In November of 2025, Zohran Mamdani—a youthful progressive who, just a few months before, was polling in the single digits—won the mayoral election in New York City. He succeeded in the country’s largest city, home to the highest Jewish population of any city in the world. He achieved this despite the political establishment, billionaires, and media landscape pivoting against him with unusual bipartisan cohesion. For a country that has spent the past decade doubting its own democratic immune system, this is a matter of consequence. It tells us that America may still be able to self-correct when it counts the most.
As someone who has seen public life in the United States move further away from any moral center—particularly concerning the Middle East, justice, and the worth of Palestinian life—Mamdani’s win represented something I had not experienced in years: American democratic hope.
Mamdani ran on something deceptively simple: a city we can afford to live in. He didn’t attempt to reinvent the wheel. He spoke about rent and public transportation. He talked about the high cost of groceries. He centered his campaign on the everyday grind of being a common person in the most expensive major city in America. He did not hide behind macro abstractions, national propaganda, culture war theatrics, or vague talk about revival. He focused on the daily prices that drive households up and down.
And he did so while refusing to abandon his moral stance on Gaza.
He did not triangulate. He did not soften his message. He did not alter his language depending on the audience. He didn't waver at all from his unequivocal, uncompromising stand against the genocidal war that had been ongoing in Gaza, even in a political climate where almost every "serious" consultant would have deemed this political suicide.
That was indeed the position held by most powerful elements within the nation's political environment. The Democratic establishment positioned itself against him, as did the Republican machines. Andrew Cuomo, who presented himself as the establishment alternative, emerged as the unifying vessel of billionaires, media clout, and institutional muscle memory. President Trump backed Cuomo as well, along with Democratic Party donors and strategists. There have been few times in recent American political history when the spectrum of power—left, right, centrist, corporate, and legacy media—coalesced around one objective: stopping Zohran Mamdani.
Yet he won. And he won comfortably.
That, in itself, exposes a crack in the mythology of inevitability. For decades, Americans have been taught—whether implicitly or directly—that certain outcomes were predetermined. That “serious” candidates are selected by party insiders. That donors determine the confines of what is possible, leaving voters to evaluate within that narrow zone. That foreign policy positioning around Israel establishes acceptable thresholds for entry into the arena.
Mamdani broke all three.
The other facet of this story merits moral reflection: some of the people who could have changed history chose wrong. Former President Barack Obama—who, more than any other surviving American politician, has the cultural capital to redefine what is politically acceptable—remained silent. He could have been one of the right people on the right side of history. Instead, he preserved the muscle memory of the establishment that was splintering before our eyes.
The Washington Post—in an astonishing Op-Ed written days before the election—urged New Yorkers to “Vote for the Sleazeball: It’s important.” They believed that resurrecting the moral logic behind Louisiana’s “Vote for the Crook” election slogan would somehow turn Cuomo into a necessary evil. What they demonstrated, instead, was the breakdown of journalistic ethics.
This moment demands a reckoning.
If Mamdani can win New York City while maintaining a principled sense of moral consistency on Gaza, while discussing rent and subway fares in one breath, then the argument that moral clarity and political viability are mutually exclusive in the United States is a lie.
His victory reminds young Americans that they can refuse to engage in moral cowardice. You can choose not to compromise your principles to survive in politics. You can speak your truth, even when the donor class, the bipartisan consultant class, the legacy media class, and the foreign policy establishment say you cannot.
This is a turning point. Because this time, the system threw everything it had against him. And it failed to stop its voters.
My hope now, framed in this moment, is that Americans will finally begin to allow the best candidate for the job to actually be the best candidate—not just the one who knows how to send the right signals to reassure corporate America, defense contractors, AIPAC donors, and the consultant class that profits most when public policy remains unchanged.
Zohran Mamdani was not destined to win this race. All this time, structural forces indicated he should have lost. And yet, here we are.
I believe this election will be examined for decades to come—not simply because it was an electoral shock, but because, for the first time in a long time, the United States has shown a willingness to reward moral consistency over political calibration.
We must not waste the significance of this moment.
I have hope again—not naïve hope, not fantasy hope—but pragmatic hope based on the lived proof of a real election outcome. I hope that the next generation of American political leaders will not judge themselves by whom they befriend, but by whom they choose to stand with as human beings. I hope for the better: that we will finally transcend a political class that believes in a path to power paved through deference to a foreign state engaged in mass atrocity.
What Mamdani demonstrated—to every young American watching—is that it is possible to win in America without surrendering your soul.
Congratulations, Mr. Mayor.