{"id":88068,"date":"2026-01-03T11:03:09","date_gmt":"2026-01-03T11:03:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/88068\/"},"modified":"2026-01-03T11:03:09","modified_gmt":"2026-01-03T11:03:09","slug":"zohran-mamdani-is-new-yorks-mayor-the-city-is-waiting-to-see-what-that-means","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/88068\/","title":{"rendered":"Zohran Mamdani is New York\u2019s mayor. The city is waiting to see what that means."},"content":{"rendered":"

Sign up for the Slatest<\/a> to get the most insightful analysis, criticism, and advice out there, delivered to your inbox daily.<\/p>\n

It was around noon when I stepped off the train, surfacing into Lower Manhattan\u2019s particular brand of winter blight\u2014when the cold is amplified by tall buildings that block out direct sun and funnel air directly onto your face. It was about 25 degrees, though the temperature felt theoretical once the wind got involved. Within minutes my ears had gone brittle, aching in that sharp kind of way that makes you briefly resent your parents for ever leaving the Middle East.<\/p>\n

I followed a small group of South Asian aunties in industrial-grade puffers and bright yellow \u201cZohran\u201d campaign beanies, which smartly functioned equally as political statements and survival gear. They led me toward the official public \u201cblock party,\u201d a kenneled-off stretch of Broadway that I had optimistically imagined would involve warmth-adjacent amenities: food carts, coffee in little paper cups that burn your fingers just a bit, maybe even porta-potties. Instead, it was a wide, empty street hemmed in by police barricades and a few enormous screens. Music blasted. People stood around. That was it.<\/p>\n

The aunties seemed genuinely delighted, bopping along to Bruno Mars as if this were the triumph of civic joy they had been waiting for since Election Day. I, meanwhile, realized that joy without circulation was not sustainable for me. I lasted maybe five minutes.<\/p>\n

I cut north toward City Hall Plaza, where the actual inauguration was scheduled to take place.<\/p>\n

I was expecting a spectacle. Zohran Mamdani is a New York mayor of many firsts: the first Muslim, the first South Asian, the first African-born, the first millennial. In the middle of the Trump era\u2014which has been particularly hostile to every one of those identities\u2014I wanted to see how that collision landed in person. I was curious how ordinary New Yorkers, from the people who powered his rise to City Hall to those who opposed it and everyone in between, would experience a moment that already felt larger than a single election.<\/p>\n

What I found instead was something messier and more revealing. New York was working through its feelings in real time. Pride and paranoia crossed paths on the sidewalk. Joy and cynicism hovered in the frozen air. As always, the city was a layered collage best understood through the small encounters and fleeting scenes unfolding at street level as history happened in the background.<\/p>\n

Along the barricades, I passed a small group of protesters waving Israeli flags. I approached one woman for a quote. She immediately bristled, waving her hand in my face and telling me to leave, then threatening to call the police\u2014an escalation that felt unnecessary given that we were already surrounded by officers.<\/p>\n

Another protester, who declined to provide her name, apologized quietly for the interaction. She told me that some of the others were \u201ckind of crazy.\u201d She stood a few feet away from them, holding her flag politely, not chanting or yelling. She said she was worried about Mamdani\u2019s \u201cbackground\u201d and wanted to show support for Israel in defiance of a mayor who had broken with New York\u2019s long tradition of unyielding support for the Israeli government. She sounded less angry than anxious, fixated on Mamdani\u2019s outspokenness on what experts have called<\/a> a genocide, and her nervousness for the future of Zionist New Yorkers.<\/p>\n

By the time I reached the security entrance, the program was supposed to start in less than an hour. Volunteers urged attendees to take their seats, but they milled around, greeting old friends, hugging, shouting names across rows of white folding chairs. Unlike the public block party, this felt like a gathering of the campaign\u2019s engine\u2014organizers, supporters, donors, artists, electeds\u2014the people who had powered what many still described as the biggest political upset since Donald Trump\u2019s 2016 win.<\/p>\n

Just inside the checkpoint, a woman smiled and said, \u201cHi, I\u2019m Marisa.\u201d Another chimed in: \u201cHi, I\u2019m Natasha.\u201d It took me a second to register that they were Marisa Tomei and Natasha Lyonne. Neither was surrounded by handlers or slated to speak. They were simply there, guests like everyone else, bundled up and waiting for things to begin. Both were warm and unfussy, radiating the kind of ease that comes from being completely at home in a crowd like this. The inauguration hadn\u2019t even started, and already it was a vibe.<\/p>\n

Hundreds filled the seats. There was music, chatter, the low buzz of anticipation. And yet, nothing about this place was warm. I was uncontrollably shivering.<\/p>\n

I started mentally cataloging everything I hadn\u2019t brought with me: a fluffy scarf, a hat that actually covered my ears, maybe even a balaclava, though I doubted that would play well for an Arab at an inauguration, even with the mayor being a Muslim.<\/p>\n

Everywhere I looked were red Democratic Socialists of America beanies, pulled low, doing the quiet but essential work of insulation. I considered asking for one, though I want to be clear: I wanted one because my head was so cold I could feel my thoughts slowing down. Still, there was something remarkable about the destigmatization of a previously dirty word in politics out in force on the lawn of City Hall.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

Aymann Ismail<\/p>\n

Then I saw him. A Sikh man a few rows from the front unfurled a blanket with the calm confidence of someone who had planned for this exact scenario. He wrapped himself completely and settled into his chair. At regular intervals, he poured himself a cup of steaming hot chai from his thermos. I watched with envy the way the steam rose into the air. I\u2019d have traded my camera for a sip.<\/p>\n

The crowd itself felt carefully curated: actors, activists, organizers, journalists, all packed together. Walton Goggins, of HBO\u2019s The White Lotus, hovered nearby, visibly delighted to see Lyonne. Model Waris Ahluwalia looked impeccable, as expected. Kareem Rahma, of Subway Takes fame, fresh off the best year <\/a>of his career, filmed the scene on his caseless iPhone. Mustafa the Poet<\/a> was there too, unmistakable and stylish.<\/p>\n

Then came the faces I knew from my reporting in 2025: Mohsen Mahdawi and Mahmoud Khalil, Palestinian students of Columbia University with green cards who had been detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement for their activism. Linda Sarsour, a Brooklyn-born activist, sat near the front in a striking purple hijab. Simone Zimmerman, a Zeteo contributor and a central focus of the film Israelism. Writer Suzy Hansen and I exchanged smiles as we took it all in.<\/p>\n

It was brutally cold. Sitting felt impossible. I kept moving, using my camera as an excuse. \u201cIf I sit, I\u2019ll miss the moment,\u201d I kept telling people. I ran into familiar faces\u2014Asad Dandia, Husein Yatabarry, Dr. Debbie Almontaser\u2014Muslim New Yorkers I know as part of the civic ecosystem that helped propel Mamdani to success.<\/p>\n

As I continued to circle the crowd, ducking between rows of folding chairs, I caught the same refrains over and over. Visitors chatted as they tried to process what they were watching unfold.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve never seen this much negative coverage of any New York mayor. Fearmongering and what ifs count as journalism now?\u201d one said. Another agreed. \u201cEven if he can\u2019t accomplish everything\u2014because, let\u2019s be honest, they\u2019re going to make his life hell\u2014at least he\u2019s given us a vision of what different could look like,\u201d they noted. \u201cAnyone who has to contort themselves this hard to hate the most likable political figure imaginable clearly has a persecution fetish.\u201d<\/p>\n

A Muslim woman in hijab said, \u201cIf the Democratic Party had half Mamdani\u2019s integrity, the fascists wouldn\u2019t be winning.\u201d An excited fan waving a handmade Mamdani sign exclaimed, \u201cZohran delivered Bernie clapping in a beanie\u2014already the best mayor!\u201d Another reveler asked: \u201cWait. Is that Susan Sarandon? That\u2019s definitely Susan Sarandon. And John Turturro. Right?\u201d<\/p>\n

I also overheard some fierce debates between visitors in DSA hats. \u201cThis feels like Obama all over again, and that scares me. They\u2019re going to sabotage him at every turn and then blame him when things don\u2019t magically work,\u201d said one. \u201cCan we stop saying \u2018free\u2019 transit? We pay for it. Libraries, schools, buses, that\u2019s what taxes are for.\u201d Said another: \u201cSocialists used to hold office in this country. They helped win labor rights we take for granted,\u201d They added: \u201cMAGA keeps saying they hate corrupt billionaire elites\u2014but they\u2019re terrified of a guy who wants to tax the rich? What did you think an \u2018everyman\u2019 mayor was supposed to do?\u201d<\/p>\n

(At one point, people around me began whispering excitedly about outgoing Mayor Eric Adams. Apparently, he looked miserable. Someone said, \u201cHe\u2019s having a terrible time.\u201d Someone else replied, \u201cGood.\u201d I had snapped a photo earlier in which he appeared to be pouting. I showed it to them. They leaped with joy. It was petty. It was human.)<\/p>\n

\"Eric<\/p>\n

Aymann Ismail<\/p>\n

The program began with a speech delivered by an excited Alexandria Ocasio Cortez. \u201cNew York City has chosen the ambitious pursuit of universal child care, affordable rents and housing, and clean and dignified public transit for all. We have chosen that over the distractions of bigotry and the barbarism of extreme income inequality.\u201d<\/p>\n

She and other speakers made several references to the fact that the city was now officially in the care of its first Muslim leader. Imam Khalid Latif was the New York Police Department\u2019s first Muslim chaplain and executive director and chaplain (imam) for the Islamic Center at New York University; he left the latter post last summer to become the co-founder and executive director of the Islamic Center of New York City. As with the many sermons he\u2019s given for Friday prayer, he delivered a moving speech that explicitly tied Mamdani\u2019s faith to his politics.<\/p>\n

I came expecting a political coronation. But as I worked my way through the crowd, it felt closer to a collective recalibration\u2014a moment to take stock of how ideas once dismissed as fringe, like openly taxing wealthy citizens, were now being voiced from the steps of City Hall without apology, and to wonder how much further the shift could go.<\/p>\n

\"Bernie<\/p>\n

Aymann Ismail<\/p>\n

Bernie Sanders delivered an impassioned speech in which he demanded our government put a stop to growing income inequality. The audience collectively broke out into a loud chant: \u201cTax the rich!\u201d A person next to me remarked, \u201cLet\u2019s start with everyone up there!,\u201d pointing to Mamdani\u2019s political allies who had joined him onstage.<\/p>\n

There was still plenty of starry-eyed enthusiasm for the handsome young mayor and the hope he represented. But beneath that was something more measured: a curiosity about how far the boundaries of the possible had moved in just a year.<\/p>\n

For Muslim New Yorkers, however, the moment carried an undeniable added weight. It marked a break from the post-9\/11 norms of suspicion and overpolicing many had grown accustomed to, even if no one pretended a finish line had been crossed. If the election signaled anything, it was that the city was willing, at least for now, to test what happens when the old guardrails of governance are loosened and we head in a new direction.<\/p>\n

When Mamdani finally took the stage, the energy spiked. At 34, he is the city\u2019s youngest mayor in over a century and, as its first Muslim mayor, the first to take the oath of office on a Quran. Sanders administered the oath, a detail that might have seemed odd given that the senator represents Vermont, but Mamdani cut his political teeth working on Sanders\u2019 campaign, borrowed much of his democratic socialist vocabulary from him, and describes the senator as a political role model. In that sense, it appeared more like an anointing than a procedural formality: the veteran of the American left passing the baton to a younger standard-bearer.<\/p>\n

But that raises an obvious question, one that has hovered over Mamdani\u2019s rise from the start: Is he controversial more for his politics or for his religion? The honest answer is that the two are often deliberately collapsed<\/a> into each other by critics who want to scare Americans with labels, a tactic that would be funny were they not so malignant: think \u201cIslamo-Marxism\u201d and \u201cIslamo-Communism.\u201d Both are shorthand for something foreign.<\/p>\n

This is where I should stop and define what democratic socialism is, as it\u2019s been at the center of much of the misinformation about Mamdani. Democratic socialism, as practiced by Zohran Mamdani, is not about abolishing markets or nationalizing everything in sight. It\u2019s about using democratic government to make sure basic needs\u2014housing, transit, health care, education\u2014aren\u2019t treated like luxury goods. New York already runs on plenty of these ideas: public schools, public hospitals, rent regulation, the subway. No one panics when the fire department shows up. We\u2019ve just decided, over time, that some things work better when profit isn\u2019t the point.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s also the religion\u2014one that Mamdani and I share. He ran openly as a Muslim in a city still shaped by 9\/11, where the backlash that followed turned Muslims in New York and New Jersey into targets of NYPD surveillance and, at times, convenient scapegoats for elected officials. Mamdani made efforts to reassure skeptics, but he didn\u2019t shrink himself to avoid the familiar panic. Claims of divided loyalties will echo, along with other decades-old tropes. Instead, he adopted a posture many of us learned long ago: smiling, appealing to shared humanity and civil rights, refusing to let bad-faith attacks dictate his mood. When you\u2019re held up by a community, the panic stays external.<\/p>\n

Then, Mayor Zohran Kwame Mamdani delivered his speech. It was measured, full of gratitude, hope, and defiance, which was the opposite of how Mamdani\u2019s rise has been framed in much of the country. For months, the panic had been building, growing louder and more unhinged the closer he got to actually winning. After he defeated Andrew Cuomo, parts of the right responded with something less like political critique than demographic hallucination. In November, Sen. Tommy Tuberville warned that New York was already lost.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe just saw what happened in New York,\u201d he said. \u201cWe lost New York. It will be completely Muslim in three or four years.\u201d In the senator\u2019s framing, Mamdani is an appendage of a nefarious global force seeking to destroy America. Mamdani\u2019s speech showed he understands New York, and America, possibly better than anyone else, definitely more than Tuberville.<\/p>\n

Tuberville, who has described Islam as a \u201ccult\u201d and suggested that Muslims are \u201chere to conquer,\u201d is not fringe. His comments circulated widely, echoed by conservative commentators and algorithmically rewarded for their certainty. \u201cHe was just sworn in on the Quran,\u201d wrote right-wing influencer Benny Johnson. \u201cNew York, we tried to warn you.\u201d<\/p>\n

Warned us of what, exactly? It\u2019s not clear. That a Muslim might govern openly as himself? That a holy book might briefly appear on a municipal stage? That the city where nearly every language and religion on earth already exists in public would somehow collapse under the weight of its own plurality?<\/p>\n

Throughout, Zionist protesters across the barricades tried to break the moment with air horns, their blare faint but audible on the official recording. No one onstage flinched. Mamdani didn\u2019t pause. The crowd didn\u2019t turn. The speech carried on, uninterrupted.<\/p>\n

When the new mayor turned to the question of who this city is for, he was blunt. \u201cThey will be Russian Jewish immigrants in Brighton Beach,\u201d he said. \u201cThey will be Palestinian New Yorkers in Bay Ridge who will no longer have to contend with a politics that speaks of universalism and then makes them the exception.\u201d I interpreted it as a rebuke of a Democratic culture long comfortable invoking unity while carving out exclusions.<\/p>\n

Standing there in the cold, watching Mamdani rest his hand on the Quran while Sanders administered the oath, I found the disconnect impossible to ignore. There was no takeover, no creeping caliphate. Just a bundled-up mayor promising to govern \u201caudaciously,\u201d speaking to a crowd that looked exactly like New York at its best. What struck me most was how unremarkable it all was, in a good way. He didn\u2019t brandish it as a symbol or treat the moment like a breakthrough to be celebrated. He took the oath. He finished. The ceremony moved on. It was quiet, almost defiant in its normality. It was a welcome change.<\/p>\n

And yet I felt something else too\u2014something I hadn\u2019t quite expected. A flicker of satisfaction. A guilty, bracing thrill.<\/p>\n

For years, Muslim Americans have been instructed explicitly to keep our heads down. To soften ourselves. To reassure the anxious who are deeply misinformed about the content of the Quran and the nature of its followers. I saw it in my family too. My father, who worked in New York as a taxicab and black car driver for 30 years, told me to be grateful, to be quiet, and to avoid bringing any extra attention to ourselves or our community. That we had enough problems to deal with and didn\u2019t need to give anyone an excuse to train their Islamophobia on us. My mom took a slightly different approach, noting that it was up to us to gently prove we are not the nightmare someone else keeps insisting we are by being nice, being charitable at every opportunity, and making sure everyone knows we\u2019re Muslim if only just to offer them another glimpse of what we are to contrast with what they might assume.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\n Joshua Shanes
\n The US\u2019 Self-Appointed Antisemitism Watchdog Is Ignoring the Country\u2019s Biggest Source of Antisemitism
\n Read More\n <\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

Watching the panic unfold, I realized that part of what felt so electric about this moment was that, for once, the discomfort and uncertainty had shifted off my shoulders and onto those who hate American Muslims the most.<\/p>\n

For just a moment, it wasn\u2019t Muslims being asked to stomach their fear for what the future might hold. It was the people who hate us trying\u2014and failing\u2014to make Mamdani into some Muslim ideologue who moonlights as a jihadist with dual allegiance to a nonexistent global Muslim cabal.<\/p>\n

In his speech, Mamdani directly addressed his skeptics, those who \u201cview this administration with distrust or disdain,\u201d and told them plainly: \u201cIf you are a New Yorker, I am your mayor.\u201d He invoked what he loved about growing up in the city, the languages, foods, and neighborhoods, the fact that he, a Muslim, can have bagel and lox as one of his weekly rituals. He described a place that looked and sounded exactly like the crowd shivering in front of him. It\u2019s hopeful to see oneself in the top seat. It\u2019s a new experience for us, something others get to experience. Can\u2019t we just have that?<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Americans Have Lost This Key Way of Thinking. Here\u2019s a Path Back.
\n <\/a><\/p>\n

I was cold and extremely ready to go home, more than confident I had seen enough for my story and eager to be out of the cold. And then, outside, like a glitch in the city, I ran into Curtis Sliwa\u2014the 2025 Republican candidate for New York mayor. He was alone, wandering.<\/p>\n

He told me he had RSVP\u2019d and\u00a0\u201cwas in line with all the peeps waiting to get in\u201d but had never made it inside. He didn\u2019t even catch Mamdani\u2019s speech. The line was too long. I asked why he hadn\u2019t gone to the front, that surely someone would have recognized him and ushered him inside. He laughed and said he preferred it this way: \u201cCome on. I\u2019m no VIP. I\u2019m just one of the regular people out of the subway into the streets.\u201d He said he had no regrets about his campaign. He smiled when he recalled Mamdani saying he\u2019d rather be trapped in an elevator with Sliwa than Cuomo. He told me he planned to support Mamdani. \u201cHe won fair and square. He should be given a chance to put his agenda into place. Even if you disagree with him politically, you got to say: If he is successful, then the city is successful, the state, the country, everyone is successful. But you have haters out there, and that\u2019s what life is about.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Confetti<\/p>\n

Aymann Ismail<\/p>\n

He admitted he felt wanted by neither Republicans nor Democrats. \u201cI\u2019m an outlier,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019d rather be with the people.\u201d<\/p>\n

Then he vanished into the afternoon just as quickly as he\u2019d appeared.<\/p>\n

What stayed with me wasn\u2019t just pride, though there was plenty of that. It was relief. Relief that, for once, a side selling hope instead of fear had won. And it was clear this wasn\u2019t some narrow Muslim celebration. Muslims largely supported Mamdani, but they weren\u2019t automatic votes. They were earned. He campaigned for them, chasing them around at one of the public celebrations that make New York such an exciting place to live.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s the complexity of it. The pride of watching a Muslim achieve something historic, paired with the humility of knowing that this victory doesn\u2019t belong to Muslims alone. Zohran Mamdani isn\u2019t a \u201cMuslim mayor\u201d the way his critics insist.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s the mayor of New York City.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Sign up for Slate’s evening newsletter.<\/p>\n