ABOUTJanuary 1st to celebrate it inauguration as mayor of New York,Zoran Mamdani threw a party. As he was sworn in outside City Hall in front of a crowd of several thousand people, a nearby Manhattan street was closed to traffic so that tens of thousands more could gather to watch the historic moment live on huge screens. The weather—cloudless blue skies and arctic winds—felt somehow appropriate: permission to dream and a warning against complacency.
Mayors don't usually take office in such a festive atmosphere. A smaller, more exclusive event is usually sufficient. But a key feature of Mamdani's rise was the desire for mass participation in politics. There was no way the day would pass without an open invitation party.
Throughout his election campaign, Mamdani found new ways to include people in his movement. It all started in November 2024 with viral video take to the streets to interview people in parts of Queens and the Bronx who have swung heavily toward Donald Trump in the election. As his popularity grew, he inspired an army of volunteers to canvass and knock on doors, whom he praised in his speeches. Last August he organized citywide scavenger hunt in which thousands of people took part. Soon after this a football tournament took place. After his victory in November, he immediately launched a job portal where people could post their resumes and areas of interest. 74,000 applications were submitted. In mid-December he invited New Yorkers talk to him about your problems and worries at 15-minute intervals for 12 hours. Politics is no longer “something done to us,” he said. stated in his victory speech. “Now that's what we do.”
These forms of participation are not trivial publicity stunts: they are as much a part of Mamdani's rejection of the old neoliberal consensus as his universalist welfare policies. For decades, the major political parties in the West have espoused a negative image of politics in which the stated role of government was to get out of the way of private business and help people only grudgingly. In this context, receiving welfare may be perceived as a sign of individual failure, and participation in electoral politics as a waste of time. Political leaders themselves stoked disillusionment and suspicion of their authority. “The nine scariest words in the English language are 'I'm from the government and I'm here to help,'” President Ronald Reagan. famously stated. Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair was forced to say in 2000: “I don't feel like a politician even now.” According to the election results fell or stoppedBy 2006, political scientist Peter Mair was able accurately describe governance of Western democracies as “government of the void.”
Mamdani's remarkable achievement is that he saw that this “emptiness” was full of interesting voices, overlapping interests and common aspirations, and that he unabashedly declared that the government should be here to help them. In this sense, his project is to change the role of politics in people's lives.. Carrying out his universalist welfare reforms—free child care, free buses for everyone, and a rent freeze on all rent-stabilized apartments, without any stigma about who “needs” it—is part of the problem. The other part is constantly looking for ways to get people involved in politics. Governing is a much more difficult task than campaigning, but Mamdani and his team see that clearly. “I don't think the campaign can end” – Mamdani said in a recent interview. “We want to continue to move forward with the same people who got us to this point.”
The inauguration was both a triumphant climax and a symbolic continuation of the campaign. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Bernie Sanders provided a supporting cast, as they did at various points during the mayoral election. Slogans called “Tax on the Rich” were the unofficial soundtrack of the campaign. Volunteer leaders were given most of the seats, and everyone in attendance received a brochure with a “message from the mayor” that expressed utmost respect for their efforts. “We can only come together because more than 104,000 of our friends and neighbors… have given their time and energy to this movement,” it says. In the finale, Mamdani's closing speech was both a love letter to New York and an ode to the power of collective action, ushering in a “new era” of “big government.” “If our campaign has demonstrated that New Yorkers are committed to solidarity, then let this government facilitate that,” he said.
Mamdani is far from the first politician to try to satisfy this desire. Since the financial crash of 2008, fueled by social media and disillusionment with the mainstream parties, various movements have emerged to satisfy this growing desire for participation, this appetite for alternatives across the political spectrum. Even people like Trump and Nigel Farage – with their mass rallies and freedom of communication on social media – give their supporters a sense of inclusion and the appearance of an alternative. But the negative image of politics seeking to rule the void persists. Keir Starmer uniform unpopularity offers a warning about what this approach can lead to.
Unlike Mamdani, Starmer believes people want less politics. How he explained in January 2024after 14 years of Tory misrule, people wanted “politics that impact all of our lives a little easier” because “the thing about populism” is that it “demands your full attention… and that’s tiring, isn’t it?” In this vision, the best prime minister is the one who allows us to go about our business in peace again. But the supposed calm did not last long, and soon this silent emptiness was filled with all sorts of noisy actors.
The suggestion that people want less politics confirms the conflation of politics with frustration, scandal and insidious leadership succumbing to the frustrations of past decades. Mamdani showed that the opposite could be true. Many people want more from politics, and more: a movement to believe in, work for, mobilize and communicate in – driven by the dream of a collective life rather than a quiet one. “It’s going to be loud, it’s going to be different,” Mamdani told the crowd. As the Bloc Party broadcast his speech several streets away, his words seemed to echo throughout the city. Even the imposing skyscrapers of Manhattan stood at attention.
