not being female — but since he denies that the category of female exists, no big deal I suppose. He will give the MSNBC/Bulwark crowd a new lease on self-righteousness.
But to be honest, when I read his proposals, at first I thought I was reading a high-schooler’s essay. Free everything! I mean: why not? Free universal childcare for kids as young as six weeks old.Free buses for everyone. Rent control for everyone already privileged by it. Subsidized collective supermarkets. $30-an-hour minimum wage by 2030 — up from $16.50. Woohoo! And arresting Bibi as an added bonus. (I have to say the last plank might even tempt me to vote for him.)
The problem, of course, is how to pay for it. And a NYC mayor, quite simply, cannot. Mamdani simply won’t have the power. None of the tax hikes he proposes — a new 2 percent tax on everyone earning over $1 million a year, and jacking up the corporate tax to 11.5 percent — can be passed by his council. Albany has the final say, will almost certainly say no, and the Democratic governor, Hochul, opposes the hikes.
So a lot of this is purely performative, no? He has a good chance to create his Soviet bodegas and, in all likelihood, freeze rents if he replaces members of the board. (That will, of course, make housing availability and expense even worse.) He may be able to wangle some increase in NYC’s minimum wage — by trying to bypass Albany. But doubling it in five years? Meh. All of the economic stuff is iffy because of the very probable lack of funding. Maybe a big victory will change the dynamics and allow a big tax hike in one of the most highly taxed cities on earth. But it’s hard to believe it.
So what’s left? What’s left is cultural leftism on hormones. You may get daycare — but it will come with full woke indoctrination of kids from the earliest years on. No more “boys”or “girls” allowed! Mamdani, as we all know, regards the police as the enforcers of “white supremacy,” supports the end of Israel as a Jewish state, will subsidize the transing of children with no safeguards, and has erased gays and lesbians from our own history, re-marginalizing us as “queers”. There’s no one the woke left hates more than an empowered and integrated person who just happens to be gay or lesbian.
Like all good critical-theory racists, Mamdani believes in a racial hierarchy with whites, Jews, and Asians as oppressors, and blacks and Hispanics and “queers” as victims;he wants to make NYC “the strongest sanctuary city in the country” — i.e. go to war with ICE — and kill the educational programs that help gifted poor kids in kindergarten — because most turn out to be of the oppressor races. A racist, in other words — to his fingertips.
And he is a near-perfect foil for Trump. “Queer liberation means defund the police,” he once tweeted — though he says he no longer wants to defund the cops. It’s the kind of 2020 slogan almost designed to ensure MAGA control of the national discourse forever. And if I were a show-runner on the Trump show, Mamdani would be central to provoking the kind of real fascist putsch that Trump and Miller are itching for, if they can find a suitable provocation. Mamdani is that provocation. He will go to war with ICE in NYC, and Trump will go to war with him. And broadcast it every day.
In 2022, Mamdani declared of his political career: “For me, there’s no point in doing this without D.S.A.” The Democratic Socialists of America favor full amnesty for all illegal immigrants, abolition of the Senate, voting rights for noncitizens, and public ownership of major corporations. Since he won the nomination, he has softened on some of these points, but remains a DSA member and fan. New Yorkers can decide if he’s sincere. Obviously I don’t believe a word he says about moderation.
But it’s not up to me. And I know many sane New Yorkers who are going to vote for him anyway — in part because of his opponents. I understand. But this is also what many Dems want: a woke party dedicated to non-whites and non-Asians and non-Jews and non-white queers (especially the queerest of the queers, the trans), equity over excellence, race over merit, ideology over economics, and leveling down rather than raising up. It’s a vision made feasible by capitalism’s failure to correct itself, but a vision that will, in all likelihood, ensure MAGA dominance for a very long time.
Which, in some way, is what the far left may actually want: increase the contradictions, ratchet up the potential for street violence, create disorder, pit the races against each other, and revolution will arrive. And now they have their charming, smiling vehicle for the project. My money — and history’s lesson, I’d argue — is on the Red Caesar and not the Blue One in a raw American fight for illiberal control. Which is why the man most happy about Mamdani’s rise is sitting in his White Palace, waiting for yet another moment to tear the constitution to shreds.
(Note to readers: This is an excerpt of The Weekly Dish. If you’re already a paid subscriber, click here to read the full version. This week’s issue also includes: my reaction to the East Wing vandalism; a great talk with Karen Hao on the overreach of AI; reader dissents over my latest on Gaza; listener dissents and assents over the pod with Charles Murray; seven notable quotes from the week in news; 18 pieces on Substack we enjoyed on a range of topics; a Mental Health Break to cure chorophobia; a wonderful window in Oaxaca; and, of course, the results of the View From Your Window contest — with a new challenge. Subscribe for the full Dish experience!)
From a new paid subscriber:
I was a reader and subscriber to the Dish for many years, going back to Iraq and all that. I recently ended my subscription in a fit of pique at your flip cocksureness. But the Dish occupies a space in our national dialogue that is unique, so after reading several more of your weekly pieces, I decided I owe it to my self-respect to continue supporting your voice, even when you’re cocksure.
I’m a conservative, so I know I have no place in today’s GOP. But to observe the president taking a literal wrecking ball to the White House in order to build a massive, palatial, Mar-a-Lago knock-off ballroom that will be twice the size of the current White House is to remember that Trump believes this is his house — not ours — and wants to remind everyone in perpetuity.
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New On The Dishcast: Karen Hao
Karen is a tech journalist and leads the Pulitzer Center’s AI Spotlight Series — a program that trains journalists on how to cover AI. She was a senior editor for AI at MIT Technology Review and a reporter for the WSJ covering Chinese and US tech companies. Her first book is Empire of AI: Dreams and Nightmares in Sam Altman’s OpenAI — the most accessible and readable narrative of the rise of AI.
Listen to the episode here. There you can find two clips of our convo — on the environmental impact of AI, and its threats to democracy. That link also takes you to commentary on last week’s religious pod with Charles Murray. We also air your reactions to me floating the idea of pausing the Dish column for several months to finally write my book on faith.
Browse the Dishcast archive for an episode you might enjoy. Coming up: David Ignatius on the Trump effect globally, Mark Halperin on the domestic front, Michel Paradis on Eisenhower, Fiona Hill on Putin’s war, and Arthur Brooks on the science of happiness. As always, please send any guest recs, dissents, and other comments to dish@andrewsullivan.com.
Here’s one from “a Dish subscriber, a long-time follower of yours from the New Republic days, an economist, and a student of Israeli history and contemporary developments”:
A misleading section of your column claims that Bibi had to have the plan forced on him and that Trump’s ability to coerce him and the Israeli government was the difference. Although the motivations of the parties are hard to discern, your treatment of the process is highly questionable, especially given the fact that the Trump plan is far more favorable to Israeli interests than prior plans. For a very different but well-informed analysis of how the deal emerged, I suggest you read Amit Segal’s recent piece in The Free Press, “The Inside Story of the Gaza Deal.”
You need to take this up with the senior White House official who told Politico that Netanyahu’s brazen attack on Qatar
allowed the president to put maximum pressure on Israel, which he did. And it really did force Israel into a position to submit to peace.
Under your scenario, why was any US pressure needed?
My response to another dissent is here, and more of them — on this topic and others — are over on the pod page. As always, please keep the dissents coming: dish@andrewsullivan.com. And follow more Dish debate in my Notes feed.
This is a feature in the paid version of the Dish spotlighting about 20 of our favorite pieces from other Substackers every week. This week’s selection covers subjects such as Trump’s staggering corruption, new setbacks to the gender madness, and the feminine origins of woke. Below is one example, followed by a couple new substacks:
“With no sense of irony,” writes FIRE, “Indiana University censors student newspaper for reporting on poor free speech ranking.”
Here’s a list of the substacks we recommend in general — call it a blogroll. If you have any suggestions for “In the ‘Stacks,” especially ones from emerging writers, please let us know: dish@andrewsullivan.com.
The View From Your Window Contest
Where do you think it’s located? Email your guess to contest@andrewsullivan.com. Please put the location — city and/or state first, then country — in the subject line. Proximity counts if no one gets the exact spot. Bonus points for fun facts and stories. The deadline for entries is Wednesday at 11.59 pm (PST). The winner gets the choice of a VFYW book or two annual Dish subscriptions. If you are not a subscriber, please indicate that status in your entry and we will give you a free month sub if we select your entry for the contest results (example here if you’re new to the VFYW). Contest archive is here. Happy sleuthing!
The results for this week’s window are coming in a separate email to paid subscribers later today. The VFYW has become a bit of a dog blog lately:
Our family was in this area of the country just this previous summer, visiting both Michigan State and U of Michigan with our youngest, who is currently quite busy with the rigors of college application season (early admissions due by November 1!). It’s a lovely drive from our home here in Champaign, IL.
That’s all we got for a relevant story, so we have decided to also attach a photo of our wonderful newish member of the family, Ms. Sophie. As evidenced through the pic, she is adorable:
She’s in for an overabundance of love when our little guy heads off to college in the fall.
From another dog lover who guessed the right window:
I got my wife involved in the VFYW this week, so we may just turn into a pair of sleuths after all.
Fun fact: cavapoos believe themselves invincible. And sometimes these dogs think they are cats:
One more email for the week:
Long time/first time — except for an embarrassing email I sent you while high during college (which was all of college) about the guilt I felt over not doing more to protest the Iraq War.
Thank you for last week’s VFYW contest, because I really needed to engage with something that was not dire but also use my brain — and this was the perfect way to end the week. Also, thank you to whomever sent in the photo, because I often see the VFYW photo and think, “There is absolutely no way” — but this view felt like the right balance between challenging and possible. I sent the view to my husband, who clocked the Michigan license plate, so a thank you to him as well. And at the risk of sounding like that scene from Clueless where he thanks the McDonald’s workers for making him late to class, an extra thanks to Marathon gas for having such a helpful website.
Also, being from a family of writers, I have been thinking a lot about what you wrote about being in a post-literate environment and the power of images over words. Thank you for thriving, through words, during this time when we desperately need them. And even though I often disagree with you, I relish the chance to walk through your reasoning and try to be a more flexible thinker.
Shit, I think I need to start paying for the Dish again. Thank you, Andrew et al., and enjoy your weekend.
